Its been a great month – we had our first launch team gathering at the end of January. 20+ people (adults & kids) – it was blast. We are all very excited about the possibilities.
Andy Shay has been working with our realitor to find potential locations, and we have a few on each corridor. The next step with the facilities is to begin to talk to the owners and discover prices, modifications that will need to be made, and work out many other details. We hope to have this process moving forward by March.
We printed huge posters for the wall, which we will put up soon – they will help us track who is on board for the new campus. This way, we can all celebrate as people join the launch team to bring a new Daybreak campus to their community. Want to know more? Join us for our first Campus Launch Information meeting on Sunday 2/28 from 12:30 – 1:00 pm. More info coming in the scoop soon.
The other day, I got some time alone to think about where I’ve been and where I’m going. Given the size of the mountain ahead (campus launch) to climb and the how “risky” it feels to follow God for me these days (all good things, but none the less I’m at a place where I’m asking new questions) – I asked myself this question – Why do I share what I consider the best news ever? Why do I lay down my life to do so? Why do I gladly lose sleep at night, give up things I truly enjoy, take a position for much less money? Why does anyone, for that matter. After all, not everyone equally shares my zest for talking about Jesus Christ at the center of one’s life. So -
Why do I share the Good News??
1. I find value & worth without shame in the forgiveness of Christ.
2. I find freedom from my past and hope for my future because Jesus power is partnered with me.
3. The Father believes in me – my potential is released by His calling, gifts, & sense of meaning & fulfillment.
4. I have found that Jesus personal love & sacrifice is irresistible.
5. I went from once loving success and feeling empty to loving people and feeling fulfilled.
6. I used to be a slave to performance, now a am free to be the Father’s beloved son. I love that!
7. Impatience and sarcasm once ruled my behaviors, now I am remembered for being a listener & encourager.
8. I believe everyone deserves a chance at being free from the slavery of fear, performance, and hurts – that chance is only found in God’s power of redemption.
9. I have learned that exchanging your dream for God’s dream is really “Trading Up”.
10. All the best friends, most impactful relationships, greatest moments have been in helping others exchange their dream for God’s too!
New Campus Launch – What’s that about?
Our Problem: Did you know that about 60-70% of the people in the Greater Harrisburg area do not attend church? Our Mechanicsburg Campus is getting very full (have you tried to find parking lately at our guest friendly times of 9:30 or 11:00am?). To expand on the Mechanicsburg campus will cost more than $4 million, which is a huge stretch for us financially in this season.
Our Dream: Daybreak’s dream is to provide an authentic, life-changing environment on the 3 major driving corridors of the West Shore (RT.81, RT.15, RT.83) in the next 5 years so that our unchurched friends and family can exchange their hurts, hangups and small dreams for God’s awesome dream for their life.
Why us, Why now? God is on a mission to invite His creation to be part of His forever family! Jesus says we are to join Him on that mission, so we can’t sit on the sidelines, we must accept His invitation to join Him! The fact is, we offer a uniquely authentic encounter with Christ in a warm loving environment that people in our area are seeking. Launching new Daybreak campuses provides an affordable alternative at a fraction of the cost of building a new building. New campuses allow us to provide a Daybreak Church worship location a little closer to home for our guests.
Getting up to speed –
**STAY UP TO DATE BY SIGNING UP FOR TWITTER UPDATES AT TWITTER.COM/DAYBREAKWEB **
As many of you read in the December update, (see old updates below) we are excited about launching two new campuses in our area over the next 3-5 years. We are working toward having a campus on each of the major driving corridors on the West Shore (Rt. 81, Rt. 15, Rt. 83). Just this past week, we finished surveying over 400 Daybreakers, of which 290 gave us valuable input about how many people they are praying for in their area to find Jesus, in part through a closer Daybreak Church campus. Over 325 people were named as potential guests of Daybreak Church if a campus were brought closer to where they live!
We’ve been working to summarize and pray through what we learned from this research. Asking God, what do you want to say to us? What should we learn? How are you working in and through Daybreakers? Where are there many potential guests who are ready to exchange their dreams, hurts, and hang-ups for God’s awesome dream for their lives. In short, here’s what we learned:
- A Daybreak campus on Rt. 81, or Rt. 83 has great potential. There is great potential to bring guests who can discover God’s dream for them in both areas. Rt. 81 responded with 33% more potential guests.
