Rock Hill

What is the Advent Conspiracy?

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600

The Advent Conspiracy is a movement of God's people who seek to reclaim the Christmas season to actually be about worshiping Jesus. I know it sounds like a novel idea, but the Advent Conspiracy is all about worship. Pondering and Worshiping fully the reality that the God who created this Universe actually entered it 2000 years ago in the person of Jesus Christ. The eternal Word of God becoming flesh to reveal to us...God.

Does the way we traditionally celebrate Christmas really honor Jesus or is it more about us? Are we really worshiping or are we just indulging in materialism in the name of Jesus?

These thoughts began a movement of pastors to seek to reclaim the Christmas story in 2006. Join us as we enter into the Christmas story this year by:

Worshiping Fully (November 29th)

Spending Less (December 6th)

Giving More (December 13th)

Loving All (December 20th)

The Story of Christmas can still change the world!

Source: What is the Advent Conspiracy?

Discipleship Crash Course

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Here is all the information about the class with a schedule and the books we will be reading. Click below to download class layout and schedule

http://www.rockhillcc.org/downloads/articles/Discipleship%20Crash%20Course.pdf

Cost is $40. The class is open to anyone (men and women, young and old) who want to go deeper in the knowledge of God and understanding of Scripture.

Meeting times will be Wednesday nights at 7pm to 8:30pm. We will start on Wednesday October 14th and finish Wednesday December 9th (there will be no class Thanksgiving week 11/25).

Please either email Kyle to sign up or sign up below in the comment section. Let me know asap so that I can order the books.

Source: Discipleship Crash Course

Retreat Video

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0500

June 2009 Retreat Video Recap

Source: Retreat Video

Fall Carnival Nights

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0500

We're tossing around the idea of starting up Family Game/Carnival Nights, beginning in the fall and taking place probably once a month. The idea is to create an environment with carnival games, board games, crafts, food, etc where people can bring their kids to just hang out and get to know other families.

The goal would be to create a presence here in the downtown community, and to reach out to those who live here and those who work here, in addition to reaching out to the families in our own lives.

This would take some commitment from you guys, and so we're wondering: What do you think?

Leave your thoughts below.

Source: Fall Carnival Nights

Men and Women in Marriage

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500

As a follow up to this weekend's message. Here is some recommended teaching by Pastor Mark Driscoll on marriage issues for men and women. I have greatly benefited in my life from his teaching and I hope that you enjoy this two part sermon. The first is on Women, the Second on Men.

Here is a follow up from my message...

Source: Men and Women in Marriage

Retreat

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Church Retreat

June 5-7

Covenant Park Bible Camp

Mahtowa, MN

Not Alone: The Joy of Doing Life Together

Come for a relaxing weekend to hang out with each other as we seek the Lord together. We will cancel all weekend activities in order to encourage everyone to be there. Registration forms must be turned in by May 29th at the latest, or by May 15th for an early registration discount off the cost of the retreat. Pick up a registration form in the church office.

Download a registration form here.

Download directions to the camp here.

Schedule of Events

Friday

6:00 – Arrive/Registration

7:00 –Session 1

9:00 – Snacks/Games in the Dining Hall

(please bring a game to share)

Bonfire

Saturday

8:00 – Continental Breakfast available

9:00 – Session 2

10:30 – Personal Devotions

12:00 – Lunch

(Some free time activities: field games, softball, volleyball, swimming, canoeing, frisbee golf, crafts)

5:30 – Dinner

6:30 – Session 3

9:00 – Extended Worship

10:30 – Night Game, Bonfire (snacks available in the Dining Hall)

Sunday

9:00 - Baptism Service

10:00 – Brunch

11:00 – Clean up

Source: Retreat

Monday April 13th Update from Kyle

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500

New Weekly Video Update

Source: Monday April 13th Update from Kyle

Weekly Update

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Source: Weekly Update

It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It.

