New Series @ Westview

Just thought I would give you a heads up on the new series we have coming up at Westview. Beginning this weekend we not only are starting "Missing In America," but also have the opportunity to have the author of the book speak at Westview for the next three weeks. Tom Clegg is a good friend and a great speaker, I look forward to hearing him teach again. Then following this 5 week series on how to reach our neighbors, we want to give you an opportunity to do just that. Begining this fall at Westview you will want to invite your friends and neighbors to "Live Healthy."

Piano Lesson

This Summer I thought I would take advantage of quality time that I've been given with the kids and begin giving them piano lessons. Our son has decided that he too wants to be a drummer, but here in Waukee, to play drums in the school band you need to have taken at least two years of piano. Our daughter has decided that she too will begin to play the flute next year, so we thought a good foundation in piano would be a great way to begin. Learning the piano just gives you a good overall view of music and how it works.

Currently the boy is up and practicing. We are on the 4th week of lessons and it's starting to get a bit challenging. We began with the right hand exercises, a five note scale starting on middle C, and have now moved on to the left hand, working our way down the keyboard, starting with G below middle C. He has the warm up down, those he can play, it's executing them into a song that's kicking his butt. Eight measures of an evil little ditty titled, "Love Me Tender." He'll play for a just a few minutes and right when it begins to challenge him, he'll ask if he can go back to the Warm Up exercises, those he can play. "No", I say, "keep working on the song. Each time you play it, it will get easier and easier as it goes." After struggling through a couple of measures, "Dad, can I just play the warm up excercises?" I finally had to sit down and explain, that practice isn't just about doing what comes easy to us, but practice is about working through those things that challenge us, slowly at first, but as we continue to practice, they eventually become easier. Each time we sit at the piano, those things that challenge us, become easier and easier to play.

While I was explaining practice to my son, It made me think how many times I've asked my Heavenly father if I can just go back to what's easy for me. Do I really have to work through the things that I struggle with? Can't I just go back and play the warm ups? I'm good at those.

I know what my "Love Me Tender" is. What's yours?

Tim

Smokin'

Yesterday the Yates family was invited to join the Wilhite's, who were camping for the weekend, at their campground at Timberline Campground. Not only is Timberline only 6 minutes from our home, it's also not your typical campground in that it has a swimming pool as well. The kids had a blast, but the best part it Keith said to head on out because they were going to have the "smoker" going. Now my dad is known to smoke the occasional rib or brisket, but I have to admit that I was pretty impressed upon pulling up to the campground to see their smoker. I had to snap a picture with the cell phone to share with you all. Oh and the turkey, pulled pork and ribs were excellent. Lori even said she could enjoy camping like this! Thank for the invite Keith!

Tim

Thank you Ma'am

Ok so here's a perfect example of how NOT to perform customer service. I had a Leadership meeting for Westview today at 11:30. We meet at Caribou Coffee near downtown on Ingersoll. It's a great location, nice and large and they have a great meeting room you can reserve, which we do, so it works as a nice meeting place for our leadership team which comes from all parts of the metro. Anyway, because I'm pulling the Mr. Mom role as well and have my two kids with me, I thought I would go early and hit a nearby Subway and grab some sandwiches for me and the kids so they could eat lunch while I had my meeting. It was actually pretty funny, when I entered a completely empty Subway, due to the tremendous amounts of road construction that's taking place right in front of the main parking lot entrance. I wasn't even sure if they were open, because I needed to actually drive right through the construction to get to the parking lot. Anyway there's no one in the store except me and this young girl, mid twenties, who is there to fix my custom made sandwiches. Its here my conversation went something like this:

Me - (Walking into the store) Wow, that construction has really shut you guys down hasn't it?
Female- (No response)
Me - Oookay? Could I get three six inch subs, all on white bread. I need a tuna, a salami and a cold cut trio.
Female - You want three sandwiches?
Me - Yes, three six inch sandwiches on white. Tuna, Salami and a cold cut trio.
Female- She then proceeds to grab a foot long roll of white bread to make the first sandwich. I stop her and she is starting to put tuna on a foot long.
Me- No, no! That was three six inch subs.
Female - Oh, ok. (she then cuts the foot long into two six inch.) What did you want for the first one?
Me - Tuna. I need three six inch subs. Tuna, Salami, and cold cut trio.
Female - Any cheese?
Me- No cheese on the tuna.
Female - Would you like it toasted?
Me- No. None of these will be toasted.
Female - (Now starting to make the second sadwich) What did you want for the second.
Me - Salami and then I need a six inch cold cut trio on white.
Female - What type of bread would you like?
Me - White. All of these are on white.
Female - What type of cheese?
Me - American
Female - Would you like it toasted?
Me - No. None of these will be toasted.
Female - And what would you like for the next sandwich.
Me - Cold cut trio, six inch on white.
Female - Would you like cheese?
Me - Yes. Could you put some provolone on there.
Female - Would you like it toasted.
Me - No....none of these will be toasted.

It's at this time that one of her co-workers came in and saved my by building my sandwiches. The young female then moved to the cash register to ring up my sale.

Me - I'd just like the sandwiches and these three bags of chips.
Female - Did you want drinks?
Me - No, I just need the sandwiches and chips.
Female - ..and three drinks?
Me - No. Just the sandwiches and chips.
Female - As she swipes my card and rips off my receipt she then says, "Thank you ma'am."

