The Grand Opening for the new central facility at Connexus (which is also the new home for our Barrie campus) is THIS Sunday, May 24th.
Here are 5 things you need to know about the grand opening before Sunday:
1. This is the time for you to bring a friend
Our grand opening is a great time to invite that friend you've always wanted to invite but just haven't yet.
For whatever reason, people tend to say yes more frequently on special occasions. You can (and should) still invite all year long…it changes lives. But there's not time like the present. So text, call, message and invite that friend you've been waiting to invite.
My wife Toni and I have personally invited 5 friends who don't attend church to come with us this weekend. In addition to that, we've invited city dignitaries and others to come.
You know how we've grown to over 1000 people on weekends? One invitation at a time. So extend one today… As we've said many times over the last few months, #EverbodyBringSomebody. We might change our cities if we did. So do it.
2. We'd love you to sit near the front (even in the Sweet Seats!)
Our new auditorium works best when we start our seating from the front. It just makes it a lot easier to fill up from the front when you're seating people given the room design.
In addition, because it's our video capture environment, it's great for the band and communicators to have people in the front rows they can connect with.
So…we're making the front two rows of the centre section the Sweet Seats for the next few weeks. Sit there and in each service someone in those front two rows will win a really delicious sweet treat.
And—if you're wondering—when it comes to sound, there are no bad seats. Being near the front, the sound is pretty amazing and balanced. So help us out and grab a seat as close to the front as possible when you come in!
3. Our new service times are Sundays at 9:00 and 10:30 a.m.
These new service times will allow us to have two optimally attended services. And Transit, our grade 6-8 environment, is now offered at 9:00. Waumba Land (pre-school) and Upstreet (elementary) are offered at both services.
So pick a service time and join us!
4. The kids and student environments are amazing
If you haven't seen the kids and student ministry environments, you're in for a treat. We'll post some pictures next week when they're done (still putting on finishing touches this week).
But your kids are going to LOVE their new environments.
Waumba Land, our preschool environment, is based around God's creation. UpStreet, our elementary environment, is designed like a street with shops and buildings.
The student ministry rooms are called The Foundry, which consists of a super cool theater, gathering space and small ground rooms all designed for Transit (grades 6-8) students who meet Sundays at 9:00 and Inside Out students (Grades 9-12) who meet Sunday nights.
We'll post some pics next week when all the work is complete!
5. This is a start line…not a finish line
So our Orillia campus is re-launched (see some amazing pics here) and our Mills Road facility opens this weekend.
Nice finish line, right?
Not even close.
This isn't a finish line, it's a start line. We did all this with the prayer that God would use us to lead more people than ever before into a growing relationship with Jesus.
And the way we do this is by creating a church unchurched people love to attend. I LOVE it when I walk through our Orillia or Barrie locations now and people just say “WOW”. They never thought church could be like this.
God has always loved them. They just need a church community to help them foster a personal relationship with God through Christ.
I am so passionate about all of us reaching a whole new generation with the love of Christ. If you want to know why we're doing this, watch this message.
This is a chance to literally reach hundreds of new families and impact thousands of lives.
And YOU play an integral role as you invite friends, service, give and do life together with them.
Isn't it amazing to have our lives be caught up in something so much bigger than ourselves?
See You Sunday!
So whether you'll be in Orillia Sunday or in Barrie, I can't wait. It's going to be an amazing thing to see what God does!
Thank you for being such a key part of it.
-Carey
