The Vegas Project

One of the unique things about Vegas, and especially the people who have jobs on the Strip, is that Friday, Saturday and Sunday are the main work days, and the primary work shifts start between 4 and 8 p.m., and don’t end till 12 to 4 a.m.  So, if you’re trying to convince people that they really do need God, and that they should try church, that’s a pretty hard sell if their only option is on a work day, and when they will only get a few hours of sleep and then have to get up early to go.

These realities have led us to decide to do a Sunday morning service AND services at other times, that might be more convenient for people who work on the Strip.  We’re thinking of starting out with our alternate service day/time being Tuesdays at 7 p.m.  We’re also dreaming about the possibility of ultimately having a service every day of the week at all different times – maybe Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 4 p.m., Tuesdays at 7 p.m., Wednesdays at 12:15 a.m., etc., etc.

Please pray that this strategy is effective, and reaches people who wouldn’t be reached at any other time.

We plan to offer seminars on a semester based system that will offer biblical teaching on theology, spiritual disciplines, life skills, etc.  At Verve we’ll talk about how we want to become God Stalkers, Grace Wholesalers, and Guerrilla Lovers.  God Stalker U. will be one of the main places where we teach people what it looks like to pursue God with all their hearts, and to have Him at the center of everything in their lives.

Please pray that a lot of people attend God Stalker University, and that it’s really effective in leading them to love and become more and more like Christ.

To get our own permanent 24/7 leased space we need to raise some extra money, to build out the space so we can use it for church services and children’s ministry.  Unfortunately, we don’t have our own people yet, so doing a “building campaign” isn’t a possibility for us.

What we’re trying, instead, is to find 500 people who are willing to give $100.  This will give us what we need to get the space.  Please pray that 500 people will be willing to make the sacrifice.  And, please pray and ask God if He might be leading you to sacrifice $100 to help make this dream a reality.  If you’re interested, check out www.verveventure.org.

Some people on our launch team are establishing regular places (and days and times) where they will shop, eat out, fill their car with gas, get coffee, etc. to work on developing relationships with the employees at each of these places.  The hope is that we can then invite the people we have met to our opening service.  Also, we have Verve t-shirts we can wear often that will act as conversation starters, and also to help people notice that they keep seeing the same thing over and over in hopes of getting their attention, creating buzz, etc.  Please pray that this is extremely effective and God helps us to plant seeds in people’s hearts.

Most of the people who are moving to Vegas to help start Verve are already here.  However, there are still about three families who are yet to come, and who need to sell and buy houses.  Please pray that God will totally be a part of this process and help these families to quickly sell their homes, and to find just the right houses to be used for furthering God’s vision in Las Vegas.

If you haven’t yet, check out Verve’s kicking web site at:  www.vivalaverve.org.

In today’s world, websites serve as the front porch for a church. Very rarely will anyone go to a church that they first haven’t checked out their web site. You almost get to the church through their web site.  So please pray that our website is a very effective front porch, that it captures people’s attention and leads them to want to learn and experience more.

One of our goals is to have thousands of “touches” with people who work on and live around the Strip in the months before our “Grand Opening.”  We want to establish our credibility through serving and meeting needs.  We want to show the gospel before we begin preaching it.  Our Launch Team will be doing all kinds of community service, but we won’t have enough on our Launch Team to reach this goal on our own.  We are therefore hoping to have churches from around the country send teams of people for a few days to do “servant evangelism” projects.  It might be handing out cold bottles of water on a hot day, or doing a free car wash, or who knows.  Please pray that we get many mission teams involved and that they are very effective in touching people with God’s love.

There are eight comedy clubs in Las Vegas that have open mic nights. We are trying to come up with a lot of ways to plug ourselves into the community and build relationships. We have a staff member (Vince Antonucci) who thinks he’s funny and who has taken a stand-up comedy class in order to be able to explore reaching out into this venue. We then had another guy who moved to Vegas to be a part of starting Verve (David Tobey) who joined Vince in doing stand-up.

We also think it might be an opportunity to subtlely promote our church to the audiences. Please pray that Vince continues to build good relationships with his fellow classmates, gets the time to write some stand-up routines, and then has the guts to perform them.  Pray that it’s an effective way to meet people and maybe help them end up on our Launch Team or in our church.

We have a bunch of people moving to Vegas to be on staff or to be volunteer leaders in the church. Most have homes they need to sell before moving. Some have done so, but there are still a few people who need to do this. Please pray that they will be able to sell their homes quickly and at good prices.

The University of Nevada at Las Vegas has about 27,000 students and is located about three miles from the location where we’re hoping to meet on Sundays. College is such an important time – a time when many kids who grew up in church lose their faith – a time when young people are making decisions about who they are and what their lives will be about. We would love to connect with students at UNLV and have many of them attend our church. Please pray for that. Also, there’s a college ministry I (Vince) am associated with, and I am praying that they will establish a campus ministry at UNLV, and that we’ll be able to help them.