Tag Archive - sun valley

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Out of the Box

 

This past weekend at Sun Valley Community Church we announced our plans to bring in $100,000 worth of food this holiday season at our campuses in Gilbert, Tempe and Casa Grande to benefit local food banks. “Out of the Box” is an effort to put feet to requests that have come from both local and state leadership to address issues of chronic hunger in Arizona. Throughout the month of December, people will have the opportunity to pick up a box that has a shopping list attached that was provided by local food banks with staple items that are in demand. The items on the list amount to about $20 worth of food. With a goal of filling 5,000 boxes, that will result in $100,000 worth of food that will feed 360 families for one month.

The theme “Out of the Box” is wrapped around the goal of making the focus of the Christmas season for Sun Valley a “cause” and not just “Christmas as usual.” On invitations that were handed out this weekend, the call to action for attendees was, “It’s our community; it’s OUR responsibility.” Already, as of this past weekend, over 3,500 boxes were handed out at the three campuses! We actually ran out of boxes on one of our campuses…oops! But no worries, more boxes will be distributed over the course of the next two weekends. The message was clear, “At Sun Valley, we want the word community in our name to mean something.”

Want more information? Click here.


Posted in Creative Arts, Spiritual Formation

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5 Reasons We Started from Scratch with our Website

At Sun Valley we recently just completed a ground up redesign and launch of our website. Here are 5 reasons why we did, and you might want to as well:

1. Ease of Navigation

We understand that for many people our website is their first interaction with our church. So we worked hard to simplify navigation, make it easy for people to find what they are looking for, and answer questions people were asking. It meant choosing to be clear over being cute and get rid of “insider language” and simply call stuff what it is. For example you may have a “Stephen’s Ministry” at your church (great ministry BTW). But if you’re an outsider and you’re looking for care you have no idea who Stephen is and what’s so special about his ministry.

2. Going 2.0

To be honest our last website was really nothing more than an online brochure, very 1.0. With the new website we wanted to create more of a 2.0 feel with the integration of social media (Facebook and Twitter), blogs, and media that can be easily interacted with. We want to invite conversation and interaction, not just give people information. Information doesn’t change people’s lives, relationships do.

3. Re-branding

We needed to rebuild our website not just do a facelift. It was important to us that our website more closely reflect the brand and culture of our church. We intentionally worked to keep it clean, clear, and simple. We also worked to orient the website around our pathway and help people take steps in their spiritual journey.

4. Timing

This year we recently made the change from 1 campus to three campuses. We needed a website that was consistent in brand but could be unique based on the uniqueness of each campus. With the shift to multiple campuses and the re-brand that took place in the middle of it all, it was the perfect time to tackle this project. Not to mention going live now allows us to get any bugs worked out before a wave of people we anticipate seeing this Christmas.

5. Simple Updates

A practical change we made was that we had a simple content management system built that ministries could use to update the content and keep their areas of the site current. Nothing is worse than going to a website and getting old, stale, out of date information. Instead of the old system of going through one person to make all the updates (who has time for that), the new system allows for ownership, faster decision making, and current content for users to interact with.


Posted in Creative Arts

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In God We Trust

At Sun Valley Community Church we’re getting ready to begin a brand new teaching series in November called “In God We Trust.” The reality is we put our trust in all kinds of things. Many of us think education will fix our problems, others strive after financial security, some chase after the perfect relationship, while others even believe electing the right President will solve our problems. We’re all putting our trust in something. What are you trusting in? Hope to see you at one of our three Sun Valley Campuses (Casa Grande, Gilbert, or Tempe) as we begin this conversation the weekend of November 3-4. Check out this brand new video and feel free to share it with your friends!


Posted in Creative Arts

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Leadership Network One Day

I’m pleased to announce that Sun Valley Community Church is partnering with Leadership Network to host a Leadership Network One Day Experience. These regional events are a unique gathering designed specifically for Senior Pastor and Executive Pastor teams. At this fast paced one-day offering, participants will experience Leadership Network’s “Peer Protocol Process” by:

  1. Having the opportunity to network with other leadership teams from similar sized churches
  2. Learning from experienced and effective Senior Pastor/Executive Pastor Teams
  3. Addressing some of the challenges and opportunities facing growing congregations
  4. Exploring some creative ways of discovering the “What’s Next” for your church

Details:

Who: Senior Pastor/Executive Pastor teams of churches with Weekend Worship Attendance of 1,500 or more

Cost: Regular Fee $199/person.

Where and When: Southwest Regional One Day December 6, 2012 Sun Valley Community Church, Gilbert, AZ

More Information / Request Contact / To Register

 


Posted in Leadership

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training with larry osborne part-2 “why some teams win and most lose”

Yesterday I mentioned that we recently had Larry Osborne come in and spend some time with the Sun Valley Staff. In doing so we intentionally broke the time up into three focuses: time with our Executive team, time with our Elders, and time with our Staff from all 3 campuses. Below is Part-2 of some thoughts and take aways from our time together. Click here if you missed Part-1.

Why Some Teams Win and Most Lose

1. Winning Teams have Winning Players while Losing Teams have Good Players

  • The Top 2 Determining factors of people who look like they’re going to succeed but actually fail:
    • #1 Poor Relationships Skills (they don’t play well in the sandbox with others)
    • #2 Inability to adapt (they could not handle midcourse correction and change)
  • Top 2 Determining factors of successful people:
    • #1 The ability to adapt (experts at midcourse corrections)
    • #2 Strong Relationship Skills

2. Winning Teams Guard the Gate while Losing Teams let Anyone In

  • Never ignore a lack of character because of an abundance of giftedness
  • Never ignore a lack of people skills due to an abundance of bible skills
  • It is not loving to kill the flock while you’re trying to be nice to one lamb
  • Be careful of people of Christian “watch dogs”

3. Winning Teams make Unity a Priority while Losing Teams Treat it as an Afterthought

  • Winning teams deliberately work on chemistry, they don’t take it for granted or assume it will happen
  • Create fun in your team

4. Wining Teams Focus on their Mission while Losing Teams Focus on their Successes

  • Mission Creep = You started with one mission and you are slowly seduced to chase after other missions because some sub-ministries become successful.
  • When it comes to stopping ministries don’t just kill them, you go to jail for killing people. Starve them and let them die a natural death. There is an art to this.

5. Winning Teams Focus on Empowerment while Losing Teams Focus on Tenure

  • Winning teams always have a farms system
  • Losing teams chase excellence (perfectionism)
  • Don’t ask who’s the best, ask who will be the best
  • When tenure rules there’s never room for the young
  • The Freshmen Always get Smaller Principle

6. Winning Teams Adapt for the Future while Losing Teams Long for the Past

  • The good old days aren’t as good as they used to be
  • What worked in the good old days won’t work in the current reality
  • Winning teams embrace the present and pursue the future

7. Winning Teams have a Heart for the Little Guy while Losing Teams Expect Everyone to be a Leader

  • Discipling people is not about making them leaders its about making followers of Jesus
  • When you lose your hear for the little people you begin to use people
  • Jesus didn’t hang around pagans, he hung around “consumer back of the line Christians”

Posted in Leadership
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