Terms like this amuse me. What is the difference between an opening day, soft opening and grand opening?
Apparently, Opening day is old school.
A soft opening is basically a time to work the bugs out before you shoot the wad and invite the entire known world to your event.
That would be the Grand Opening.
We’ve never really gone for this stuff at Southbrook. But this time I’m so glad we did. You see, not everything was up and running this weekend for the opening of our 1200+ seat auditorium. So we employed quite a bit of smoke and mirrors to pull off an awesome day. And God gets the praise because things worked that didn’t work only hours before the doors opened. But He also used hundreds of volunteers who worked above and beyond to make it happen.
I feel a “Champion(s) of the Week” post coming on.
I’m also glad we had the soft opening weekend because quite a few people still showed up at our old service times. No matter how hard you try to get the word out, it’s impossible to make sure that more than 4,000 men, women and children who call this church home, get the message. Almost half of our people only attend about twice a month on average. If they all showed up at once we’d be in trouble. Still, that’s the kind of trouble worth having. I look forward to the day when everyone comes more and more frequently and realizes what a large and awesome family they have in Southbrook!
Today I heard people making comments like;
- You go to church here?
- Hey, I thought you left. I didn’t know you were still here.
- No, I’ve just been attending Saturday evenings (or the 8:30, or the 11:30, or the 10:00, or 11:30 cafe, or 10:00 cafe, or Monroe, or…well, I’m thinking, you probably get the idea).
- Was the last service as full as this one?!
Today a lot of our people were brought together and there’s an amazing excitement when we have these surprise family reunions.
This weekend was like that.
I can’t wait for the Grand Opening (Sunday, October 26th). It’s going to be one of the best weekends in our entire history!
Don’t miss it, and invite a friend!
A short video from the 9:00 am service:
Here’s another one:
More pictures from today:
