Defeating Discouragement 2007 Wrap-Up

The 2007 Hannaford Fall Conference wrapped up tonight. Wow! Each year, I am amazed at how God brings together complete strangers (except in Christ) and allows a cohesive theme to be communicated in a unified way.

DEFEATING DISCOURAGEMENT
This year was truly about "Defeating Discouragement." Dennis Lee is a gifted ventriloquist who is quite encouraging with his stories. Crawford Loritts spoke on Philippians 1 about having a Godly perspective and then having Godly pursuit. Matt Heard spoke in his three session from 2 Timothy 2:3-6; Defeating Discouragement ... as a Soldier ... as an Athlete ... and as a Farmer.

The conference ended tonight with Matt Heard's final encouragement to pastors (and others). It was related in a story about a missionary and his wife who had served translating in Africa.

Upon returning home to the U.S. after many years in the mission field they were on the same plane as President Roosevelt. There was a great greeting when the plane landed with people applauding and the band playing to celebrate the return of the President from Africa - but no one was there to greet the returning missionaries. After the President left, all the welcome party and the band left as well - and the missionaries were left alone. Quite discouraged that they had not received any recognition for returning home, God spoke to them a simple realization: "You are are not home, yet."

Matt then asked all the pastors and their wives to stand and he walked around the room telling each couple to their face, "You are not home, yet."

As we closed with Paul Baloche's Hosanna, I briefly explained the meaning behind this Hebrew term meaning "Save Us!" Hosanna is a call for help and it is what the people cried and sang as Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey in the fashion of a king. The people wanted deliverance from the Roman oppression. Little did they know that he would die a criminal's death upon a cross by the end of the week. Their hope was crushed. They were discouraged. But the message was the same ... "You are not home, yet." God had a larger plan to not so much free us from physical oppression, but from spiritual oppression. So when we are discouraged, we can still cry "Hosanna! Christ Save Us!"

Hannaford Fall Conference 2007 & Worship Center

PHOTOS
While I didn't find the opportunity to find someone to take photo this year, I snapped a few with my phone during our last speaker. Click on the photo to the left to go to the gallery. If we run across any others, I'll add them to the gallery.

WORSHIP CENTER UPDATE
The new sound and video systems worked pretty much glitch free - that is quite amazing since we really didn't get it up and running until the day before the conference. There are just a few more things to install and others to adjust before all will be considered done on the technical side. The new Worship Center also has several other important things to be finished. We still have not installed the furnace or air conditioning, for example.

We recorded all the sessions held in the main Worship Center. As soon as (and if) we get permission from the speakers, we'll post MP3s on the Hannaford site or make them available for order. I haven't checked yet, but we might have a sample of the worship as well.

FAMILY UPDATE
I am very tired and sore (especially from my falling incident on the stairs - see EEK!). We've gotten very little sleep in the last four days, and the Powell's have had very little family time in the last three weeks. With all that said, we are all looking forward to a little normalcy right now.

Thank you, God, for a great conference experience this year ... and for everything else going on at Hannaford. I pray we stay focused on You in the expected lull after this great high.

Sunday Reflections - I Will Boast In The Lord

As I sit here with my computer on my lap, I am nearly nodding off. Whew! I am tired.

OUR FIRST SUNDAY
Today, we held our first worship service in the newly expanded Worship Center at Hannaford Street Bible Church. Today was also the first day of our 2007 Hannaford Fall Conference and Matt Heard from Woodmen Valley Chapel was our guest speaker. His message was titled "Defeating Discouragement ... as a Soldier." I feel like today was one of those amazing times when God brought everything together. Matt has been praying for our church since he last spoke here a couple of years ago. And his message reflected a lot of thought - not only about our theme, "Defeating Discouragement," but also in recognition of our first Sunday in the new room.

Matt basically shared how a new building such as ours can be a source of encouragement - but can also become a source of discouragement. As followers of Christ, we need to look at the differences between a resort and a soldiers barracks. Our building is not a resort - something that is to serve a simply a comfort for ourselves. It is a strategic tool in God's plan.