- Daybreakers are equally interested and excited about the locations.
- Demographics in the area do vary and we should be aware of how we prepare to enter each community.
Want to see the report at length? Click here!
What’s next?
Next month, the elders have authorized several Daybreak staff to travel to a church who has a lot of experience in launching campuses to get some coaching, and see how God works in that church of multiple campuses. We will be narrowing down viable facilities on both corridors and even walking through some. Our campus launch leaders will be meeting regularly as we invite other Daybreakers to join us in this great adventure. Meanwhile, Pastor Joel, Ric and I will be working on making our process of helping people exchange their dream for God’s as simple as possible…so that we can reproduce it at new campuses as well. It will be an exciting month! Please pray that God will make it very clear as to where we should join Him in His work for the launch of our second campus.
Getting Involved
We are still looking for PRAYER PARTNERS who will simply breath a 10 second prayer to heaven for us daily via twitter updates (sign-up at www.twitter.com/daybreakweb ) or pray weekly via an email from our prayer coordinator Steve Sinkonis (sign-up by sending me an email: shawn.andrews@daybreakweb.com ). Look for announcements during the weekend services, interest meetings, and invites from launch team members soon!
Serving Christ Together – Shawn
Our family adventures
This year has been an amazing adventure filled with fun, work, and lots of surprises. Let’s see if we can round up a couple quick highlights:
- January 6th, Caleb falls off the latter and breaks his wrist. Ouch! Nothing like a Saturday trip to the emergency room! Oh, and our 2001 Intrepid died! The engine seized, and then the Durango broke as well! Luckily, our neighbor and friends loaned us some vehicles to get us through.
- February 1st, our family gathered around the big-screen tv at Susie’s brother’s house to watch the STEELERS win their SIXTH SUPER BOWL!
- March, finally found a used Toyota Corolla and were able to purchase it with no loans!
- April 13th, our family made our first trek to Washington D.C. We walked the Mall, visited the Smithsonian, and road the subway.
- April 25th, we pulled out the free pool we got last fall, and with the help of many friends – we dug a hole and put up our new (quite old) above ground pool. Then I spent the next 5 weeks re-assembling the deck that went with it…like putting a puzzle back together!
- May, filled up our pool with water – 17,000 gallons all pumped out of the sump pump in our basement! Yes, we have way to much water in our basement int he spring! We also visited Philadelphia with the boys on their school field trip. Lots of history… ZZZZZZ.
- June, Shawn went off to Tozer Seminary for 2 weeks out in Redding, CA. Suz took the boys with her mom on a roadtrip to Georgia and Florida. She had a blast our her cousin Greg’s house, stopped by Toccoa Falls College (her college experience), went to Stone Mountain, and survived 14 hours in the car with the boys.
- July, we swam in the pool when we could…it was such a cool summer that didn’t happen as much as we’d have liked! Shawn through a tremendous birthday party for Suz! She turned 29 again!
- August, we went tubing with Susie’s cousins and had a great time. Her cousin Rob managed to break his finger on a rope swing…Ouch! We all had a great time. We also went up to see my parents and watched the boys catch some fish. (their Dad is not much of a fisherman)
- September, Suz and Shawn went to the NFL Kickoff game in Pittsburgh. It was Susie’s first Steeler’s game…she was like a kid in a candy store…just amazed at the thought of being there. We also joined our friends the Starlings and the boys went water-skiing at Lake Meade. They had a blast, and they can now get up on the skis without Dad’s help.
- October, we celebrated our church’s 10th birthday! Planted 10 years ago…who would have thought it? The boys played lots of soccer and were loving their new role as 5th graders.
- November, enjoyed time with families at Thanksgiving and Shawn spent many, many, many Saturdays working on his theology class for seminary.
- December, Christmas shopping, snow storms, and Shawn’s happy dance cause he finished his theology class.
Next year, we are looking forward to a big adventure in our lives….launching a new Daybreak Church campus in our area. Shawn is leading the effort and will be the campus pastor for that campus. It has been a lot of hard work even so far, but we just love helping people find their way back into God’s arms and exchanging their dreams for God’s! Susie will be helping with the worship, and hopes to begin recording on a new worship album this year as well. We love the season of life God has put us in, but keep praying for us that we stay sane! (wait, yeah, I know we should have started sane!)
