Astonished is the only word that came to mind when I grabbed the microphone at 11:55pm and saw a packed room of all ages staring back at me. Who would have thought that this would actually work? God did, obviously. Club Truth’s original idea of a huge NYE bash filled with guest DJs, giveaways and an intense night of praise and worship came shattering to the ground when nothing fit into place. Our original idea of having New Years at Club Truth resembled a mix of how a church brings in the New Year and how a nightclub brings in the New Year.

We planned on bringing in a guest DJ to spark interest, charging $8-10 which would include admission, party favors, a midnight toast and free snacks for the grand opening of our lounge room. Within a few weeks of our planning process starting, our guest DJ informed us that he couldn't make it. Although disappointed, we knew everything would still work out, so we continued our plans. I started looking into party decorations to make the dance floor sparkle and the tables shine but came to the conclusion that what was in my head was not possible with my budget and those plastic, disposable, party favors I wanted to give out were a bit out of range as well. I was planning on selling Vitamin Water, energy drinks and bottled water as we usually do but “spicing” it up a bit with a special midnight glowing drink and energy mix drinks for sale as well. The unfortunate part of this idea was that the glowing drinks all glow because of alcohol (which we do not serve) and the mix drinks would cost so much to make that no one would buy them. So then I came up with the idea of glowing cups to put drinks in, but back to the favors problem, I was not going to pay the prices I found for decent looking cups. So after a little Internet research I bought 2 LED-lit serving trays, and took a trip to Sam's Club to purchase a 200 count bag of clear 12 oz. cups and a few 3-packs of sparkling cider.

Now that I had the favors figured out, I decided to work on the lounge. Our idea for the lounge is quite similar to Club Worship's. We would like to have a back room that has a cozy atmosphere with soft music, dim lighting, snacks to munch on, books, magazines, Bibles, drawing material and most importantly, a Club Truth team member facilitating conversation. We did not realize how much it would cost to do what we wanted to do and also did not realize that we don't HAVE a person wanting to sit in the lounge room all night. So needless to say, the lounge wasn't ready to be introduced yet. And if this planning frustration wasn't bad enough, the town's fire marshal approached our pastors and the building owners to inform them that not only can we not have a club in the building we rent, but the lighting has to come down as well. Now not only did this put a total freeze on the New Years plan, but it put a panic in us as Doug Theodore had already bought his ticket to fly up for the January event! This is the point where we put everything we were planning down and looked up. We knew God would have the perfect plan for the perfect New Years.

After a bit of prayer we set up a meeting at a local coffee shop with our pastors to get some advice on what to do (in my opinion all great ideas start with coffee).  Together we came up with the idea of “Club Truth hosts the Connections Church New Years Eve party.” Free admission, all ages welcome, the church would put money towards the decorations and snacks, we would ask all attendees to bring a food or drink to share, a back room would be open for people to take a break in and no advertising to the outside community, just the church. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the idea. Club Truth wasn’t created for parties; it was created for DJ-led worship. But after some more prayer and putting my ideas away, I became more positive about the situation and started praying that God would have His way. But, as an event planner, a week before the event I felt extremely uneasy as there was nothing to do to prepare, unlike a regular club event.

Fast forward to New Years Eve. We have no clue how many people are coming. We have no clue if anyone is bringing food as requested. We have no idea if anyone is going to follow the “dress your best” dress code. Chris has no real direction to go in musically because we had no idea who was coming. So the best thing happened - we had to rely on God the entire night. At 8pm we finished our setup of the main room and our new lounge in the back of the building and prayed with our team. It was the best team prayer we had ever had before a club so we knew something great was about to happen!

At 9pm the music started, the lights started moving and the anticipation began. Our team stood nervously with our first guests, the assistant pastors, and hoped that people would start walking through the door. By 9:15 the room was still empty. But then slowly people started arriving…dressed up, with food, their own party favors, and most importantly, excitement! The nervousness of throwing an event disappeared from the gut of my stomach and the anxiety about what the night will bring started to develop. As I greeted everyone and set up the food everyone was bringing I realized that if we hadn’t made the event free we may not have had a line of people walking into the building. With Chris’ chill out mix in the background the room soon started to fill with talk of 2007 memories and excitement for the New Year. As I looked around the room I saw a few things. 1 – Everyone was ready to party, 2 – All different ages were present and they were all hanging out together and 3 – People were enjoying the music (something we have had problems with in the past)! 

By 10pm the room was packed with high energy teenagers and young adults ready to hit the dance floor. Chris jumped on stage and dropped Hillsong London’s remix of “Til I See You.” Within minutes the dance floor was moving and it only built from there. Since our church is filled with diverse people with diverse musical tastes, Chris’ mix of EDM, Hip-Hop and Reggaeton kept everyone happy and dancing as the countdown to midnight shined from the screen overhead. If it hadn’t been for Chris reading the crowd and God directing him to change the genre of music so often, there would have been no way to have that many people on the dance floor at this event. We would have had a group of 15 dancing to trance and then switching off to a group of 20 dancing to hip-hop etc. The vast music range is what helped the night to be a major success.

At 11:45pm the team and I shocked the floor with our LED-lit trays filled with sparkling cider and party poppers for the last hours of 2007. And as we cheered in the New Year all I could think was “Wow, I would have NEVER seen this coming.” When Chris dropped Mark Webb’s remix of Ikon’s “Feel It” at midnight, the dance floor had over 50 people on it ranging from 2 years old to 60 years old! Some were worshiping, some were dancing in groups and some were just having a good time running around being kids, but the main point was that we enabled each person in the room to bring in the New Year dancing in God’s presence.

The only negative of the night was that, as we expected, the dance floor died between 12:30 and 12:45am. We had hoped that we would be surprised at how many people decided to stay out past midnight, but as with most of our events, the last ones dancing were the Club Truth team and a few “late night” church families. So at 1am we started cleaning, knowing that the night was a success only because we listened to God’s ideas and not our own. The concept of having a free admission would have never came about if it wasn’t for our original plan failing. And in fact, we plan to make every Club Truth free from now on. The snacks worked out great and having a lounge for kids to play and people to talk turned out to be a simple but much needed addition to our club. We realized that our original plan is great, and will happen in the future, but this no cost solution works too. And although we had hoped for a more worship-driven night, we realized that sometimes a party is just as good when it’s within God’s will.

Looking back I realize that this was God’s plan all along. Not only did the idea of a Christian club become real to some of our church members, and not only did we see people on the dance floor that swore they would never dance, but we even got visitors from other churches who we plan to see again next month (and remember, we didn't advertise!) So praise God – He’s planning a great year!

Add Comment