Hey I’m heisting Carll’s blog for the day to let you know about a few important things coming up in our Student Ministry. I can honestly say that I have never been this excited about a new year in ministry than I am this year. I have an incredible team of volunteers who are equally excited about helping take our Student Ministry to the next level! With that being said let me tell you about how you can pray for us specifically here in the coming weeks.
First, pray for all our leaders. We have gone from 4 volunteers to 12 volunteers. Pray for their patience with our students and pray that they can develop meaningful relationships with each student who walks through the doors of our Student Ministry environments this year.
Second, pray for all our students going into 6th-12th grade. Pray that they can connect to Christ in a powerful and real way this school year and that they then can in turn carry that relationship into their schools and be bold about their faith.
Lastly, pray for our Student Ministry environments. We have 2 awesome environments for our students to connect with Christ and others. The first is our Sunday night large group gathering, newly named, The Link. We kick the Link off on Sunday night August 15 at 6PM. Students are encouraged to bring $2 for dinner this year. Here they will play games, worship, hear a message, and discuss the night’s topic in an age-appropriate small group. The Link will meet every Sunday from 6-8PM. Encourage any student you see to come! The second awesome environment for our students is Area Bible Studies (ABS). This is a new environment to our Calhoun campus but one that is very exciting for me. Here students gather in small groups in area homes to dig into God’s Word. ABS kick off on Wednesday night August 18th and meet each Wednesday night, excluding First Wednesdays, from 7-8:30PM.
Thank you for your prayers and look for exciting things to happen this coming year in our Student Ministry!
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at kurt@rockbridge.cc or check us out on facebook.
Kurt Kessler, Student Minister
- Kicked off our new series, LIES OF THE DEVIL this weekend with the worship band singing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”. What an awesome start to this series!
- Here are some things God convicted me of this week through the message.
- We have bought into the lie: we need more than God.
- Wrestled with the question: who defines your line of contentment?
- Where are you struggling with discontentment?
- What are you pursuing more than God in your life?
- The key is to pursue more of God and be content with Him.
- If we have food and clothing we are rich by the world’s standards!
- How do we win this battle?
- Be thankful for what you have & be aware of what others do not have
- Realize what’s at stake!
- Make a “less is more” decision in your life between now and Christmas.  Intentionally, do/spend less on yourself so you can do more for God and more for others. Be more content with what God has given you and do more with what you have to bless those around you
- I shared an email of a family in our church that has realized and met a need in our community. There are opportunities all around us every day. If we are going to reach our community for Christ, we have to BE the church in our community.
- Looking forward to our 1st Wednesday worship this week. This is a great time to hang out with our church family for dinner and some incredible worship. Dinner begins at 5:30 and worship is at 6:30.
- Praying for our students, teachers, and school administration this week as they head back to school!
- We had about 15 volunteers show up Sunday at 7am to help us set up our children’s ministry and worship environments. That fires me up! Thank you for sacrificing your time to help connect people from walks of life to life in Christ. We could not do church without your investment every week.
- We are praying for some BIG things to happen through this series. Please join us in praying for more of God. In our lives, in our homes, in our church, and in our community.
Get to church Sunday for part 2 of this series and start inviting someone today that needs to hear His truth!
Lies Of The Devil. New series begins this Sunday at Rock Bridge Calhoun. We hope to see you there!
We all have a STORY. At Rock Bridge, we celebrate life change! Tell us the STORY of how God is changing your life through Rock Bridge. We would love for you go here or email the story to calhoun@rockbridge.cc and share what God is doing in your life through Rock Bridge Calhoun. EVERYONE HAS A STORY. WE WANT TO HEAR YOURS! No story is too big or too small.
We had a great day at Rock Bridge Calhoun yesterday! Here are some of the highlights…
- We are in part 2 of Solomon Says, a practical series from the book of Proverbs. I have enjoyed teaching the last couple of weeks. Here are some things God is teaching me through this series.
- God has called us to live with Integrity.
- A lack of integrity will not only harm ourselves but it will harm those closest to us.
- Integrity means I cannot be bought for any price.
- Living with integrity will leave a legacy and will align us with God’s favor.
- Integrity is what we do when no one is looking. How are you doing with that?
- Attendance has been down this summer but it has been great to see some new families visiting the past couple of weeks.
- It has been wonderful to stay set up in the high school and auditorium through the summer break. Our set up and tear down teams do an incredible job during the school year and we are thankful the school allows us to stay set up through the summer
- Some have been asking about the progress in finding a permanent location. I will blog later about that in more detail but just know we continue to look at all possible locations and we are praying for God’s timing.
- My family is spending the next few weekends traveling all over Georgia to watch our oldest daughter swim in City and State meets. There is no greater joy than to watch your children excel in something they love to do.
- Our staff is taking some much deserved vacation the next couple of weeks and it has been awesome to see our volunteer children’s ministry team and worship team step up and continue to lead with excellence.
- Stephen Hare, our Worship Pastor, led worship yesterday and did an awesome job. Stephen has been with us for 2 years now and it has been amazing to see how much he’s grown in that time. I am so glad he is a part of our team!
- I have the opportunity to share my heart about our vision for missions and about the recent trip we took to Haiti at a Kiwanis meetings a couple of weeks ago. The story made the front page of the Calhoun Times last week. That was cool!
- I have a meeting tomorrow night with a group of 6 that will be headed to Haiti later this year. God has put together a great group of people fired up about heading into the mission field.
- Part 3 of Solomon Says is this Sunday! Bring a guest and join us at 10:30 for another great service!
This Sunday is Vision Sunday at our Calhoun Campus and I hope you are working hard to get your friends, neighbors, and co-workers to our service this Sunday in the Calhoun Civic Auditorium at 10:30 AM. We will have lunch together after the service at our Calhoun office downtown on Park Ave (across from the Calhoun Library). Matt Evans, our lead pastor, wrote on his blog earlier this week the importance of recasting our vision each year and I thought I would share his thoughts with you.
We look forward to seeing you this Sunday for this very important service.  We think this is one of the most important services we do all year.  Here’s why:
-1) An identity crisis can be fatal. Churches like people need to know who they are and who they are not. Â We must be both comfortable and clear about who God created us to be as a church. Â We are not trying to be any church but Rock Bridge Community Church. Â Our vision service reminds us exactly who we are (and who we are not!).
-2) Vision leaks. Over time vision becomes less clear, less apparent, and seemingly less important. Â Life and time are hard on visions. Â Interruptions, busyness, and urgent matters cause us to forget why we do what we do and what really matters most. Â Our vision service calls us back to the roots of why what we do is so eternally important.
-3) We’ve got lots of new people. There are hundreds of new people attending Rock Bridge compared to last year.  They’ve gotten snapshots of the RBCC vision but never a full description, which they will hear during our vision service.
-4) The good is often the enemy of the best. A compelling vision gives focus and clarity, inspiring us to strive for the best instead of the good, the okay, or the “average”.  True vision comes from God as revelation and calls us to pursue God’s best for our church.
“Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained …” [Proverbs 29:18a]
See you this Sunday!
Carll