Launching a new campus? What’s that about?
Our Problem: Did you know that about 60-70% of the people in the Greater Harrisburg area do not attend church? Our Mechanicsburg Campus is getting very full (have you tried to find parking lately at our guest friendly times of 9:30 or 11:00am?). To expand on the Mechanicsburg campus will cost more than $4 million, which is a huge stretch for us financially in this season.
Our Dream: Daybreak’s dream is to provide an authentic, life-changing environment on the 3 major driving corridors of the West Shore (RT.81, RT.15, RT.83) in the next 5 years so that our unchurched friends and family can exchange their hurts, hangups and small dreams for God’s awesome dream for their life.
Why us, Why now? We offer a uniquely authentic encounter with Christ in a warm loving environment that people in our area are seeking. Launching new campuses provides an affordable alternative at a fraction of the cost of building a new building and that are a closer location for our guests.
Getting up to speed –
**STAY UP TO DATE BY SIGNING UP FOR TWITTER UPDATES AT TWITTER.COM/DAYBREAKWEB **
Since September, so much has happened! As many of you read in the November update, we created a map to display where we all live and reviewed that map to discover three unique driving corridors that would allow us to reach Daybreak guests a little closer to their home. Currently, we have a campus on the Route 15 corridor, but we believe God is inviting us to expand our vision to launch two more campuses which reach the entire West Shore region: one on the Route 81 corridor (Wertzville Rd to the Route 114 interchange) and one on the Route 83 corridor (north of the Turnpike, potentially the Cedar Cliff area).
Just this week we met with a Coach/Consultant from Newthing.org who is a campus pastor at Christian Community Church in Naperville, IL. Our elders and staff learned so much from this time it has become invaluable to us. We had several ‘Aha’ moments like:
- Complexity is the enemy of reproducing a campus. You’re church can only reproduce what you can understand in a simple way.
- Launching multiple campuses is a beautiful way to be Great Commission minded by GOING closer to people who need Christ while continuing to ATTRACT people to your current campus.
Being ONE CHURCH FAMILY in Three locations can be difficult to grasp. Try thinking of it like this:
What’s next?
Over the next two months, I will be working with Pastor Joel and various other staff members to come to especially on whether our second campus will be in along Route 81 or along Route 83. We’ll be sending out a survey questionnaire to people who are likely candidates to make that campus their home campus with a few strategic questions. We are also looking at potential facilities in those areas. Please pray that God will make it very clear as to where we should join Him in His work for the launch of our second campus. If you’d like to know ‘how do you determine a good potential facility?’ – check out my blog posting for this month!
Getting Involved
We are still looking for PRAYER PARTNERS who will simply breath a 10 second prayer to heaven for us daily via twitter updates (sign-up at www.twitter.com/daybreakweb ) or pray weekly via an email from our prayer coordinator Steve Sinkonis (sign-up by sending me an email: shawn.andrews@daybreakweb.com ).
Serving Christ Together – Shawn.
When launching out into a new community to provide a gathering space for weekend celebration service, it is important to pick a great facility that fits the needs of your church and provides a launching pad to serve the community. It’s tempting to count out certain facilities or not consider important factors in whether that facility will best serve your guests and larger community. How do you know what makes a good facility? The book “Multisite Road Trip” lists seven important factors can help you decide.
1. Positive Community Image: What is the perception of the facility and its location in the community? If negative associations exist, is the facility able to be transformed into a positively viewed asset in the community? For instance, a place that has cheap rent, lots of parking, ample rooms for children and a chapel might seem great – but will people be “dying” to come to a funeral home for church?
2. Location Accessibility: Is the location near the people you want to reach? It’s important they can get to it easily by car and public transportation. If people can’t find your campus without a compass and guide dog, it could really inhibit guests’ attendance.
3. Facility Accessibility: Is the location accessible for moms with strollers or people with difficulty walking? Is it easy to get to the children’s area and the worship center or do people have to walk through a maze to get there? People need to be able to get in and out of the major areas of your facility with relative ease.
4. Room for Growth: Once you move in, you probably don’t want to move to another facility quickly. Can the facility handle expansion needs if we doubled in size? What if we tripled in size?
5. Noise Tolerance: Can the location accommodate loud music, laughter, and preaching? In quiet moments of the service, can it foster adequate reflection time? Your weekend celebration service is an environment where you want to do everything possible to allow your attendees to focus on what God wants to do in their lives by minimizing the possible distractions.
