The Warehouse: Getting Started

There’s a familiar Yiddish proverb that says, “We plan, God laughs.” That certainly describes what’s going on at The Warehouse Church OTR. Of course, the more scriptural way of saying that is, “Many plans are in a person’s heart, but the purpose of the LORD will prevail.” (Proverbs 19:21) Our scheduled launch on Resurrection Sunday, April 12, 2020, was waylaid by COVID-19, which some not so affectionately call, “The Rona.” All of our plans and programs which had initially been directed toward in-person gatherings, community building, hugs, and food sharing, were now postponed… indefinitely. We had a hard choice to make. Would we delay the launch until it was safe to re-open with gatherings of people? Or could we do something new? In the start-up business world, the term used to describe what has happened at The Warehouse is a PIVOT. When your first business model for whatever reason will not work, you change directions. Eric Ries, author of “The Lean Startup” coined the term Pivot and explains it simply for us. “A pivot is a change in strategy without a change in vision. The vision is the destination you have in mind, but if you have an obstacle, you don’t just drive into the obstacle over and over again in the hopes that it will be fine. You, with your GPS, find a way around.” Many well-known companies like YouTube, Avon, Suzuki, Twitter, and Groupon started off with one idea, purpose, or delivery system in mind, and in the course of surveying the atmosphere…found themselves needing or wanting to make a critical adjustment that allowed them to not just stay alive, but to thrive.

Of course, since we’re a plant, we had not been streaming services for years like HPCUMC does. Nor we did not have the equipment, systems, or expertise to do so. So we scrambled like crazy for the first few weeks to attempt to offer something online. It did not help that I (Sadell) was terrified of doing anything on video. After praying about it, the LORD encouraged me to start by doing short-under 3 minute videos to encourage folks with Scripture who might be anxious or worried about the pandemic. About 30 takes later, I’d conquered my fear and I posted my first video. Then we began to set a course for offering services, Bible study, and informative content online. We added Telestreaming services, Zoom calls, even a phone bible study for Seniors. We discussed with Doug and Anna that given the times and that we did not know when we would meet again in-person, we thought we should just launch The Warehouse Church OTR as an online church. So we shifted our budget toward this end to pay for equipment, software, learning opportunities, etc. and began to put out what we hoped would be content. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Thomas Edison’s quote about inventing the lightbulb, pretty much sums up our technological journey so far. Can we get the live stream to successfully be delivered to multiple platforms (Facebook, YouTube, thewarehouse.churchonline.church) at the same time? The answer is sometimes we can, and sometimes we can’t, LOL! We’re playing all these instruments and stems to fill in for sounds and vocals we don’t have, but because our sound system has never had to go through the air to

BELONG. HEAL. GROW. SERVE. TRANSFORM

your phone or tablet, we’re not sure how it sounds…Oh no! it sounds terrible. How do we fix that? You mean we need scheduled social media going out daily, but it shouldn’t invite people to our programs all the time, but should be engaging them in conversation? Ok, we didn’t know that. Well…how do you count attendees? We see views, engagements, likes, and comments, but what does that all mean? How many people are actually receiving and consuming what we’re putting out? You get the gist. All of these questions and so many more have arisen as we’ve scrambled to do in a couple of weeks, what normally would have taken months or a year to accomplish. “Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure…than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. - Theodore Roosevelt Michael Jordan said, “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” So we decided not to just hang our heads in disappointment that things didn’t turn out the way we’d planned. Nor were we just going to wait until all this is over. Instead we decided to run toward the challenge…hard…and do things we’ve never done before. It’s been thrilling. It’s been exhilarating. It’s been exhausting…but it’s been fruitful. Where we might have launched on a single day with 150 or so people, probably mostly from our Launch Team and HPCUMC on April 12th, the LORD has allowed us to literally touch thousands around the world virtually with the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Some of the interesting things we’ve been doing are in the article Tuesday Table Talks on pg.16. What a learning experience of God’s abounding grace and mercy! What a revelation of the need for a unified and great team which God has blessed us to have, and of the power of using our collective gifts for Christ’s glory. Another great blessing is our participation in The Greenhouse 2020, the educational offering for West Ohio UMC’s cohort of church planters. It has been hard work, but extraordinarily beneficial to our preparation to plant successfully. In many ways, the delay has been a blessing in disguise. Finally, we are especially grateful to some specific members of the HPCUMC staff who have been critical in helping us to make this pivot: Doug & Cathy Johns who have graciously agreed with us to attempt this pivot; Shari Rust, Anna Lawson, Dana Calhoun, and Zeke Plymesser and their teams, who have literally been life savers for us in their respective areas. We are also grateful for YOUR generosity, without which none of this would be happening. As HPCUMC campuses are not scheduled to open until all can worship together, online church is where it is for now. Our in-person launch may not be until 2021, especially if there is a 2nd or 3rd wave of the Coronavirus. In the meantime and between time…we will go on and the Good News is being preached as The Warehouse OTR online continues to be a place, “Where transformation begins”.