I can hardly wait until Thirst Camp 2010! It begins next week. There will be Middle School and High School students all over the community next week doing mission projects. Who knows, we might just be serving you.

Thank you for your prayers!

The BIG NEWS at Rocky River Church today is that we have received the permit we needed to begin construction on our new building!!!! GOD IS AWESOME! The graders will hit the site sometime toward the middle or end of this week (probably Wednesday or Thursday). Anyway, just wanted you guys to know.

Thank you for praying for Rocky River Church! Thank you for your faithfulness to His mission and vision!

BTW, today was SIMPLY AWESOME @ ROCKY RIVER CHURCH! Man, we're having tons of new folks. The Spirit was in the house today for sure! Lives were changed! That never gets old.

GO GOD! Go Rocky River Church!

If you allow the devil to drive your thoughts, he will also steer your life.

Just wanted to say "thank you" to all of our children's leaders and the student ministry of Rocky River Church for putting on such an awesome Vacation Bible School. You guys ROCK! I appreciate you all SO MUCH! VBS was off the hook and ya'll made the difference.

There were lots and lots of folks who really stepped up big, but let give a special thanks to Carol Bateman and Catherine Hatcher for showing some serious leadership skills. You gals did - I think - the best VBS e-v-e-r! Take a bow. :)

Thanks also to all the kids for participating and the parents for making the effort to bring them each night.

See ya'll Sunday!
Jimmy

Summer Slam (Vacation Bible School on steroids) begins at Rocky River Church this Monday night!!! Don't miss it! The dates and times are June 21 through 24, 6:30 - 8:30PM. If you have any questions at all, email Travis Bush (our Pastor of Family Life) at travis@rockyriverchurch.com.

BTW, THIS IS FOR ALL THE KIDS IN OUR COMMUNITY! See you there!!!

Hey Rocky River Church! Are you still excited about the building?! I know you are! Anyway, here's a heads up about a few things related to the buildings progress.

1. Don't get discouraged that the tractors haven't hit the field yet. There is still a little work that has to be finished behind the scenes. That is going well. Basically, we're only waiting for the permits to be completed and approved from the City of Concord. It really has come down to a paperwork process. Our contractor and engineer are working hard on that paperwork now. Literally, I'm expecting the call any day that the permits have been granted and the grader is ready to go!

2. We met with our contractors yesterday to make some color and texture choices about the exterior of the building. HOLY SMOKES! This building is going to be awesome!!!! It is not only going to be a functional building, but very attractive too.

In the next week or two we will have samples of colors available at the Sunday services so you can see them for yourselves.

I can't even tell you how God is moving and blessing during this process. It is amazing how God is working things out for us. One day I'll get to tell you all that God has done.

Here are few things you can do to help in this process:
- Remain faithful to the mission of Christ: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

- Remain faithful to the vision of Rocky River Church which is "To give people the best opportunity possible to become fully committed, growing followers of Jesus Christ."

- Be in prayer always. You cannot solve spiritual problems with natural solutions. The enemy will fight us on this project. So invoke the name of Jesus often.

- Keep serving and making a difference in our community and world! I'm gonna start calling you guys Rockers because you ROCK! It boggles my mind how so many of you use your gifts and talents to serve the Body of Christ. And that is exactly what we're called to do. So keep it up!

- Remain faithful in your giving. During the summer time it is easy to forget about giving your tithes and offerings. BUT, don't forget that your generosity makes the difference in the ministry we can say "yes" to or what we have to say "no" to. We do "frontline" ministry in this church which means your giving changes lives.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I love you! So thankful to lead such an awesome group of people. Hope to see you Sunday, excited and ready to worship our God!

Jimmy

Yesterday I announced at Rocky River Church that next Sunday we would kick off a series called "Blessed." However, when looking at my preaching calendar for the rest of this month I realized there were some things I did NOT take into consideration. For examples, next Sunday we are ordaining Donnie Icenhour into the Gospel ministry. And the last Sunday of this month we will be interviewing a missionary during the services. Those things do not work with the themes and passages for Blessed. So, we called an audible.

Instead of Blessed, this Sunday we will kick off a series called "ONE PRAYER" - God Make Us Unstoppable." When a Church is united behind the mission of Jesus Christ it is UNSTOPPABLE!

Anyway, just wanted to let you guys know about it. Stay tuned for more about ONE PRAYER.

See you Sunday!
Jimmy

Thank you Rocky River Church! Today we gave a special offering in the 11:00 service - I didn't think about it at 9:30. Sorry 9:30 crowd. But anyway, I shared the vision for sponsoring 10 children this year through World Vision. On the spur of the moment, we gave/collected over $450. That is enough money to sponsor one child for a whole year (food, clothing, shelter, education). Additionally, we are able to buy a pair of chickens for another family that will provide protein rich eggs as food, as well as income from the sale of eggs. WAY TO GO GOD! WAY TO GO ROCKY RIVER CHURCH! This is showing the love of Christ in tangible, practical ways. AWESOME!

BTW, here's a link to World Vision. We plan to get a lot more involved with these folks during this year. http://www.worldvision.org/home.nsf/pages/home.htm#/home/main/help-chang...

- Today was awesome! I mean seriously awesome! Great crowd. In fact, all the metrics went in the right direction.

- Shared the vision of Rocky River Church today from here going forward. That was so fun! I know there's probably a better word than "fun." But it was just that. And the crowd was into it. It reminded me of just how important it is to keep the vision HOT.

- Our Mission is the Great Commission of Christ - Matthew 28.

- Our Vision is "To give people the best opportunity possible to become fully committed, growing followers of Jesus Christ."

- We are living out Christ's mission and fulfilling our vision by connecting people to God (weekly worship), each other (small group), our community (personal ministry to the community and mission to the world) and the world (by investing and inviting lost people to come to Rocky River Church).

- Band and music was spot on today. WAY TO GO GUYS!

- I heard great things from children and student ministries.

- The setup up/break down teams were off the hook. I went long today and the break down boys still got us out of the school by 1:15. WOW!

- Great excitement today. A LOT OF ENERGY FROM OUR PEOPLE!

- We kick off a new series next week simply called "Blessed." Come learn how to live the kind of life that God's blesses.

- I am cranked up about VBS and Thirst Camp right around the corner. BOTH are going to be crazy awesome this summer.

- OUR STAFF IS ROCKING IT THESE DAYS! I mean we are getting it done!!!!! So blessed to work with Travis, Donnie, Erik and Teresa. AND I'm thankful for all our leaders and volunteers getting it done at The Rock. Keep it up!

- Got an exciting week coming up. Hoping and praying the permits are released for the building this week. MAN!

Let me close with this. I SO believe in the vision of our church. And I believe in the potential of every person at Rocky River Church. This summer I want to challenge you to be more committed to Christ, and faithful to our church than you have ever been before. Give God room this summer to do things in your life you never dared to even dream.

J

This Sunday @ Rocky River Church may be the most important service we have had in years - yes, even more important than groundbreaking service. :) The message is going to be a "must hear" message. If you want to know where we're going as a church, don't miss this Sunday!