6. Decent Rent: Everyone wants a great deal, but you must be aware of that old adage: “You get what you pay for.” Look for a great deal, but make sure you discover and can accept the reasons behind getting that great deal.
7. Room for Storage: One of the biggest issues for campuses that rent weekend only space in a school auditorium, YMCA, or other type space is storage for the portable equipment. When you need to move equipment in and out each week for setup, its important to have on campus storage spaces which are close to your setup space. Expensive sound equipment lasts much longer when it doesn’t need to be lugged outside into haul able trailers each week.
Using these factors have guided many churches to choose many different kinds of locations. Places like schools, YMCAs, movie theaters, event centers, and community recreation centers can make great locations because of their locals and weekend only rent.
Alternatively, renovated retail space gives you several very strategic advantages. The 24/7 access affords opportunities for mid-week events, as well as visibility. Visibility is key to having a community feel your presence, allowing potential guests to ‘check you out’ during the week. This access also keeps you from having the setup/teardown burden every week and gives a sense of permanency to the attendees. However, even with low per square foot rates, build out costs can be expensive depending on what must be done to ready the facility.
So, if you see something that fits that criteria – you may have found ‘the spot’…so please let someone know! Keep looking and praying Daybreak!
What’s this New Campus thing all about?
Our Problem: Did you know that about 60-70% of the people in the Greater Harrisburg area do not attend church? Our Mechanicsburg Campus is getting very full (have you tried to find parking lately at our guest friendly times of 9:30 or 11:00am?). To expand on the Mechanicsburg campus will cost more than $4 million, which is a huge stretch for us financially in this season.
Our Dream: Daybreak’s dream is to provide an authentic, life-changing environment on the 3 major driving corridors of the
Why us, Why now? We offer a uniquely authentic encounter with Christ in a warm loving environment that people in our area are seeking. Launching new campuses provides an affordable alternative at a fraction of the cost of building a new building and that are a closer location for our guests.
Getting up to speed –
**STAY UP TO DATE BY SIGNING UP FOR TWITTER UPDATES AT TWITTER.COM/DAYBREAKWEB **
Since September, so much has happened! As many of you read in the October update, we created a map to display where we are all from. As we reviewed that map, and drove the Capital Beltway, we realized something very unique about the
What if it were easy for people along the other two corridors to get to a
What’s next?
Over the next two months, I will be working with Pastor Joel and various other staff members to come to working decisions about some of the critical issues like: which corridor is most suitable for our first campus, what leaders are in place for our essential ministries like Hospitality, Children, and Small groups, how will we deliver the sermon content (video or live), an estimation of the costs, and meeting with our Campus launch coach from NewThing.org. Looking forward to keeping you informed as we move forward following God in this new leap of faith!
Getting Involved
We are still looking for PRAYER PARTNERS who will simply breath a 10 second prayer to heaven for us daily via twitter updates (sign-up at www.twitter.com/daybreakweb ) or pray weekly via an email from our prayer coordinator Steve Sinkonis (sign-up by sending me an email: shawn.andrews@daybreakweb.com ).
Serving Christ Together – Shawn.
As I’ve thought and prayed about where God wants us to launch a new campus to continue to reach people far from Him in the surrounding Harrisburg area, I’ve come to realize there is a lot more to this than rolling some dice! Frankly, its hard work intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. I don’t expect God to send a lightening flash that carves the address of the new campus on some marble stones (although, I’ve heard He’s done that kind of thing before), but I do want to open up my head, my heart, and my faith to follow Him to the best location – the one He might have in mind.
How do you decide? Wish it was as simple as a nice linear algebra problem: x + y = z. At this point, I’d even be willing to do Integrals or Differential math (math geek as an undergrad – remember?). Far as I can tell, no easy formula’s to solve for this one. However, there is a lot of good counsel from those who have gone before us on this adventure to launch another campus. Here’s some of what I’ve learned you should consider:
- Where are your people located? Well, I looked at that and even have a sporty map to share with you
Make it Big! - Where are there growing communities? (e.g. the fastest growing communities in the surrounding Harrisburg area include Hampden/Silver Springs Twp., and Colonial Park area)
- Where is there available facilities? (e.g. lots of empty car dealerships and retail space these days)
- Are there general areas people not going to church might consider to far from your current location to attend? (e.g. like Carlisle, Harrisburg, 83 South, Enola)
- Are there general locations where you see God at work and consider it an invitation to join Him there?
