Guest Blog: Chunks Corbett

It’s Friday, and the Elevation Office is busier getting ready for this Sunday than I’ve seen in it quite some time.  We’ve had lots of volunteers helping out at the office for the past couple of days because we’re getting ready for one of the biggest Sundays yet this year.  Now, I can’t tell you what’s going to happen….but I do know that a Sunday like this takes extreme amounts of time and preparation.
Over the past two and a half years, we’ve learned a few things that have helped us get ready for the big days.  I’ll list a couple of the practical things we do to get ready and our staff will also twitter about our preparation all through out the day today. And be sure to check back on Monday for an update on our big day!

•    We over communicate to staff and volunteers.  If two or three people know about something then there are more people to make sure it happens…which is always a good result to strive for
•    We have contingencies for everything.  We’ve never planned something that went exactly according to plan… so now we just try to have contingency after contingency and be ready to roll with the punches
•    We creatively promote and market big days several weeks in advance
•    We set up on Saturdays to ensure a quality production in a portable environment.  This way we can do our best to make sure every volunteer understands the service and all transitions
•    We strategically plan big Sundays around natural momentum times on the calendar- example- beginning of the Fall, Easter, etc
•    We use fan-based marketing to promote big Sundays. We equip our people, who are our biggest advocates, with tangible ways to invite friends to church
•    We leverage the big days to cast vision to volunteer teams.  We need them to understand fully why the particular Sunday is so important and we make sure they know how their service impacts the vision