By Neisha Roberts
The Alabama Baptist
By creating what Chad Boak calls “irresistible environments,” leaders at Vaughn Forest Baptist Church, Montgomery, hope to “utilize and leverage the culture so that someone who has no idea who Jesus is will feel comfy and excited and want to come back.”
Boak, who serves as the creative pastor at the Montgomery Baptist Association church, said music, church facilities, volunteers and even stage design all play a part in these “irresistible environments.”
“While we want to call folks to repentance and realize there’s a sin issue … folks may not start there. We want to make sure we are welcoming and bring them in. We don’t want anything to be offensive to them, except for the gospel,” Boak said.
That’s why he and other church staff and members make the church’s four yearly stage designs a priority.
Featured set up
It was the church’s Easter 2016 set up that found itself featured on churchstagedesignideas.com.
“We’d repurposed our Christmas set and were taking some cues from that,” Boak explained. “It was a team effort in designing it and building it. The panels were built by a church member and then put together by a combo of staff and volunteers.”
The design uses old metal roofing, recycled wood and painter’s lights and was assembled in two days, Boak explained, noting that the cost to build the stage was less than $300.
“We don’t have a very big budget for this stuff. We constantly make magic happen and are blessed with capable volunteers.”
Multiuse stage
But this stage design not only served Vaughn Forest Baptist for a season, it also caught the eye of Valleydale Church, Birmingham.
The creative team there was planning for a new stage design and saw Vaughn Forest’s stage on the ministry design website.
Instead of venturing out to build a new stage, Cameron Cross, video director at Valleydale Church, and Kirkwood Bullis, worship pastor, reached out to Boak about borrowing the stage.
Cross said, “When I called [Chad] about the idea he was more than happy to help us out.”
Valleydale Church took a team down to Montgomery and loaded up the stage pieces in a truck and then set it up in their own sanctuary in September, where it will remain through March 2017.
“Honestly this interaction with Vaughn Forest has been wonderful,” Cross said. “I think if the opportunity presented itself we would definitely hope to borrow again.”
Borrowed items
That’s the same experience leaders at Vaughn Forest have had, according to Boak.
The church borrowed ministry items from a Canadian church in Calgary, Alberta, and has lent other items to churches in North Carolina and Texas.
To build off of that type of global camaraderie, Boak and Brian Harris, head of communications for Vaughn Forest and web, social media and email marketing strategist for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, started Montgomery Church Creatives, a monthly gathering for all church people to get together and talk about ministry.
“It’s kind of a therapy,” Boak said, “because we all can relate to one another. But it’s also like a ‘Hey, I’m out of this and I need to borrow one.’ It’s a collaborative effort. Any way that we can help others, like they’ve helped us, is our goal.”
For more information, visit Montgomery Church Creatives’ Facebook page.
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