WORSHIP MUSIC
Our worship this Sunday opened of Paul Baloche's "I Will Boast" as a reminder that we do not boast of our own strengths and accomplishments, but in Christ and His power. We also sang Mike Hohnholz's "Your Glory" which has emerged as somewhat of a theme for our expansion - that His "glory will fill this place."

During our building, I have also been communicating the importance of community. Basically, we are more than a building, but a group of people, a family, the Body of Christ called to His mission and purpose. We continued the theme of community as well with a video "It Continues to Grow" and the song "The Lion & The Lamb" expressing the desire that every nation, tribe, and tongue come to know Christ.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I will simply say this. It was an awesome day! The band and singers were energetic. The sound system worked well - including the new subwoofers (although the room is too "live" acoustically - too much reverberation. The vocals seem to get lost in the low-mids - something we'll have to work out.). The lighting was great. The video went on without a hitch (using the new MediaShout software and electronic switching). In addition, we had our largest Sunday attendance around 550 compared to an average of this month of 430. I'm hoping someone got some pictures today so I can post them!

Hannaford Worship Center Update #9

This is my final Worship Center Update post. Let me just tell you that Friday and Saturday were insane.

FRIDAY: BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
On Friday, our sub-contractor finally came out for many of the finishing touches on the technical end. He soldered the connections on the floor pockets (48) and also reconnected 4 VGA connectors (no easy task). At the same time, I soldered a number of cables to prepare the audio rack for the hub (it contains the amps, EQs and what not - the "brain" of our sound system). The sound system got up and running, the lights got up and running, and the screen video system got up and running. The subcontractor, Andrea, and I were there until 2:30am Saturday morning.

SATURDAY: REHEARSAL SNAGS AND WIRING HELL
After getting some sleep, we went down the next morning about 10am to get the stage working for a 2pm rehearsal. As suspected, we still hit several snags and didn't get rehearsing until 3:30pm. I was lacking sleep, highly stressed, and not a nice person on Saturday - I ended up making quite a few apologies.

After rehearsal, I had to wrap up some final audio routing in the sound booth. Then some more video routing to send signals to our foyer and overflow rooms. This included an 8pm run to Wal-Mart and ShopKo for more than $200 of s-video and audio cables.

Later, everything "magically" worked (props to our great God). As I stayed to clean and straighten up to get ready for Sunday Morning, Andrea took the kids home about 10pm to get them to bed. Apparently, the electricity was out in our block at home which also means we have no water pressure. So Andrea had to bring the kids BACK to the church for sponge baths.

EEEK!
While they were "cleaning up" I took a scary, head-first fall down the basement stairs under the stage trying to turn off an electrical breaker at the church (one of the items that did not come in was the relay to turn off the powered speakers on the ceiling). I had just turned on the light in the stair well, turned around to go down the steps and ... missed the first step. I took air! It was one of those moments where time seems to go in slow motion and as I was falling, the only thing I was thinking was, "I'm definitely going to break a bone here." While I am very sore and have several rug burns (from sliding down about 8 stairs), I seem to be okay. Praise God.

There were still several items that didn't come in on time, but nothing we couldn't work around. The sound system worked. The video system worked (in the Worship Center, foyer, and overflow). And the stage system worked. We got home and in bed by 1:30 Sunday Morning. The power and water were back on when we got up at 6am - another praise!

Hannaford Worship Center Update #8

We got approval from the city about 6pm last night to be in the new Worship Center this Sunday and for the conference. So after that, we spend a lot of last night moving things out of the Fellowship Hall into the new expansion. We moved chairs, sound equipment, instruments, music stands, mic stand, drums, etc.

Wow! the new expansion is looking awesome! I'll have to get a photo today - we were there last night until midnight.