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500

I picked up a new book this week by Craig Groeschel called, It. It has a very intriguing Preface that I thought I would share with you…

It. Some ministries have it. Some don’t
Most churches want it. Few have it.
When a church has it, everyone can tell. And when one doesn’t…everyone can tell.
The same is true with leaders. Some leaders have it. Some don’t. And it or it-lessness is obvious.
It is always unique. It is always powerful. It is always life-changing.
That’s its upside. It has another side too. It attracts critics. It is controversial. Many people misunderstand it. It’s hard to find, but it’s impossible to miss.
By now you’re probably asking, What is it? My answer is…
I don’t know.
Really, I don’t.
Here’s what I do know: if you’ve ever been part of a ministry that had it, you knew you were part of something special. In other words, you knew it when you say it. And it was an awesome work of God that could not be contained, couldn’t be harnessed, and couldn’t be explained.
If you’ve never seen it up close, ask around and see if you can find it. Just listen to what people in your community are saying. I promise, if it has come to a ministry near you, people are talking about it. When a ministry has it, the ground seems to rumble. Everyone hears about it. “You have to visit this church. What’s going on there is incredible. Trust me. You have to check it out.”
And people do check out an it-filled church. Not only do they kick the tires but many of them actually join it. They seem to intuitively grasp whatever it is. To an outsider with a critical heart, these converts simply drank the Kool-Aid and became fanatics. But to those who experience it, life is different. They’re changed. They’re passionate. They’re excited. They know they’re part of what God’s doing. And they want everyone to know about it.
If you’re still not sure what I’m talking about, this book should shed some light on it for you. You might be thinking, But I don’t understand it. Aren’t some people just born with it while others never find it? Without a doubt, it is a gift from God, who is its only source. But I believer that God makes it available to anyone who wants it. I believer he wants to give it to you and your ministry. That may be difficult for you to believe but it’s true.
While I certainly can’t promise it to you, I can encourage you toward it. Together we’ll discover a few simple principles that could ignite it in your heart, life and ministry. I’ll be praying that the ministry that you love will find it.
And never lose it.

My question for us it this: Do we have it? I would love to hear your thoughts on my new blog at www.rockhillcc.org/it

Source: It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It.

Spiritual Warfare Conference: March 27th-28th

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500

You are invited to join us at the end of the month for a special conference on Spiritual Warfare taught by Pastor Mark Driscoll. This highly controversial but very practical material will be taught in three sessions that will begin on Friday night at 7pm and conclude at lunch on Saturday. Please email becky if you are interested in signing up, or leave a comment at the bottom of this page. The cost is $10 and will cover breakfast and lunch on Saturday.

Friday Night March 27th

    * 7-9pm: Intro, Worship and Session 1: Intro to Spiritual Warfare
    * 9-9:30pm Q & A with elders facilitating
    * 9:30-10:30pm Optional Prayer Walk in Duluth

Saturday Morning March 28th

    * 8-8:30am Bagels and Coffee
    * 8:30-10am Session 2: The Devil
    * 10-10:30 Discussion and Q & A
    * 10:30am Break
    * 10:45am-12pm Session 3: Christus Victor
    * Lunch Discussion with Elders facilitating Q & A

Source: Spiritual Warfare Conference: March 27th-28th

How Much Do You Have to Hate Someone not to Proselytize?

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Penn Jillet, one of our countries most outspoken atheists talks about the gift of a Bible. He says very starkly in this video: How much do you have to hate someone not to prostelatyze? We watched this video in church on Saturday night so I thought I would post it for anyone who missed the service. I would love to hear your thoughts on this man's experience and how you think it should impact our evangelism.

Pastor Kyle's Comments:

I shared some thoughts on Saturday night about this video already, but since there were a bunch of people not there, let me explain why we have the video of an atheist on our church's website.

Penn says some things that to me are quite humorous. He is absolutely sure beyond of a shadow of a doubt that there is no God, however, his knowledge of the Bible that he continually trashes isn't even exhaustive enough to know that Psalms is in the Old Testament not the New Testament. The Bible he was given was a NT and Psalms. For a man who is so certain, it is amazing to me that he has less knowledge of the Bible than many of our church's first graders.

