Museum Operations Update

The Museum Operations team has had a busy month so far, and things are just gearing up for the year. As part of the Museum Operations team, we facilitate all of the special events that take place in the museum. Some of the special events we have held here at the Creation Museum this month include a “Brown Bag Lunch,” Pastor’s Luncheon, Writer’s Workshop, Business Leader's Breakfast, and Youth Pastor’s Luncheon, as described here by the event organizers themselves.

Tom, the Director of Outreach (Speaking engagements/conferences) describes one of our guest “brown bag” presenters. (We use these “brown bag” talks as a way to keep our staff informed on the latest presentations of our own speakers, as well as to bring in outside speakers to share with the ministry.)

On January 10th, Jim Gardner of Canopy Ministries shared a “brown bag” talk on the relevance of Genesis in today’s world with the AiG staff. He is the founder of Canopy Ministries, a ministry that shares the creation message not only here in the U.S., but also throughout Latin America. Jim is also an accomplished speaker with the Institute for Creation Research.

Carl Kerby, the director of Ministry Relations (he is also one of our speakers) describes the Pastor's Luncheon they held recently as well as some of the results from last year’s luncheons.

January 11th was our 15th Pastor’s Luncheon and we are shocked! Why, you might ask? Because we are still filling these events! I thought after a year we would run out of churches. We are now booking the May lunches since all the others are too full. God has blessed us in amazing ways.

When I came on full-time with AiG my thinking was we need to start with the church in our backyard. Christians, by and large, really don’t have a good idea of how amazing the Creation Museum is going to be in evangelizing our culture. Every time I had the chance to “show” someone what we were doing, I had the same comment: “I had no idea!”

After a couple of these instances I decided to try to get a group of pastors to come so that we could be more effective with the usage of our time. It worked! What we do is simple. We bring pastors to the museum, give them a personal tour, show them our heart, feed them a great lunch and share with them what we are doing. This includes the pastors that don’t like us as well. The outcome has been amazing.

Carl continues to talk about another new series of events they have in store for 2006, the Business Leader's Breakfasts.

As for the Business Leader's Breakfast (starting January 26th), we decided to build off of the success we’ve had with the Pastor’s Luncheon. We are inviting business leaders in for a breakfast, tour and presentation of AiG. We will use this as an opportunity to show them the impact this ministry is having not only on the local economy, but on the globe as well. We’re praying we will be able to share the gospel as well with many of these leaders. We’re not inviting only Christians to this, we’re inviting all leaders.

Please pray we will be able to be effective in sharing with these leaders not only the vision of AiG, but the love of Christ as well.

Gary, the Educational Resources manager, held a one-day Writer’s Workshop in our classroom area in the museum. This is just the first of many workshops that will be held in the classroom area on the lower level of the museum.

The AiG Communications Division organized a one-day seminar to help those AiG staff who are involved in writing hone in on their writing skills. On January 17th, the Creation Museum's Mike gave us an interesting and helpful interactive workshop. This workshop included:

* Ten easy steps to becoming a good writer * The ten most common mistakes in sloppy writing * The seven cardinal sins of AiG writers * A practical critique of writing samples * How to continue to bone-up on writing skills

Stephanie, one of our event coordinators working under Tom, is planning a youth pastor’s luncheon. She explains the concept below.

On January 24th we’re hosting a special luncheon for local-area youth pastors to get them excited about our March 17--19, 2006 apologetics conference for college young adults, "Demolishing Strongholds," which will be held at a Christian camp in Indiana.

As you can see, the museum isn’t even open yet, but we already have many things going on in the building! Our biggest obstacle is to keep these events from interfering with the whole exhibit construction process. Please pray that we would be able to find the balance between having all these activities and finishing the work that needs to be completed by spring of 2007.

Thanks again for joining us. We appreciate all of your prayers and support for the museum.