Hey Rocky River Church! I just wanted to thank you for your generosity. You "open-handedness" has helped push Willow over her goal for her mission trip to South Africa. I love you and appreciate you SO much. See ya'll Sunday!

Jimmy

Haley Smith is a High School student in our church. SHE IS A GREAT PERSON! Haley graduates from High School in a few days and instead of going to the beach she is going on a mission trip to South Africa. Will you help her get there? The cost of the trip is $3,400 but she only needs less than $2,000! I'm just wondering if there are 100 people out there who could give $20 each to make this happen? I'll bet there are! Of course, any amount is GREATLY appreciated. HERE'S THE KICKER! She needs this money today - by about 6PM! You can give safely and securely (AND EASILY) right here: http://www.youcaring.com/mission-trip-fundraiser/haley-willow-smith-s-mission-trip-to-swaziland/56685/update/46388. So please, watch the video and then give. I'm telling you, this is a great investment into the Kingdom of God.

God bless you!
Jimmy

Last night was an AMAZING time of worship, fellowship and life-change at Rocky River Church. We baptized 21 people and had a GREAT time. Here are some of the highlights.

GOD IS GREAT!
Jimmy

Sometimes before you can move forward, think new thoughts and dream new dreams you have to dump your thoughts. Here goes...

- JUNK FOR JESUS. We have a metal dumpster - a big green one - in the church parking lot. It is for anything metal. All of it will be recycled and the money will be put back into the ministries of our church. This is a great opportunity to get rid of some of the metal junk in your garage. If you have ANY questions about what you can bring, call the office at 704-795-7625. You can also send an email to me at Pastor@RockyRiverChurch.com. But the short of it is that you can literally throw anything into that is metal. Hurry! We only have the dumpster for a couple of weeks.

- If I could get you to do one thing that will take your life to the NEXT LEVEL it would be for you to get into the Bible and let the Bible get into you. Start reading the Bible. God wants to speak to you and live in you and bring you back to life. Trust me on this! Get into the Bible. Start with the Gospel of Luke.

- I don't ever want to be "big, corporate" church. Now that doesn't mean that I don't want our church to grow (and if we grow big, that's cool too). But don't ever want to lose that raw, friendly feel that we have in our church right now.

- I'm very excited about our "God On Film" series that kicks off on June 2. This year we're doing something a little different. Rather than looking for faith in new releases this summer, we are going to look for faith in some of the great "summer classics" of days gone by. We kick everything off with a message about obedience from the life of Jonah. The movie for that week (June 2) is JAWS. I can't wait!!!!

- Chemistry is SO important to a team - any team. One person, plus or minus, can make the difference between success or failure.

- I'm totally excited about what's happening these days at Rocky River Church. Man! People are coming into the church from all over the place. It is VERY exciting.

- We have two summer interns right now, Emily Straight and Liz Bagley, and they are doing a FANTASTIC job! Wow, so proud of them. They are kids who have grown up at Rocky River Church. That makes their great work even more exciting to me.

- Our church calendar is PACKED over the summer with some great things ahead. The fall looks even better. Just as a little teaser, I'm doing a series in September called "Faith, Family and Ducks." Can you guess who inspired that series? :)

- God wants to heal our land - and heal our world. That is the message of the Bible. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

- Rocky River Church is the most generous church I've ever heard of. We've never sent someone away who DIRECTLY asked us for our help. I love that. And the expression of love our church poured out on me and Karen this past Sunday was overwhelming.

- So glad to have three new Trustees on our management team. Welcome Greg, Lee Ann, Mark and Rich! God is showing us where He wants to take us by the leaders He is bringing to the team.

- We had a great staff meeting today - probably the best we've had in several years. I would put our staff, person for person, up against any church staff around. And that's a fact Jack!

- We had a great men's lunch today at Bojangles. I love the crazy bunch of guys that hang out with us on Tuesdays. BTW, we always have room for more.

- I can't wait until our Wednesday night cookout and baptism. We have 15 signed up so far. If you would like to know more about baptism and sign up for tomorrow, shoot Donnie an email at Donnie@RockyRiverChurch.com. He can answer your questions and get you on the list. Anyway, tomorrow night is going to be AWESOME! Don't miss it. We start serving food at 6:30 and the service begins about 7:15. We are planning for an outdoor service so bring a lawn chair for the folks in your group.

- At Rocky River Church we have had folks walk away from us, but we've never walked away from any one. That's a fact. We've never turned out back to others but we've certainly had to watch others walk away. That's hard sometimes. Just hard...

- I would love to have an old fashioned, old school church revival this fall. I'm praying about that now, BTW. :)

- I would also love to have an old fashioned "dinner on the grounds" this fall as we celebrate our 14th birthday. That would be fun! We just may do it.

- The older I get the more old fashioned I get. I'm learning that contemporary churches threw out some things that should not have been thrown out.

- We have a mailer for our God On Film series coming out in the next week or so. Be on the watch for that.

- We are planning a gas buy down this summer. Stay tuned for the details for when, where and how to participate.

- One more thing, we are planning for a golf tournament late this summer, probably in August. It is going to be called "Tee Off On Hunger." We are raising money for schools in our country who offer backpack lunches to kids getting food assistance at school. This is a GREAT project!

Anyway, that's about it.
J

Hey Rocky River Church. Many of you have already been asking me how (not if) we are going to help our neighbors in Oklahoma and Texas who are reeling from the recent tornadoes there. Well, we are going to help! Here's what we are doing right now:

1. We have $1,000 set aside in our budget for disaster relief. We will be sending that out this week to the North Carolina Baptist Men's Disaster Relief Team. When a natural disaster happens anywhere in the United States, there is no better group equipped to hit the ground than these folks. And man, they jump on stuff like this BIG TIME.