Apart from that little mishap I really appreciate what he has to say about not respecting those who don't proselytize. As Christians, because we know that both heaven and hell are real and that we can be saved, we should be motivated out of love for others to share with them the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. It is because we do love people that we are willing to risk some of our relationships and status in order to share this with people. It is a very biting and provoking comment that we Christians should here. I like his illustration with the truck as well.

On a slightly different note, I think he illustrates something that we as Christians would be wise to note. Notice how deeply this man was touched by simply encountering an authentic Christian. Tim Keller and Leslie Newbigen both talk about defeater beliefs or a cultures "plausibility structure." Without getting too lost in the wording, all they mean is that there is a certain body of assumed beliefs that underlie most cultures. These beliefs, unless actively engaged will prevent people from having a real encounter with the gospel or "good news" of Jesus Christ. In our western world, one of the "defeater beliefs" that undermines the gospel is that Christians are intolerant and judgmental. That the gospel or in their minds "religion" turns people into biggots and at worst dangerous. What this man illustrated by humbling sharing with Penn is that the gospel is not only true, it actually works and allows us to have genuine disagreement and dialogue with people who believe radically different things that we do. What needs to happen in Penn's life--and I would argue in the lives of many of our friends--is that they must encounter authentic Christians that aren't "weird, creepy, judgmental, or ignorant" but are sane, nice, intelligent people that they respect. What this does is cause them to reexamine their "defeater belief" and cause them to wonder if it is really true. Often, someone needs to have a positive experience with a Christian on more than one occasion in order to "knock off their equilibrium" so to speak and force them to reexamine the claims of Christ.

This is why authentic living witness is so important. It is also why the corporate witness of the Christian community is so important because it often takes a positive encounter with more than one Christian to truly weigh the claims of the gospel again.

Source: How Much Do You Have to Hate Someone not to Proselytize?

Little Giants of the Faith: Tom Carson

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor.

I just finished reading a book by one of the great Bible scholars of the modern era D. A. Carson. This book however is quite different than anything else he has written. It is a biography of his Dad, Tom Carson. A man who by all human accounts should not have had a biography written about him because he didn’t do anything that special; however, by spiritual accounts, this way a man great in faith. In the spirit of Epaphras (Colossians 1:7, 4:12-13) and our focus on the “little giants of the faith” I give you this brief synopsis at the conclusion of the book.

“Tom Carson never rose very far in denominational structures, but hundreds of people in the Outaousais (Greater Ottawa area in French Canada) and beyond testify how much he loved them. He never wrote a book, but he loved the Book. He was never wealthy or powerful, but he kept growing as a Christian: yesterday’s grace was never enough. He was not a far-sighted visionary, but he looked forward to eternity. He was not a gifted administrator, but there is no text that says, ‘By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you are good administrators.’ His journals have many, many entries bathed in tears of contrition, but his children and grandchildren remember his laughter. Only rarely did he break through his pattern of reserve and speak deeply and intimately with his children, but he modeled Christian virtues to them. He much preferred to avoid controversy than to stir things up, but his own commitment to t historic confessionalism were unyielding, and in ethics he was a man of principle. His own ecclesiastical circles were rather small and narrow, but his reading was correspondingly large and expansive. He was not very good at putting people down, except on his prayer lists.

When he died, there were no crowds outside the hospital, no editorial comments in the papers, no announcements on television, no mention in Parliament, no attention paid by the nation. IN his hospital room there was not one by his bedside. There was only the quiet hiss of oxygen, vainly venting because he had stopped breathing and would never need it again.

But on the other side all the trumpets sounded. Dad won entrance to the only throne room that matters, not because he was a good man or a great man—he was, after all, a most ordinary pastor—but because he was a forgiven man. And he heard the voice of him whom he longed to hear saying, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord.’”