There are still quite a few things to get working by Sunday. Please pray for us:

• Sound system to be connected. A remote relay needs to be installed to turn on amps and speakers from the sound booth. It's something the sub-contractor needs to help with. Everything still needs to be connected in the sound booth.
• Video system to come together. VGA video cables need to have ends re-attached. New equipment is supposed to arrive today. It all needs to be hooked up in the sound booth.
• All the floor pockets need to have ends connected. It's also something the sub-contractor needs to help with. After that, we need to hook up all the instruments and mic on the stage.

One praise, the stage lights are now working properly. We had a problem where the lights were pulsating instead of dimming. our sub-contractor ended up switching out the circuit boards, but there was still a problem. It turned out to be a fuse that "almost" burned out.

Hannaford Worship Center Update #7

Well, I've tried to spend some time in my office getting some of my "real" work done. It's been pretty fruitful, especially today.

• I've pretty much finished designing the Fall Conference stuff like pastors' binders, name tags, and workshop signs. I've also made the order of worship and collected the music for the three services. I still need to prepare my music and plan the media in MediaShout (like PowerPoint).
• We've also accomplished a few major tasks in the Worship Center. We mounted an ran wires for both the house speakers & projectors and the stage lighting is almost working.
• Andrea's been busy, too, getting people help her make the church nice for the visiting pastors for the conference. She's been painting doors, the main sign up front, and entry way walls. Tonight, they mounted a big cross and some wreaths on the back wall of the stage. It looks nice.

There are still some concerns, though.

• We had another city inspection today and have not yet gotten an okay for occupancy this Sunday.
• While both the speakers and projectors are mounted, there are still some wiring issues our sub-contractor has to work out.
• The lighting dimmers for the stage lights seem to have a circuit board problem and also needs to be fixed by our sub-contractor.
• All the floor pockets still need to have ends soldered so it can connect to the sound booth.
• I can't move any equipment we're moving in the Fellowship Hall until I know for sure we can use the Worship Center this Sunday. Once I can move it, there is a lot of setting up and wiring to do in the sound booth. I still have video equipment coming in Friday afternoon that will need to be hooked up, too

With all that is going on, I've been to Home Depot at least once a day for a week. Things are coming along, but it looks like the 12-hour days we've been putting in for the last two weeks are not over. It looks like a long weekend ahead.

Hannaford Worship Center Update #6

Here's an update on our progress for the projects I've worked on this weekend.

• Soldered and installed wall plates for the subwoofers. On the right side of the stage I had to actually cut a hole through the wall and then place wiring track to cover the wire on the other side of the wall (the hub area).
• Installed brackets in the hub area to hold all the wires coming from the sound booth, ceiling, and floor pockets. This group of wires coming down from the ceiling is about 2" in diameter and is rather heavy. The brackets re-routed where the wires were coming down and helped dissipate the weight from the conduit sticking out of the wall.
• Began to terminate (solder connectors) to the remaining wires coming onto the sound booth from the hub. Routed them to the appropriate equipment. This included labeling the wirings, grouping them, and connecting them to equipment like the sound boards, light board, computers, etc.

There are still a number of projects that need to get done this week.

• Terminate the wires (solder connectors) in the hub. This includes about 48 connectors from the floor pockets.
• Get someone to re-solder and/or re-connect 5 VGA connectors
• Mount and adjust the projectors as well as run wire and wire tracks along ceiling from the ceiling plates to the projectors (about 15').
• Mount and adjust the house speakers as well as run wire and tracks also (about 10'). Still waiting for the clamps to correctly hang the speakers from the trusses.
• Get someone to program and finish wiring the light dimmers.
• Install a few more fixtures on the track lighting.
• Correctly wire all the equipment in the sound booth together (no small task). Still waiting on some of the video equipment to come UPS.
• Connect all the intersecting cables in the hub together.

Well, that's about it I guess. We have another inspection about mid-day on Wednesday. If all goes well, we will be in the Worship Center by the Hannaford Fall Conference which starts Sunday. (Oh yeah, I have to plan worship for that, too!) After the conference, I'll really feel like I need a vacation!