Worship Update 6/5

From Jay

CAST

Here is a description of a living nightmare for me… I wake up and I am alone. Not that there is no one else alive, but that I have no relationships, no connections, no family, no friends. I am increasingly aware and grateful for relationship in my life. And in the context of ministry, I truly cannot imagine doing anything alone.

At Sunset, and in this ministry, we do things together, and in team. Obviously, with 200 plus serving in some capacity, we can’t all meet every week to make decisions together, nor should we! But there is a small team of people that meet every week. The goal is to truly serve you, and this church, as you serve in this community. This team is called CAST, which stands for Creative Arts Serving Team. The team consists of myself (Jay), Janet Fraser, Jill Hofer, Tyler Braun, Ben Porter, Laura Padur, and our elder of worship, Bob Thomas.

Our role first and foremost is to support the vision and leadership of Pastor Ron Kincaid. We seek to line up with our church’s desire to connect people with Jesus; and, we seek to do that in the spirit of Pastor Ron’s heart (and our hearts) for excellence in what we offer and in mobilizing the gifts and hearts of those people who are part of the body at Sunset.

From there, here is a small sampling of the types of things we discuss/decide in a CAST meeting:
- We discuss big picture things like: Who are we serving/trying to reach in our gatherings? How do we best do that with who God has brought to our community today? How do we create a sustainable, healthy environment for the people responsible to carry that out?
- We discuss more mundane, practical things like: How much money should we budget for choir music or leadership development or volunteer food, etc. and how does what we decide line up with the overall vision and mission of the church?
- We brainstorm ways to inspire and mobilize our teams to think about issues like serving, worship as a lifestyle, concern for the community both inside and outside Sunset and beyond.

Two principles we constantly realize are #1 – we are imperfect humans who will fail, make wrong decisions, and will need to course correct often; and #2 – getting what is said out of the room and filtered into our ministry and into your conscious thought is WAY easier said than done.

One of the things we talked about this week was getting our ministry on Facebook as a way for all of us to be more connected. The Sunset Worship Community Facebook is up and running, check it out by clicking here!

As a team, we (CAST) would appreciate your prayers for us as we seek to serve you and this church. We also value your input, ideas and opinions… we discuss them often and they help shape our direction as a ministry.

News & Views from Pastor Ron

Middle School on Sunday Mornings
If you have Middle School students in your home or a student graduating from 5th grade into middle school, I want to make you aware of a new opportunity for them. Every Sunday morning at 9:00 Kurt Brandemihl, Director of Middle School, and Eric Venable, Minister of Students, meet with 10-20 middle schoolers in Conference Room 2 (West end of Lobby). We find it helpful for our family when our girls are unable to attend Wildfire on Wednesday night to be able to come on Sunday morning. If you are finding your middle schooler has conflicting activities on Wednesday nights, and Sunday morning would serve them well, I want to let you know of this opportunity.

Sunday Evening Service
As we enter the summer months and have warmer weather, and you may have Sunday morning activities that keep you away from morning worship, I want to remind you we have a Sunday evening service at 5:00pm in the gym. So you don’t have to miss church just because you have other competing activities. Come and give this a try.

Opportunities To Serve

SEASONS OF SERVICE
At Sunset we meet in a building on Cornell Road. But perhaps the truest expression of the church is when it goes outside the walls and becomes knee deep in community involvement. Seasons of Service is a cohesive strategy of community outreach that allows individuals, care groups, small groups, ministry teams and families to serve.

Sunset’s strategy of outreach focus’s our efforts in three areas:
· Serving our schools
· Serving the hungry and poor
· Ministering to the multi-ethnicSeasons of Service is divided into spring, summer, and Fall/Winter serving opportunities.

We are kicking off our Summer Season of Service. Click here for more information about opportunities to serve. Click here to volunteer for a Seasons of Service event.

Safety at Sunset
One of the “holes” left after our recent layoffs is the need for a representative from W&CA on the Safety Team. We’d like to fill that hole with a volunteer. Safety on our campus is a responsibility of the Operations team, but they need input and support from all the other teams to handle the variety of needs at Sunset. Those needs range from maintaining a safe work environment for our staff to handling an emergency that might occur on our campus.

If you’re interested in representing W&CA and being a part of Sunset’s Safety Team, please contact carriepeeples@sunsetpres.org. The Safety Team meets once a month on the fourth Thursday from 10 to 11am; however, they may be open to changing the time.

Production/Tech Team Volunteers Needed!
We are looking for people to fill the following roles:
· Service Director
· Lighting
· Graphics
· FOH Camera Op Week
· Message Slide Designer

In addition we have a new volunteer role: Video production. We'd like to find some video editors in our midst. Are you or do you know someone who could do simple projects for us? (i.e. this week, we have white text (provided) on black screen and need someone to edit.) The level of the projects will depend on who we discover. The content is generally available a couple weeks in advance of the deadline. Ifyou have this skill or know someone at Sunset who does, please email me janetfraser@sunsetpres.org.

Upcoming Events

Father’s Day Special Event – June 21
On Father’s Day June 21 we would like to turn our courtyard and parking lot into a “man’s world” with displays of everything from unique, exotic, and classic cars to motor homes, motorcycles, cigarette boats, ski boats, etc. We have invited a number of men to bring vehicles, and if you have something you would like to display here that morning, please contact Mike Matousek at 503.292.9293 or mikematousek@sunsetpres.org.

Worship Choir - Summer worship choir begins June 28. Please come even if you haven't been in choir this year. We would LOVE to have you. We will sing the worship songs in both services with a short Thursday night rehearsal. More info to come.

June 12 – Bike Safety Fair
June 14 – Believer Baptism & Choir/Orchestra Sunday
June 21 – Father’s Day Sunday
July 12-16 – Middle School Camp, click here for more info
July 21 – Communion Sunday
August 3-8 – High School Camp, click here for more info
August 18-23 – Kids Camp, click here for more info