Video Blog From Matt
Link to the First Wednesday Message.
Repentance
What is repentance?
The word ‘repentance’ should be no stranger to a Christ-follower. Repentance is part of our initial step into Christianity. We often say that when a person becomes a Christian, they “put their faith” in Jesus. Repentance and faith are different sides of the same coin and are inseparable experiences of God’s saving grace. Repentance is the turning from sins and an overall God-less path, and turning to Jesus. As we turn to Jesus, we place our faith in Him as our Savior, Lord, and highest treasure. The result is a life that has a new affection for Christ and a new ambition to live for Him. This also means that we have a new battle. Before Christ (and repentance) we were at war with God and His ways. After Christ (and the new life He gives us), we now are at war with sin.
Because Christians are always at war with sin, repentance is an ongoing part of our walk with Christ. God will continually reveal sins in our lives to produce repentance. This ongoing repentance continually demonstrates that Jesus is our Lord and that our highest desire is to live in fellowship with Him.
Finally, we must understand that repentance is not an endless cycle of sin, remorse, and confession … only to keep on sinning. Repentance is not sorrow for getting caught or sorrow for consequences. Nor is repentance an attempt to “do better”.
Repentance includes sorrow for sin, its consequences, and its offensiveness to God.
Repentance is more than doing better; it is also a conviction that believes Christ is better than sin.
What causes repentance?
Repentance is the right response to God’s revelation. God through the Holy Spirit reveals the truth to us about our sins and about Himself. We see sin for what it really is — offensive and dishonoring to God and harmful to us. We also see God for who He is — glorious, almighty, loving, holy, and perfect. This clarity about sin and God prompts us to turn from sin and turn to God.
How do I stay “repentant” before God?
First, would be to pray something along the lines of Psalm 139:23-24, asking God to search us and reveal anything that is offensive to Him.
Second, would be to ask yourself (and perhaps your spouse, mentor, accountability partner, small group) some questions about yourself:
- Are there any idols in my life? Is there anything in my life that is carrying more “weight” than God?
- Have I turned to substitutes for God? Is anything causing me to “forget God”?
- Are my words and speech tearing others down? Critical? Gossip? Condemning? Discouraging?
- Is my heart full of love for others?
- Am I disobeying any known command of God?
- Do I currently have the “joy of the Lord”? {lack of joy generally = lack of repentance}
- What would those closest to me say about my walk with the Lord?
- How unified am I with other Christians? Am I regularly meeting together as commanded by Scripture?
Special Invitation!!
Hello Rock Bridge!!
I want to ask all of you who consider Rock Bridge “your” church to be at First Wednesday on October 5th (that’s next week). As your pastor, I have some things I really need to share with you. We are at an exciting place in the history of our church as we approach our 10-year anniversary. We are also at a crucial place in the life of our church. I believe with all my heart that Rock Bridge was created and positioned by God “for such a time as this”; therefore, we must steward this time and the opportunity it presents for the glory of the living God.
I look forward to sharing God’s Word, worshipping, praying, and taking the Lord’s Supper with you, my family in Christ!
Matt
Rock Bridge Calhoun
Dinner at 5:30; Service at 6:30
Gordon Hills Shopping Center*
Message will be LIVE STREAMED!
Rock Bridge Chatsworth & Dalton
Dinner after 5 pm in Stage 123
Service at 6:00 pm in the Wink Theatre*
*Child care provided through 1st grade; 2nd graders & up attend service w/parents.
Weekly Rundown (9.26.2011)
- Pray for our team in Honduras this week as they dig a water well for a local village and share Jesus with villagers.
- We are starting the process of elder selection for 2012. We have 4 elders rotating who are rotating off at the end of this year. This New Testament position within the local church is very important and serves a critical role in helping our church stay on mission with wisdom and integrity. Any church member may submit a nomination.