- Are there strategic locations that might allow you to eventually launch another campus at a more distant location?
These are just six very informative questions to consider. I’m sure there might be more others with a different perspective might consider.
In the end, I know God has something in mind. I will keep asking, I know many others who will too. I’m convinced He is not out to keep it hidden – but He does seem to like really good timing. And this is the journey of faith!
As many of you know, one of our REFOCUS goals is to Expand God’s Kingdom through launching a new campus in the surrounding
Getting up to speed
This summer, we initiated the research required to understand the key factors that would be involved for
What’s next?
Over the next two months, I will be working with Pastor Joel and various other staff members to come to working decisions about some of the critical issues like: where we will launch, what essential ministries will be part of the launch, how will we deliver the sermon content (video or live), an estimation of the costs, and who will help coach/mentor us on this journey. Fortunately, there has been a lot of research done on this subject and many other churches who have taken similar, but unique leaps of faith to expand God’s kingdom. Looking forward to keeping you informed as we move forward following God in this new leap of faith!
So, as a fun project this summer, I decided to write a 26 page research paper on identifying the key factors in launching a new Daybreak Campus in the Harrisburg area. I mean, really, who needs all that relaxing in the sun, playing in the sand, and watching the ocean stuff anyways.
Or, it could be that it was a requirement for my Global Evangelism graduate class, and my professor was gracious enough to let me write a paper on something essential to my life at Daybreak. Well, 26 pages later, I’ve posted the result. For those of you not courageous enough to (perhaps courageous == sadistic) read all 26 pages, what follows is my 10 sentence summary. The context of the paper was discover key factors in helping people find their way to the God who loves them and longs to give them peace and healing….especially in the Harrisburg area, and particularly through launching a new campus of Daybreak Church (where I pastor). (see how I snuck a big run-on sentence in so I don’t have to count it in my 10 sentences!)
1. I discovered that Daybreak has a lot of strengths, but probably its most unique strength in South Central Pennsylvania is our commitment to creating a authentic encounter with people and God. (Real people, Real God, Real change)
2. Good Survey questions are harder to write than you think – and getting people to respond to an email survey is even harder. (just throwing this discovery out there to make my other discoveries look better) 
3. People want to invite their friends to Daybreak, and love the idea of having an authentic campus that their friends could come to closer to them…kudos to the New Cumberland/Etters folks who answered in droves about the friends they’d love to invite into an authentic experience with Jesus.
4. Daybreaker’s outside a 20 minute drive radius are fairly evenly distributed across three driving corridors that include route 81 (particularly Carlisle), route 83 (particularly New Cumberland/Etters), and the East beltway (Harrisburg) with the Mechanicsburg campus drawing most people from the route 15 corridor.
5. “Multi-Site Churches” by Scott McConnell discusses the following factors as key to the initial launch of a new campus: a great commission vision and heart, well defined cultural values, development of equipping (team builder) leaders, appropriate autonomy level of the new site, the weekend worship experience delivery method, essential ministries for launch, identification of the campus pastor, determination of a viable location, and formation of a committed launch team from the proposed community that can launch large.
6. Every church as launched a new campus in their own unique way and while many common principles can be applied, the most important is obedience to the Great Commission by replicating God’s grace in an authentic environment – this is a common thread from all nine different leaders.
7. Two difficult questions that must be researched, prayed over, and answered in the next several months have much to do with location (where God is at work in the heart of the current commuters of Daybreak, and how we’ll deliver the preaching (via video or live preaching)
8. Consistent agreement was found from the research questions that indicated similar worship music, quality children’s ministry, and a welcoming authentic weekend experience are crucial in the launch of a new campus.
9. Daybreaker’s have a real heart to extend God’s love to others are pretty willing to take a leap of faith to do it. (55% said they were ready, or would like more information!)
10. There is still much work to be done in terms of research, prayer, speaking with community leaders, casting vision, and preparing the lead staff equipping team to launch out into multiple campuses.
Want more? Read the whole 26 pages! Research Paper on Launching a New Campus
Thanks for stopping by…look for more updates on the progress in September.
