An Email to New City Team: We're Moving Into Club 740 on August 17

Dear New City Church Team,

I want to thank you for all of your prayers, feedbacks, and comments about the possibility of moving to Club 740 for our Sunday gatherings. Having carefully considered all of our comments and the options available to us (which is none after an exhaustive search of downtown), having talked to many people, mentors, and Christian leaders for advice, and having prayerfully sought out directions from God, I am convinced that God is leading us to Club 740. So, we have entered into a written use agreement with Club 740 today. They have agreed to rent us the space for $___ per Sunday (which is less than e3rd), which pretty much covers his added costs. This is an extremely generous deal. Ralph Verdugo, the owner, actually gave me the key today. He also agreed to allow us to use their lighting system, sound system, and video projection system. They will also clean up the space before we come in. They will give us storage space downtown stairs. He also said that they will replace the carpet within a week or two (which is a big relief). They are getting biddings on the carpet replacement right now.

I’ve also worked out a parking arrangement with the parking lot right in front which is operated by Joe’s Parking. They agreed to give us a 20% discount on parking.

My biggest concern (and several of you as well) has been about our children’s ministry (and the perception that our church is not for families with kids). Christine and I are committed to making the space inviting and fun for kids. But, this is going to take a lot of work. Right now, the kids’ space pretty much feels like a basement. We have to make it feel like a special place. One idea is to make the room like underwater world by putting up underwater décor and curtains all around the space as well as color foam tiles on the floor. If you have any ideas or if you are good at making a space inviting for kids, please let Christine know. We need your help. We believe it is possible to make the space inviting and fun for kids!

We are also going to need more people for our set-up and break-down team. We have to set up the children’s ministry space. In addition, we want to make sure we comb though the entire space to make sure that the space is safe for kids. And most importantly, we want to make sure we pray over the space every Sunday morning.

As you know, our Grand Opening/Hard Launch is 9/14. We are planning a four-part direct mail campaign to 20,000 homes in downtown LA. This means each home will receive four postcard invitations one week apart. So, they will get the first one on 8/20, and three more postcards, one week apart. The campaign will be called “WHAT IF the church was like Jesus.” A concept of the campaign is attached to this email. A graphics designer is already working on this. If you have any comments, let me know ASAP. The exact wording will be changed as per some comments I received already—I have not yet incorporated them yet; so it’s not final. I anticipate that some people who receive the postcards will want to come out to our church before the Grand Opening Sunday. So, we need to relocate before the first direct mail postcard goes out. So, that means we should move on August 17. So, that’s our plan right now.

I want to ask you to continue to pray for our Grand Opening and Launch. Please pray, pray and pray that God will use us to extend the Kingdom of God in downtown LA!

For the Kingdom of God,
Kevin