Beginning September 9th you'll notice the Rock's logo prominently placed at each entrance.  You'll also see some cool looking people ready to talk with you, answer questions, sign your student up for our Winter retreat, Refuel, and our Summer Camp.  These early deposits give us some "seed money" to place deposits of our own and make the necessary provision on the front end of each trip. 
These cool looking people also want to meet you and we want to give you as a parent the opportunity to meet the ones who are coming along your side as you parent and lead your children (students).  So please stop by and say hello!  Just look for the Rock Logo 

One major area of improvement is for our ministry to seek our opportunities to both present and the Gospel and be about the Gospel.  I believe we do a decent job at helping students know Christ but we can stand to improve in giving them opportunities in making Christ known.  By the way, that is our hope, to help students and leaders come to know Christ and make Christ known.  So this first opportunity as a ministry will be September 15th at the Roopville 5k and Parade.  More details to come but go ahead and SAVE THE DATE!

Many of you have heard and responded to this but wanted to remind you that The Rock needs a little help pulling off a project.  Through the last 19 years we have designed and printed many shirts.  I love shirts, tee shirts in particular.  I honestly feel each shirt tells a story or serves as a reminder.  A modern day "12 stones" type of thing.  Not sure what that means?  Brush up on your Old Testament a bit.  These Rock shirts serve as a reminder as they take us back to a time and place where God "showed up and showed out."  So we want to display these shirts because we think it'll look cool but also because we think it will serve as a reminder of God's faithfulness to us!  We'd love for you to help us.  How?   You can donate $15 to the #rockshirt project which will purchase a shadow box.  If you can help that's great!  If you can't help that's totally fine.  We just wanted to give you an opportunity!

If you made it this far in one reading congrats!  You did it!
As always, thanks for allowing us at The Rock SM to come along your side in the spiritual development of your child(ren).

We don't take that for granted and strive each day to love them, push them, guide them and simply re-affirm the beliefs you try to instill in them.  THANK YOU!

Over the next few weeks you may see an army of Rock leaders at each exit.  You'll notice them by the spark in their eyes and the big ROCK LOGO floating in the air.  Why are there?  They are there to meet you and also share with you all that's going on and coming up at The Rock SM.  We will also be giving you an opportunity to sign up for some trips.  Refuel is our winter trip and we do a trip for MS Students and a trip for HS Students.  Early deposits help us know how to best plan.  We'll also be encouraging you to sign up for our summer camp.  I know it's early but if you place a $20 deposit for summer camp in September you'll be receiving a small discount for camp.  

We'll be posted near the welcome centers and cafe for a few week in September so be on the lookout!  We'd love to introduce you to the ones who are pouring into your students each week.  First MEET & Greet opportunity will be September 9th!

Beginning September 3rd our student ministry will experience devotions as a group.  With devotions written by our own youth leaders we're hoping to see great growth and a common bond built through us journeying through the Bible together.  I'm so excited for this.  The devotions are free but we would love to get a $1/per devotion to help give the Scriptures to those who have no Bible in their language.  Every dollar made from these journals and through our "Hole in the Wall" Rock Store will go toward the Bisoto Bible Project through the Seed Company.  Devotions will be available beginning August 29th.

The HOLE IN THE WALL is a merch store where we will have old and new Rock SM shirts as well as journals, Bibles, stickers, pens and other cool stuff we decide to offer.  Just a neat way to represent something worth representing as well as picking up a journal or a pen or a water before we gather and celebrate the fame of Jesus!  Again, every dollar made from this will go directly to the Bisoto people group.

Simple reminder that all students interested in being on the student leadership team will need to be at the church at 5:30pm this Sunday night for our first meeting.  This will be a monthly meeting with leaders in our ministry to discuss all things Rock!  If your student is interested in helping us think through things send them on!  We'll take this night to go over some expectations but then immediately get into some details.  Please don't make them attend this....this is more for students who strongly desire to play a part in all we do at The Rock.  Leaders lead and are rarely pushed.  So please don't push them here.

Good afternoon!  Two big things to let you know about this week.

1. Kick Off Wednesday at The Rock SM tomorrow night at 7pm.  We'll go over some BASIC things to intro our year and then enjoy a flavored, frozen treat while we update some contact info.  Huge night!

2. Family Legacy Weekend is here.  Details can be found on our website and our Facebook page.  I do want to strongly encourage you to attend the Friday night Tech Savvy Workshop which begins at 6:30p.  We are providing Hudson's BBQ for $6/pp.  We need you to register for this event....this can be done HERE.     We also will be having Brian lead "The Endgame of Parenting" on Sunday morning at 9:30a.  Again, more details on our WEBSITE and FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE.        For more information on Brian Housman please visit his website.  For more details on some useful tools regarding the Tech Savvy Workshop click HERE.

LOTS OF LINKS AND INFO.
See you all Wednesday!