If your customers are talking, I hope you are listening better that this!

Tim (also known as Ma'am)

Busy day, but I like it!

Today started off with a 7:30 AM marketing meeting for our new fall series at Westview Church. We actually have two large series coming up and it should be a great time for our church. First beginning in August we are launching "Missing In America," a series on evangelism and how to reach your community. We have the privilege of actually having the author of the book of the same title, Tom Clegg (who lives here in Des Moines) will actually be speaking two of the four week series. One thing we juggled around as well is that we might be able to have Grant Norsworthy, former bass player from SonicFlood now guest artist and speaker, come and do an entire service, so if that would be the case we might need to shuffle the schedule some. We'll find out about that tomorrow. We are also doing some fun stuff during Missing In America to help people reach out to their neighborhoods, such as a "Party In A Bag." (No not that kind of bag, it's just cheaper than a box.) This will be everything that they will need to successfully host a party in their neighborhood. So after this great 4 week series on evangelism we thought it would be strategic to provide a series that would be targeted towards our next door neighbors. So we could have something to invite them to.
So launching September 7th (my birthday btw) we will be launching a new series titled, "Live Healthy; God, Self, Others" and this was the reason for our 7:30 AM meeting. To discuss how we are going to market this series to our surrounding communities. Not only will our Sr. Pastor, Jay Brabend, and our newly ordained Associate Pastor, Susan Watson, be teaching but we also have a host of guest speakers joining us as well. Such as Dale J. Andringa, M.D. who is Vice President & Chief Medical Officer of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, Jerry Foster will be with us for Healthy Future, Dave Watson from LWBJ will be speaking on finances, and speaking on Marriage will be Dr. Gary and Barb Rosberg. So we really want to do all we can to get the word out, so to date this is the plan:
All of the designs will be done by Lance Thompson at Big Blue Sky Marketing. I'm looking forward to working with Lance again, as he was the lead web designer for MinistryHub.com. He does great work and I know it will be appealing to our target audience as well.
Lance will be designing the following marketing pieces.
A Door Hanger - This will basically be a calendar type piece with a ton of information on it.
3 Sets Of Postcards - We will be running 3 sets of postcards, 12,000 each, that will be going out the 4th Thursday of each month as an insert in the Waukee Today paper.
Posters - We will be asking business owners within the church to display these posters.
Web Support- You will be able to go to www.westview.org/livehealthy and get the latest information. I will also be shooting some video testimonies of Westview members and capture testimonies of how God has impacted them through Westview Church.
email blast- we will be doing a weekly email blast with the latest information about what's coming ahead. (This will be something you can email your friends.)
e-card - you will be able to go to www.westview.org and invite your friends to the series with an e-card.
Business Cards - This will have the artwork for the series and the web information
And last Banners for the Marque out front.
So as you can see we will be doing whatever we can print/web wise to get the word out.

We also are looking to do events and activities as a church to support the series as well, such as flu shots, green day, church bike event, and anything else we can come up with. We're always looking for more ideas.

After that I went to our staff meeting at Westview and I actually have to say I now enjoy staff meetings. One thing I can say about our staff is that they are "real" people. There are no fronts being put on in the room and it's very refreshing.

I then went home to continue working on my goal of getting 1,000 churches using MinistryHub.com. We have been doing some aggressive email campaigns and we are closing in on the 400 church mark. I'll keep you updated as we go. Its just very exciting for me to log in and find people/pastors using the site that we have developed for them.

Well that's it for now, I'll keep you updated as we progress.

Tim

A New Day

Hello world. Tim Yates here. For those of you who don't know me, I reside in Des Moines, Iowa. I have been happily married to a wonderful woman for almost 16 years now, and we have two lovely children. We are, the perfect American family; husband, wife, daughter and son...and a dog named George. I begin writing this blog though in a season of change for myself, a bit of a transition in my life. Now I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I just recently turned 40, but as of October of last year (07) I have began a new chapter in my life.
As a small child I grew up in Phoenix Arizona, where my parents attended a small pentecostal church, The Church Of Jesus, and it's here where I began my walk with God. It here at this small church when I was a child that we used to have a missionary, Douglas Carol, who would come once a year and speak to our church about the wondrous things that God was doing in South Africa. It was pretty low tech, slide show and all, but he would speak for at least an hour each Sunday he would visit and share story after story of the great things God was doing. Miraculous things! I remember it was during those talks when the ministry bug hit me. It was the adventure of it all, the entire lifestyle, knowing all the while that the God of the universe was on your side working on your behalf.
I say all of that to tell you this, that over the past year or two I have missed that sense of adventure. I have felt that when it came to ministry I was sort of locked into a routine job, with no hope of adventure or change for that matter. So in October of 07 I was given the cue by God it was time for me to move on. Which brings us to today. I am currently President of MinistryHub.com, an idea that God dropped in my lap in 05 and has consumed me ever since, as well as the worship leader at Westview church (www.westview.org). For some time now I have been feeling the urge to begin a blog, I mean after all I have been coaching others to do this for years now, so after much thought and procrastination I give you "Pointed In A New Direction." This blog will be about many things; ministry, marketing, editing, writing, arranging, advertising, my family, humor as well as my life in general, as I set out to discover what God has in store for this new 40 year old. Enjoy.