It’s Tuesday morning and we just finished the first of two morning sessions here at the Southwide Conference.  Bryan and the praise team led us in worship this morning, and Amber Balltzglier sang as great as she always does.  The speaker this morning was Bill Monroe (not the “Father of Bluegrass”…he’s dead).  This Bill Monroe is a pastor in Florence, South Carolina.  His message was entitled, “Reconnecting with the Great Commission”, and his text was Matthew 28:19-20.  Here are some of the highlights. 

·            If God repeats something five times, it’s critically important

·            Jesus said, “make disciples”, not “find disciples”

·            Orders are not to be thought about…orders are to be executed

·            When people who are called to fish don’t fish, they fight

Last night, we kicked off the Southwide Pastor’s Conference.  The theme of this year’s conference is “Indescribable”, and I’ve just got to tell you that if you weren’t there, you absolutely missed out!  We opened the night with a music video that was quite possibly the funniest video we’ve ever done (I’ll post a link later on today for those of you who missed it).   After that, Bryan and our worship team/choir did as fine a job of leading everyone to worship as I’ve ever seen them do.    Of course, Michael O’Brien did his thing, and Dr. Johnny Hunt brought the evening message from Revelation 2:1-7.  Below are some highlights of what Dr. Hunt said:

·         Title “What we lose when we leave”

·         You Lose Passion – Is there a deep fire in your heart that burns for Him?

·         You Lose Power – Is the Holy Spirit Impacting your life?

·         You Lose Purpose – Is your live marked by God’s will in your activity?

·         You Lose Priority – Can you really say “Jesus First?”

·         You Lose Purity – Is there true in the secret parts of your life?

·         You Lose Prudence – Do you have caution in practical matters of your life?

·         You Lose Perspective – Do you see things from Christ point of view?

·         You Lose Perception – Do you know the depth of Christ?

Let me give you one last series of thoughts from my trip to Disney World.  While I was at Disney World, I was able to find a copy of the “Walt Disney World Guidelines for Guest Service”.  While I won’t share all of their guidelines, I thought it would give you a brief summary of three of their priorities along with some of my comments.

Greet and Welcome Each and Every Guest

The Disney “cast members” are excited about guests being in their presence.  They go out of their way to say, “Good morning!”, “Welcome!”, and “May I help you?” to each and every guest. 

Application for Southside:  We should go out of our way to make our guests feel like we’re glad they’re here.  This means greeting anyone we don’t know with a big smile and saying “Welcome to Southside!” a lot.

Seek Out Guest Contact

The Disney team views it as their responsibility to be “aggressively friendly”.  They listen to guest’s needs, answer any and all questions, and offer assistance when needed. 

Application for Southside:  We shouldn’t expect guests to seek us out, but we should seek guests out.  And once we meet them, we need to do everything in our power to make their Sunday with us an enjoyable one.

Display Appropriate Body Language at All Times

The people who work at Disney World understand that good posture, attentive appearance, and appropriate facial expressions are important in making a great impression on the people they come in contact with. 

Application for Southside:  We should look like we are glad to be at church.  This means, lots of smiling, brushing your teeth before you come to church, and letting others see that you genuinely enjoy being in God’s house for worship.

Today I want to begin a short series of posts about my recent week at Disney World.  More specifically, I want to share with you some of the practices of the Disney World team that I would love to see become more true of the Southside team.  So, let’s get right to it. 

One thing that I noticed while I was on Disney property was that every Disney “cast member” (they don’t like or use the word employee) goes out of their way to make guests feel special.

Almost every “cast member” I came into contact with went out of their way to make me and my family, feel important.  They especially went out of their way to single out my children, especially my girls.  I don’t know how many times Kenzie was called a “princess” while we were at the parks, or how many “ooh’s and ah’s” Kassidy got for being such a cute baby.  It seemed that they were always looking for an opportunity to make our experience more memorable.

If you haven’t connected the dots yet, let me go ahead and make my point.  Every Sunday is someone’s first Sunday here at Southside.  And because of that, we have to do all that we can do as the people of God in this place to make sure that our guests feel welcomed and accepted.    

Now, let me say that I am so thankful that we have so many wonderful volunteers who understand that every Sunday is someone’s first Sunday.  However, at the same time, we need more people who will go out of their way each weekend to make our guests feel like this is “the happiest place on earth”!   

I certainly understand that not everyone feels at ease going the extra mile to welcome new people, but for most of us, that is just an excuse.  In fact, I saw Disney cast members of all shapes and sizes, go out of their way, and probably outside of their comfort zone, to make someone’s day.  And here’s why they do it.  They understand (and we need to better understand) that first impressions are lasting impressions!    

Here’s my last thought.  If the cast members of Disney can go out of their way to make guests feel special for the sake of a make believe mouse , than surely, we can go out of our way to make our guests feel special for the sake of One who gave His life for us.

I (Matt) recently returned from a wonderful week-long vacation in Orlando.  As a family, there is no place where we have more fun than at Disney World.  This time was no exception.  We had a blast!  Anyway, one of the highlights of our week was eating breakfast with Mickey Mouse and friends.  We’ll definitely be doing that again. 

I’ll be commenting later this week on what I learned from the people at Disney World, but for today, I thought I would just share a picture of me and my hero, Goofy.