- First Wednesday in October is a little over a week away. I’ll be sharing some things on my heart for Rock Bridge and I’m asking all group leaders (adult, student, and children), all ministry team leaders and captains, all members, etc to make a special effort to attend this special edition of our First Wednesday time of worship, prayer, & the Lord’s Supper.
- If you attend our Chatsworth campus, please attend in Dalton (Wink Theatre at 6 pm).
- Dalton campus will meet in the Wink Theatre at 6 pm (dinner before in Stage 123 after 5 pm).
- Calhoun campus will meet in the new building (at the Gordon Hills Shopping Center) and we are planning to ‘live stream’ parts of the service from Dalton SO all our campuses will be connected together for this one night … one church in multiple locations with one mission and one vision from one AWESOME God!!
- Remember: next week in Chatsworth starts one service at 10:30 am in Bagley Middle School.
- Please consider being part of our $10-$50 Plan to help us meet and exceed our 2011 budget goals!!
- An update on Beth:
- She is supposed to come home this week for about 8 days.
- We are awaiting a couple of important test results that could “map out” what the next few weeks/months look like … so please pray we are still on track!
- She feels stronger and overall better everyday. Truly amazing to see how much better she looks and feels. Check out her ‘Foto Friday’ blog from this past week!
- Have a great week and remember: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” {Psm. 118:24 NIV}
Elder Selection
Rock Bridge is now entering into a process of nominating, screening, and selected new elders who will begin serving in 2012.
To read more about the selection process or submit a name for nomination, please click here.
Elders are mentioned numerous times in the New Testament. Throughout Paul’s writings he charges elders to guard the church from false teachings, shepherd and care for the members, address and oversee matters of church discipline, correctly teach the Word of God, govern the overall affairs of the church, and display the fruits of God’s work in their lives.
At Rock Bridge, we put these various functions in three broad categories: discerning, shepherding, and guarding. Elders discern God’s will for the church and help determine our overall direction. They shepherd God’s people in the church through prayer, care, and accountability. Finally, elders guard and protect our unity, teaching, vision, and resources.
Rock Bridge Elders come from our church’s membership (elders must first be a member of the church for 1 year), live out our church’s values, model a life devoted to Christ, and are approved by the Church and therefore, authorized by the church to be the “leading servants” for the church. They serve a three-year term and may serve 2 consecutive terms. The Elders cannot call a new Lead Pastor, approve the church budget, or appoint new elders. Those decisions are made by a vote of the church membership.
Weekly Rundown (9.19.2011)
- Amazing baptisms yesterday! I really believe baptism not only blesses the one being baptized, but those watching and welcoming the new Christ-follower. Baptism is a public and bold reminder of what God works inside the heart of man. My faith grew larger yesterday, and I was reminded that God is indeed mighty to save.
- We are continuing to see people saved in regular frequency in our worship services. We praise God for this and ask for more! The greatest thing in the world is to be saved and satisfied by Jesus Christ!!
- Our new series “LIFE APPS” continues this week.
- Is there someone you are positioned to invite?!? Praying you do!!
- To all our amazing volunteers: THANK YOU!! You live out our core value of active participation.
- I’m excited to be able to hang out this week with our Tech/Production ministry team. They are true unsung heroes because 99% of people never know they are there unless something goes wrong. And >>>99% everything is right because of their hard work, service, and commitment to excellence!!
- Missions update:
- We have a team going to Honduras later this month to dig a well and present the Gospel.
- After one year of radically increasing our missions giving and going, our elders believe we will need to hire a missions/outreach pastor in 2012. I believe our church has unbelievable potential to impact our local communities and penetrate lostness & relieve poverty around the globe. Ask anyone who has taken a trip this year and you will discover how God enlarged their heart to match more closely His heart. This is what is happening to our church’s collective heart as well. Psalm 67!!
- Beth has a scan this week to hopefully/prayerfully discover that all the EBV ‘nodes’ are gone from her body. Please join us in prayer. Once this hurdle is cleared, we should be able to talk more about moving her back home “full time”!!
