An Epic Journey

We had Jenni’s little sister and her friend over to spend the night and to help us do some stuff for Epic. They have been great. We set them up on the Wii to let them play and have fun and I forgot to tell them to use the wrist straps. The picture above is what happens when you forget to tell them. It’s a little dark, but you get the picture.

On the brighter side, Jenni and I now have one dang cool piece of art… Ahh… Maybe we can sell it and buy a new TV…

Epic Church has a new and improved website for her launch on Sept. 13th! Check it out, www.epic4life.com!.

Tonight we had our first Summer Countdown to the launch (grand opening) of Epic Church on Sept. 13th at 9:40am (for more on this read here).  It was a blast!  We had Rootbeer Floats, moon bounces, and contests to win prizes.  We had over 100 people show up!  I can’t wait to do it again on July 12th - don’t miss it (these events are free and open to the public!)!

Epic Church volunteered to bring our moon bounce to the Library to help them celebrate the end of their Summer Reading program. We had a ton of fun playing with the kids and meeting all the parents. We are going to be at the Andover Library all summer long on Tuesdays starting July 7th from 11am-Noon with free pop ice.

Dad Fest 09 (our Father’s Day Event at Stooges in Andover)
-It was only raining as hard as I’ve ever seen it rain in my entire life, but we still had about 30 people show up and we had a blast watching the kids play in the rain!

Jenni (my wife) has started writing a blog, it’s my favorite thing on the internet so you should check it out: http://jenniwagner1.blogspot.com/

I just got done playing guitar with Lyle & Jason! I had a really good time - those guys are good! I can’t wait to hear our worship band get up and rock it out on their first Sunday!!!

It’ll be Epic

PS - actually, this is way more than a PS. Epic has a Worship Leader! His name is Jory Collier, and he’s phenomenal! It’s going to be fun watching him work with these guys to create some sweet worship times!

So, Epic has a moon bounce!!! How cool is that! Not only did we purchase a moon bounce, but I was talking with a leader in our community that I have really grown to admire and learn from, and she said she has an inflatable game that she doesn’t use and was wondering if she could donate it to the church!!! I’m really excited about it, God is going to use these two things for some great ministry on the east side of Wichita and Andover! Starting with our Father’s Day event!!!

One thing that has really impressed me about the staff at the Andover YMCA is the culture of responsibility.  I have secretly been watching these folks while I hand out bottles of water to patrons.  I have been watching how each of them takes responsibility.  Here’s what I mean:

These people are constantly moving.  If they are not helping a guest out, they are cleaning, wiping down counters, checking the trash, collecting towels, washing towels, folding towels.  I don’t ever get the feeling that any one of them is waiting for someone else to do the job.  Each of them takes responsibility to act before being asked.

I was intrigued by this culture of ownership.  So…  I asked about it.  I asked one of the great ladies working behind the desk about how busy they keep themselves and whether it is part of the job or not.  She said that they like to keep on top of all of the work like they do at home.  As long as you keep it clean it never gets dirty.

Here’s my observation.  You can either hire someone and try to teach them to be what you would want to see in an ideal employee, or you can hire someone who already embodies those characteristics.  It seems to me that the YMCA in Andover, has done a great job of hiring people from the Wichita and Andover area who embody a healthy sense of ownership & responsibility.  These things create culture.

The question is, how do you determine if the people you are trying to hire embody your culture.  I think it probably has to be determined by evaluating their past performance in a way that tells you whether they embody what you value.

At Epic, we value 4 things:

o    E – Evangelism (We want to help people connect to God)
o    P – Partnership (We have a culture that says “What can I do to help” not “What’s in it for me” – we believe we grow through serving)
o    I – Intimacy (We want to connect with other people in real ways)
o    C – Creativity (We are willing to experiment and have fun – we embrace new methodology while holding on to old theology)

Those people that come on board with Epic must be willing to not only embrace these values, but live them out daily in their life when nobody is watching - because the reality is, there’s always somebody watching, even if it’s just the goofy guy handing out the water bottles!

Here’s my first thought.  The YMCA in Andover knows it’s brand.  It’s everywhere you look, they are trying to build strong kids, strong families, and strong communities.  They use the vehicle of exercise to reach this end goal.  As you walk around the facility, everything cry’s out for community, families and kids.  They have video games, children play places, pools where families can swim and play together.  It is a facility designed to purpose the building of strong kids, families, and communities.

So, what is your brand?  How do you instill those things that you are trying to accomplish into every aspect of what you do.  For Epic, we want to connect people to God, party with each other, and serve the community.  Those are the only things we do.  We fight to make sure that every drop of our energy is poured into moving the ball down the field of connecting people to God, partying with each other, and serving.  We believe that if we can effectively draw people into these activities we will produce healthy followers of Christ, which will in turn create a healthy church!

See you at the Y!

(the above post is a continuation of Sing it with me: …at the Y… M… C… A…)