2. Our church mission tithe for this week will go to the Disaster Relief Team of the North Carolina Baptists and the Samaritan's Purse/Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Just a note: If you want your financial gifts to go directly to where it is needed most, give your blood to the Red Cross but give your cash to Samaritan's Purse, Billy Graham or the North Carolina Baptist Men's Disaster Relief Team. Believe me, I've seen this up close and personal. These groups have NO red tape and virtually every penny gets to those in need.

3. Wednesday night, May 22, we are having an baptism and cookout at the church at 6:30. We will set aside a special time of prayer for the victims and their families of this disaster. Prayer is key! Giving is so very important. We will do both. Why? Because these people are our neighbors - we are Christians and Americans - and helping others is what we do.

Help us get out the word about the baptism, cookout and prayer meeting on Wednesday night. Again, everything begins at 6:30PM. See you then!

God's blessings...
Jimmy

Jason is our Pastor to Students at Rocky River Church and today is his one-year anniversary. I'm taking this opportunity to say that Jason has done a GREAT job this year. He cares as much about students and people as any youth pastor I have ever known. Travis Bush was our Pastor to Students when Jason first started working with our students as a volunteer leader. He told me back then that Jason has what it takes to go to the next level of student leadership. Well, Travis was right! Jason certainly does have what it takes to be a good youth pastor. Among other things, Jason loves students, is a great planner, has a HUGE heart for people in general, and he works hard.

Well done Jason! I'm looking forward to many more years of great ministry together.

Jimmy

** WARNING** DO NOT read any further if you don't believe in reaching people for Christ, growing your church, working hard or you just like being an "average pastor."

For those pastors interested in maximizing their life and ministry, Nelson Searcy at Church Leader Insights/The Journey Church is offering a free webinar today at 2PM (EST) to help your church avoid the "summer slump" and actually grow this summer. Don't miss it! I was on the webinar yesterday and it was so good I signed up our staff to listen to it as a team today. Guys, why not get prepared for the summer? Why would you not take advantage of this information and practical help? BTW, if you do miss this FREE webinar because you're too lazy to make the effort or you are playing video games on your iPhone, don't whine all summer about low attendance and no money to do ministry.

Here's the link: http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/index.php/free-stuff/grow-your-churc.... SIGN UP RIGHT NOW! Gather your staff around this webinar. Grow yourselves so God can grow your church.

Way to NOT settle for average!
Jimmy

Testimony: Currently, I am in Nelson's Advanced Coaching Network, our Pastor of Community is in Kerrick's Executive Coaching Network, and our Staff Team is in Nelson's Assimilation Coaching Network. So you can tell that we believe in the coaching through Church Leader Insights. It is paying off for our church in BIG TIME. We will reach our goal this year of baptizing over 100 people! To me that means that God is honoring our preparedness. I cannot even tell you how much value this coaching has added to my leadership, our staff, our volunteers and our church. If you want to contact me personally to find out more about coaching and what it is like, etc., shoot me an email at Pastor@RockyRiverChurch.com.

Hey! I just wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who came out today to help plant trees and work on the mulch at the church. You guys and gals did a FANTASTIC job! It is appreciated more than you know. Again, thank you and I love you!

"Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord..." Ephesians 6:7

I pray that the Lord will bless double your energy, time and blessings for your great work today!

Jimmy

Hey Rocky River Church. This Saturday we are having a church-wide workday to make some improvements to our property. For example, we will be planting a few shrubs, replacing three dead trees in the front of the building, and I think Jason is putting a basketball goal for the students and some other things too. There's going to be plenty to do and we could use all the help we can get. Will you let Jason Hill (our Pastor to Students) know if you can help us? Send him an email to Jason@RockyRiverChurch.com. Thanks in advance! God bless.

One of my favorite pastors for many years now is Chuck Swindoll. God willing, Karen and I will be going with him and a group of folks to Greece in August of this year to walk in the footsteps of Paul's missionary journeys. Anyway, he preached a message several years ago called "Boars In God's Vineyard." It was preached to a group of pastors but I believe it should be heard by every Christian - every leader - every churchman. Why? Because most church folks have NO idea the hell and havoc some people can be in a church for pastors and the pastor's families. Most church members have no idea that there are those (not many - thankfully) who make it their mission to make life hard on the pastor. And if he/she can't get to the pastor directly they will go after his family. I have seen this over and over again through the years to other pastors and their families and I have experienced it personally. This message has helped me heal over the past several weeks.

I could say a lot more but I'll let Chuck take it from here. He says what ought to be said much better than I can. As a pastor I plead to you on behalf of your pastor to give this a listen. But don't listen passively. This is too important. Satan attacks pastors and their families through these "boars." There are pastors being attacked right now - perhaps your pastor. He is hurting in ways that you perhaps cannot see. See, these boars attack the pastor and his family like one skilled in abusing. Like a father who abuses his child and hits her in places where clothes hide the wounds so that they are not visible, these abusers are skilled at keeping their slaps under wraps.

This is important to me. It is very important to me. It should be important to all of us because our churches suffer because of the hurt of a very few. One of my major regrets in ministry, not as a pastor but as a young deacon, is that I let a two boars roam free in our church. I let two men on our deacon board bully our pastor and his family. I should have protected him but I had known these men for years and respected them. On the outside - where everyone else could see - these men were loved and seen as "solid" churchmen. But they were different behind closed doors in meetings where the congregation could not see. Shame on me. Shame on our deacon board. And shame on all of us for letting the boars hurt those who heal us.