If anyone would like to borrow this book, I just finished it and will make it available in our small, but growing Rock Hill library.

Source: Little Giants of the Faith: Tom Carson

A New Way to Serve?

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Missional Communities Serving...

One area that we have been talking about lately as elders is finding the best way to serve without burning people out. In many typical churches, you will often find about 20% of the people doing almost all of the work (example: watching kids in the nursery, making coffee, ushering, greeting, security, teaching kid's church, set up, tear down/clean up, etc.). At Rock Hill, our heart is that everyone who calls this their church home would be involved in serving.

What we have been doing is seeking out volunteers who are willing to serve in one of those areas and then putting them on a volunteer schedule. This is working okay, but not great. One problem that we have is trying to figure out when our students are going to be here and when they are going to be gone. Also, this is difficult to try to plug people in quickly when they express a desire to serve.

A thought that we are throwing out for you to think about is this. With four missional communities up and running now, why not just have each missional community take all of the service things once a month. That means, each of our four missional communties would be responsible for doing all the service things (greeting, nursery, set up, tear down, clean up, coffee, etc) once every four weeks. The other three weeks, they are free to just show up and enjoy the service.

Each regular attender would be placed in a missional community whether they attend that community or not for the purposes of serving. This way, if you work with kids, you don't have to miss service every four weeks, instead it may be only every 8 or 12 weeks. Also, by serving along side each other in volunteering, you may be more likely to attend a missional community because you already know some of the people and don't feel like "the new person."

This is not something we are just going to mandate from "the top down" without first getting people's honest feedback. What are your thoughts about the potential switch? What would be the things we would need to work through? Please leave your comments and thoughts as we seek to make a decision.

Source: A New Way to Serve?

Wisdom From Solomon

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Imagine what the richest, wisest person in the world would say about the meaning and purpose of life at the end of his life. That in a nut shell is the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. Below is a snippet of Ecclesiastes 5:10-15 with Randy Alcorn's witty paraphrase. This is hard hitting truth on the grip that money has on our hearts.

"Whoever loves money never has money enough"
      The more you have, the more you want.

"Whoever love wealth is never satisfied with his income."
     The more you have, the less you're satisfied.

"As goods increase, so do those who consume them."
     The more you have, the more people (including the government) come after it.

"And what benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them?"
     The more you have, the more you realize it doesn't meet your needs.

"The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep."
     The more you have, the more you have to worry about.

"I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth horded to the harm of its owner."
     The more you have, the more you can hurt yourself by holding on to it.

"or wealth lost through some misfortune."
     The more you have, the more you have to lose

"Naked a man comes from his mother's womb, and as he comes, so he departs. He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand."
     The more you have, the more you'll leave behind.

Fitting words from a man who had the wealth to back it up. However, one thing that I have noticed about my own heart is that I fail to let words like these hit me because I don't see myself as rich or having much. That is a lie! I have a ton and so do you if you are reading this on the internet. The deceitfulness of our culture is to never see ourselves as having a lot, because we can always see someone who has more. For a lesson in perspective, check out this website and put in your annual income:

http://www.globalrichlist.com/

Source: Wisdom From Solomon

Death by Love: A New book by Mark Driscoll

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

I spent the better part of this morning drinking deeply the theology of the cross of Jesus Christ as I read through this book. As a pastor I read a lot of books each month. I am delighted to share this book with you all and commend it to you as one of the better books I have read in the last year. It is a series of letters that this pastor wrote to specific people in his church applying for them the doctrine of the cross and the gospel into their specific situation. From a letter to a woman who was raped, to a letter to a man whose father beat him mercilessly as a child, to a convicted child molester, this book deals with the horrific details of sin while pointing people to the tremendous victory of the cross.

This book is a must read for anyone involved in counseling as well as anyone continuing to struggle with besetting sin from your past.

Check out the promo video http://relit.org/deathbylove/

Source: Death by Love: A New book by Mark Driscoll