Church

As many of you know, Substance is always trying to test the boundaries of church.  Over the years I’ve always been testing a new hypothesis… like:  How large can we grow our church without having offices?  Turns out that our number was 1700!  Of course I’m not saying we’re “wise” to experiment as we do. …

We have some exciting news to share.  Substance is going to be launching a brand new campus coming up this August.  For some of you this doesn’t come as much of a shock.  After all we keep setting new attendance records at each of our locations.  But, as we announce this joyful expansion, I thought…

People are always asking me questions about our future facility.  And truth be told — things change every month.  Part of it is because our growth is constantly changing.  Facility planning for a church like this is a lot like making an award winning chicken noodle soup – where people are randomly adding more noodles…

As many of you know, Jeff Zaugg and his wife Michelle (on our elder-board) have been hanging out at Substance for quite some time.  And like everyone who’s been with us since the beginning, he’s heard me endlessly rant about the power of Christian friendships.  After all, (here I go again) the single greatest statistical…

Once you get to know me, I am a relentless self-improvement junkie.  I can’t help it.  Everything in our church is like an ongoing art-project that needs to be continually re-thought & improved. One of the things that bugs me about mega-churches is their tendency to “collect people as spectators in a huge service.” Partly…

Verve, the youth ministry of Substance, just had their kick-off.  And man: it was off the hook!  We had record attendance of young people.  Our very own Dj Cousins mixed the event.  And Pastor Nick threw down God’s word in a way that only he could. (I love that guy). And by the way… Nick…

Every Fall ends up being a crazy exciting time of expansion for us.  But for those who like the inside scoop:  Get Ready!! First off:  We have an exciting new staff member to introduce.  Roger Gerstenberger has signed on.  His whole family is a delightful hot breeze from Oklahoma. (He’ll be helping us with the finances……

“Oh no you didn’t.”  Oh yes we did!   Substance just finished it’s very first vision and financial update magazine. I realize that it might not be that exciting to you. But it’s just that most churches give such small reports (thus, nobody cares).  Or just as sad, many churches give out these complicated profit and loss…

When life gives you tornadoes, you make… hmmm?    …a last minute relocation of  your Sunday services! As many of you heard, we had a pretty stormy Saturday night (& figuratively speaking a stormy Sunday morning).  When I came home Saturday evening, I had some pretty huge branches down all around my yard.  But I did…

Every so often, we have so many cool announcements that I simply need to stop and blog.  As many of you know, we always grow by leaps and bounds in the Fall.  Pastor Mark Mellen (who’s in charge of many of our service logistics) is convinced we’re going to grow by 900; and, for the…