Hey Everyone – I HAVE AN EXTREMELY EXCITING ADVENTURE TO INVITE YOU TO JOIN ME ON!

Some of you may be aware of this amazing journey of planting a new church on the LAS VEGAS STRIP that a friend of mine named Vince Antonucci is on. The church is called Verve. Vince started a very intriguing church in Virginia Beach called Forefront and just recently felt called by God to move out west for this new endeavor (got to read his story behind the reason he feels led to this).
They are attempting to do something that has NEVER been done successfully there in that setting before. It is going to require first and foremost God’s MIGHTY HAND to be involved, but then also many of God’s servants such as you and I to PRAY – GIVE – SERVE & ENCOURAGE! So I am asking you to consider doing some of those things but this specific post is about what I THINK is a CHALLENGING & EXCITING way to be involved in giving to this ministry!
Recently Vince shared about their ongoing attempts to find a meeting space near/on the STRIP that they could use 24/7 for their ministry venues – especially with the different nature of the way church will need to be done in that environment. One of the biggest obstacles is the money that this will cost them. He is thinking it will take about $2,000 a month more than what they had considered. He is not sure what that money is going to come from, but is trusting God & His servants to see this take place. So I thought how cool it might be to try and attempt to be part of God’s solution to this problem! This is where you and I and our churches/friends/circles of influence can come into play!
So I want to share what our church is considering and hoping to get UP & RUNNING – with the hope that maybe some group you work with might try it as well. Since the struggle for fundraising is always finding NEW AVENUES and being AS CREATIVE as possible – ESPECIALLY in a down economy in which we face right now – I think we have come up with something that already taps into something people are doing and just funnels that money into a new direction.

PART 1 – So we @ Christ’s Church at Cobb are trying to get a TEXAS HOLD’EM POKER GROUP up and running. The idea is basically that we have a monthly “tournament style” gathering. Participants would gather at someone’s home or some playing venue each month and pay a $25 “buy in” fee – some of this money will go toward refreshments & prizes for the top players each evening. Our hope is that we could even work with Vince & Verve to get some Verve promo stuff like T-shirts etc to use as prizes so that it also builds awareness for them at the actual events. Then $15 of that money will go toward the new church work @ VERVE!
PART 2 – The second part of our idea/plan is this. We are planning on having this group meet for 6-9 months hopefully. This way we could create approximately maybe $1,500 (about 12 participants giving $15 each night for average of 8 months). We would take that $1,500 as “seed money” and use it to host a “Casino Night” for our people and our community. We found a company called “A CASINO EVENT” that will host an entire evening for us – for up to 150 people, they will bring in all the people & equipment, run it for 3 hours, and do all setup and tear down. All we do is promote the event, get the people there, and then set a “per person fee” for playing that night. They even provide what they call “funny money” that people get in exchange for their real money to use at all the casino games for the evening.
The quote we got for this would be about $1,900 – so with the money we make off the Texas Hold’Em game nights – we have almost covered that cost so the “CASINO NIGHT” would be basically all profit! We believe this could be an AWESOME night of FUN & FELLOWSHIP while raising AWARENESS and MORE IMPORTANTLY MUCH NEEDED FUNDS FOR VERVE! (our thoughts are that if we can get 150 people there for $20-25 a person then we raise on one evening = $3,000-3,750)
So here is my challenge to you – decide to do PART 1 or PART 2 to combine both methods OR simply try and pull off a “CASINO NIGHT” by upfronting the cost to have the night and then get people to donate enough “per person” to cover the cost of the night and then raise enough funds to give a large donation to VERVE!
Also you could just decide to have the monthly Texas Hold’Em get-togethers because that could bring in some good money and use resources you already have & your people may already be playing games on a regular basis. This is a great way to also reach into the community for people just looking for places to play Texas Hold’Em but may never come to church. Cause you see when you “do the math” – if you get 15 participants on average each month @ $15 per person that equals $225 per month – which over a 10 month period turns into $2,250 and for an entire year comes to $2,700.
So here is the deal people – if we could get 20-25 Churches, Groups, Friend Circles, Communities or WHATEVER & WHOEVER YOU ARE to come together and commit to at least ONE FORM of the above mentioned things. WE could as a TEAM/PARTNERSHIP come together FROM ALL REACHES OF THE NATION – to raise the $2,000 per month (or more) to give to Verve to help cover the cost of these facilities for a 2 year period as they get up and rolling.
SO WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK? WHO IS WITH ME? WHO IS WITH US?
If you are interested/willing but need more info on how to get this started and rolling for your group/organization – don’t hesitate to contact me – Neal Alligood via e-mail @ nalligood@cccobb.com