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Hope everyone is doing good!  Excited about being able to get with each of you although it's only for a few minutes, and only if you happen to read this.  We realize life is busy and the ability to all get together and discuss how things are going with each student, with each parent is not going to happen.  So excitement builds for me as I see our blog as the main way to keep you the parents involved and informed.  We understand our role in your student's lives and never seek to replace the parent.  Our hope is to compliment the leading and discipleship that takes place in each home.  

We're very excited about the upcoming year. The teaching, vision, retreats, fellowship, worship and community that is coming up excites me to no end. The potential for students to be engaged and discipled and even brought to Christ is there and is enormous.  Last night we were able to walk the students through John 15 as we looked at our theme for the year; ABIDE.

As we think about what it means to abide in Christ we first must understand why it's necessary.  We must come to grips that our needs are huge!  We have a huge need we can't fill, nothing can fill.  It's only after we realize this need for Christ that we begin to understand how we actually abide in Him.  Ultimately we abide in Christ by abiding in His Word.  As we do this the Word gets in us.  So to abide in Christ is really about the Word and our Walk.  Our hope for this year, and really in life, is that we get in the Word so that the Word gets in us.  People should see a difference in us because we've been with Jesus.  That's really what they said in Acts 4:13.  Our life is summed up in this verse really as we can do nothing without Christ.  There really is only one answer for me/you being able to do anything profitable in this life and it's that I have been with Jesus.  The question is will I remain there.  Will I dwell with Christ, abide with Him, find and make my home in Jesus?

This year we lead students to this thinking; Abide in Christ.  We do so by taking them to the Word of God in hopes that the Word of God get in them.  The result or fruit is that the nations will see that we have been, and are remaining, with Jesus.

We left the students with a question and I'll challenge you with it as well:  Where do you find your home in life?  Where are you abiding, remaining, dwelling?  This changes doesn't it?  Life seems to present things that often stump us.  But how amazing would it be if we could find our home in Christ and then live a life that shows that.  To know that in the struggles and the victories, in the sun and in the storms, we can have peace and experience joy every step of the way.

This question and this them kicked off last night and will continue throughout the year.  
Attached below are the notes.  We add these to better communicate what we discussed in hopes the conversation will continue at home.  Enjoy.

Just a quick reminder that next Sunday, September 20th, will be our meet and greet event. This is a simple time for us to meet you and you to meet us.  This is also our deadline to receive a discount for the Refuel Winter Trip.  This happens with a $20 deposit.  We are limited with space and can only truly accept the first 45 students.   Sign ups will remain open after the meet and greet but this day will mark the end of the discount.

Meet & Greet is also a great time to update records and make sure we have all the information for you and your family.  We also have our consent that is good for the year available to fill out.  Filling this out means you don't have to fill one out for every trip.  So it's good to get that knocked out!   Other than we'd just like to see you and be available for questions and such.  So come and see us!

Hope everyone is well and excited for the opportunity today to much of Jesus and the glory of God.  Each day we head out to our work, school, gym, (fill in the blank) we have the opportunity to be on mission.  To use each day being spent for God's glory and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the mission at hand.  All else comes in a distant second to this one mission and purpose.

This sounds odd right?  It's a bit hard to say our marriage, children or family is a distant second to anything but it's truth, or should be truth.  The best thing you could ever do for your spouse, child, family, job, school, team, (fill in the blank) is to love God with all your heart and follow Him with your life.  If this happens everything else will benefit.  Truth will prevail and God has say your every need will be supplied.  This is a daily struggle, to live a life like this.  It's for this reason we exist as a ministry.  Rather than waiting until kids become teenagers and teenagers become adults we need to be communicating this simple truth.  I pray we all seek this life and seek to live for the glory of God.

Hoping your student didn't go to school today with a red, yellow, blue or green mouth in light of the snow cone overload last night.  We wanted to give them a treat as we kicked off the new year and from the sights and sounds of the night, it went over pretty good.

But more important than the snow cone, thought that's hard to believe, were the direction and vision we discussed during the night.  My love for fall has been well documented.  I love new beginnings and September always brings new beginnings to our ministry.  It's an opportunity to refine, sharpen and continue things as seek to lead students to know and follow Christ.  So last night we spent time looking at 3 different things:

1. Who we are, why we're here and how we accomplish these things as a ministry.  To learn more about this you can view our home page which is as informative as it comes.  The end result is we seek to help students know and follow Christ.  Everything we do has this as it's end.  If this is done God's glory will be known.
2. Life Groups - we are changing the way life groups will be accomplished this year.  Life groups are essentially care groups or small groups. This is our way to simplify our ministry and care for students.  We have around 140 students who have attended the Rock at some point.  With such a great number there is such a great need to ensure each student is loved, cared for, encouraged, and strengthened. Our hope is to have an adult paired with 3-5 students throughout the year and hopefully throughout their time here at The Rock.  This is also our gatekeeping system or "No Child Left Behind" strategy.  We're hoping this provides another form of contact and encouragement for our students.
3. Abide 2015/16 - This year is going to be very exciting and very packed.  Next week we'll actually begin teaching through this theme and we'll start with a good description of what it means to abide.  In short to abide is to remain, stay close to, be connected, or to dwell.  To follow Christ we must abide in Christ.  To abide in Christ involves two big things; Word and walk.  To abide we must get in the Word and in turn the Word gets in us.  When this happens life change occurs.  So our goal this year is to better understand the Bible as a whole.  We desire to get in the Word, know it, love it, and then live it (walk).   We've set our sights on a pretty lofty goal.  Our goal is to start in Genesis and end in Revelation.  We want to talk through the story of the Bible to see how it's connected.  As we do this we follow one important theme; covenant.  We want students to see that the Bible is one book given to us by one amazing God who loves and cares for us.  We'll spend the year talking through the high points and we'll use our devotions to fill in some gaps along the way.  8 main sections in 9 months.  A huge task but a great opportunity.  We will have more information regarding our theme down the road but hopefully this will help you understand a bit about where we're going.

There is more to say but I'm short on time.  Praying we'll see each of you this Sunday!

P.S - football is here!  I showed this video last night which seems to sum up how I'm feeling as we stand on the brink of football season. I'm sure there's a video summing up how Suzanne, my wife, feels too but we'll save that for another time.  Enjoy!