Excelling in Giving
Last year our church approved a faith-based budget of $3.2 million dollars. This budget was born out of prayer and a vigorous pursuit of wisdom. We doubled the amount of money we invested in local and international missions. We sought to wisely and adequately fund our own ministries for worship, children, students, discipleship, and day-to-day operations.
Even with the troubles in our local economy, we have seen our weekly giving increase this year! However, we are still falling short of our budget by around $2000 per month. Because we have some reserve funds and some built-in margin, we are not in a crisis. We can easily adjust our spending to handle this shortfall, but that means cutting back on some investments to which we believe God has called us.
We believe this is an opportunity for us to “excel in the grace of giving” as Paul encourages churches to do in 2 Corinthians 8:7. So rather than back down and reduce our budget for the remainder of the year, our Elders believe we can rise up and exceed our budget by finishing strong in this last quarter of 2011! Here’s how:
The $10-$50 Plan
Our church currently has about 1400 giving units (a giving unit could be one person or an entire family). If each of those giving units increased their monthly giving by $10 to $50 we would easily meet and even begin to exceed our budget goals!
So we are asking anyone with an income to prayerfully seek to raise your current monthly giving by between $10 to $50.
Think about it this way: over 30 days that represents about 3-5 gallons of gas, 3 Starbucks’ coffee drinks, or 1 movie ticket!!
If you have never given consistently to God’s church, then would you prayerfully consider starting to give around $10-$50 per month? This is a simple way for you to begin giving regularly and begin to experience God’s leadership over your finances.
Remember: it is simple and easy to set-up online giving directly from your checking account (called “E-Give”). You can sign-up directly from our web site by clicking here.
If we as a church take this step together, a few things will happen:
1-We will meet and could even exceed our 2011 budget!!
2-We will be more like Jesus by becoming more generous (2 Corinthians 8:9).
3-We will resist the pull of complacency, instead experiencing the thrill and joy of being open to God’s direction and leadership in our lives (2 Corinthians 2:14).
4-God will be more glorified as we invest in His Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) and kingdom work locally and globally.
Thank you for being a part of what God is doing at Rock Bridge! We know God is moving and we know that He is providing through the generous hearts of His people!
**If you have no income, are unemployed or under-employed and need assistance, please allow your church family to help. Financial counseling and/or assistance with groceries or other basic needs are available and part of our budget to minister to those in our church family who are experiencing tough times.
Weekly Rundown (9.13.2011)
- Excited to kick-off a new series called “Life Apps”. If you have a smartphone, you love the “apps” or applications it has to tell you the weather, find a location, check your bank balances, etc. etc. … in this series, we’ll learn that God has some “apps” to help us navigate life.
- Baptism is this weekend!!!! Life change, going public for Christ, obedience, the wonderful illustration of salvation … not to mention the BBQ and fellowship … can’t wait!!
- At our Dalton campus this weekend, we are experimenting with a new environment called, Meet the Pastor. We’ll meet in the Gathering after every service (Thursday 6:30 pm, Sunday 9:30 & 11:00 am) on announced weekends.
- This will be an informal and easy way for me to meet guests and newcomers as well as for those looking to connect more with our church family.
- We’ll have other staff members and ministry leaders there as well, plus refreshments!
- If you know someone who is new to our church, then please invite them to this!!
- Beth has been home for the past week!! She’s done great and it is awesome to see her energy returning and her start to feel so much better!!
- She’ll head back to NYC later this week. The next big check is a repeat PET/CT Scan to check for Epstein-Barr “nodes”. She had a few left (reduced in size) last time and the doctors.
- Last conversation with her doctors gave us some indication that she could be home permanently by early to mid-Fall!!
- Your grace and prayers to us continue to be tremendous blessings!
A Sincere Apology
I need to apologize to our entire church family.
Today during one of our services I inappropriately ‘called out’ and corrected two teenagers who I felt were being a distraction. My comments were off target, made in anger, and reflect poorly on the values of Rock Bridge. There is no excuse for this from me or from God’s pulpit. I have spoken with and apologized to the specific family but now I need to do so to our entire church.
Our church has a core value of Christ-like acceptance and my words and their tone violated this foundational principle of Rock Bridge. Additionally, they created an “unwelcoming” atmosphere and uncomfortable moment in our service. We strongly believe that only the Spirit-brought conviction of God should make anyone ever feel uncomfortable at RBCC, not our actions or words. I apologize to all of you and any guests who may have been with you.
A second core value our church shares is radical dependence on God and His Word. We believe that only God can change people and author salvation in their lives. We believe He does this in large part through the sharing and teaching of His Word. Today, I incorrectly believed that my particular method of presenting and communicating God’s Word was more important and more powerful than the simple message of His Word. My dependence was not on God or His Word but on myself and my presentation; that is sinful. As a result, I took the attention off God and His truth. I apologize for the negative effect on your worship experience.
I am deeply sorry for my words and the anger behind them. Along with our elders, our staff, and my wife, I will seek to repent, resolve anger biblically, choose words wisely, and rest in the sufficiency of God’s grace.
Today, I need to ask for your forgiveness.
Matt Evans
The Lord’s Supper
For me, teaching the subject of the Lord’s Supper and participating in this gift of Christ to His church is more than just theology and obedience; it is personal. During some stretches of Beth’s treatment and recovery from bone marrow transplant, I was with her and unable to be in church. I remember just desiring to connect with God and sense His presence in a more tangible way than prayer and Bible study. This literal ‘hunger’ pushed me to learn more about the Lord’s Supper and want to observe it. Christ gave us this gift because He knew we needed it, and He gave it special symbolic and spiritual significance to indeed help satisfy our hunger for Him. I believe He did this for several reasons:
1) He knew we tend to be forgetful. Over and over again we are warned not to forgot God or His faithfulness, and yet over and over again we do. The Lord’s Supper is a visible reminder to us that God is faithful (He gave us His Son), God is sovereign (even over death!), and that God is for us (“This is My body, which is for you …”).
2) God uses our 5 senses to strengthen the “6th sense” of faith. Just as food and drink nourish our bodies so does Christ nourish our souls. We truly do not live on bread alone (Matthew 4:4)! Just as we receive physical benefits from eating and drinking, we receive spiritual benefits from feeding on Christ through faith. We receive forgiveness, grace, mercy, strength, peace that passes all understanding, and hope that does not disappoint. Through proper observance of the Lord’s Supper, Christ does in fact become more “alive” and real to us.
3) God creates anticipation of His future grace in the form of His promises. Christ has promised to come again (“… whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.“). Christ has promised us more grace than what we now have. This future grace helps fuel our present day obedience and keep us joyfully focused on what is sometimes the difficult and narrow way of walking with Christ. The Lord’s Supper calls us again and again to live by faith in God who keeps His promises of love to His children.
4) The Lord Supper prompts examination and thus exercises preventative discipline and if necessary, corrective discipline in our lives. The Lord’s Supper includes a process of examination that should prompt repentance and feasting on God’s amazing grace. And let’s be honest, we often wait to change until we experience pain and consequences. By bringing us close to Christ’s painful death, the Lord’s Supper can serve to awaken in us the desire to change, to repent, to confess and therefore, be filled anew with God’s presence.
The goal of the Lord’s Supper is not just to do it as a task to complete. Paul warned the church at Corinth by saying, “…it is not the Lord’s Supper that you eat …”. We take communion in order to facilitate closer communion with Christ. We do not merely observe the Lord’s Supper but experience the Lord of the Supper. And any encounter with the Risen Christ, will strengthen our faith and deepen our joy.