Good morning or afternoon or whatever time of day it is when you read this.  Whenever that is I pray you will read it as we seek to inform you as to all that's going on within The Rock SM.

We will not be meeting tonight at The Rock so consider this your sermon update!  Growing up I never considered trick or treating anything other than having fun, dressing up and getting candy.  "Back in the day" I never remembered a church doing anything like what we see today. I also remember being a trickster 13 yr old who would immediately begin begging for candy right after I got off the school bus. Nothing better than trick or treating at 3:30pm. The neighborhood pack of boys I ran with was a perfect mix of the Sandlot and Goonies boys. 

It was a fun day and night, we never considered it demonic or evil.  But something seemed to change as we got older and began to realize some things looked different. Society was changing, our minds were also thinking deeper about things.  This is true for so many things though isn't it?  Society changes, our minds push beyond the surface and looks for the deeper understanding and we continually find ourselves trying to make sense of the world where we're fortunate to live.  I love fall, I love the fun that halloween brings and I especially love that our Hallelujah night is no longer on the Saturday of the Georgia/Florida game.  All in all Halloween is what you make it, as in everything else.  But it's good to know our history, why we celebrate, what we're celebrating.  Before you know something like a bunny will compete for our Easter morning attention. 

So what is Halloween all about?  Where did it all begin?  What does Martin Luther and the Reformation have to do with this day?  Can I dress up?  Can I still get candy?  Should the church be involved at all?  All good and fair questions.  Short answer to the should I dress up and get candy.  I would say yes, go for it...I get dressed and typically have at least one piece of candy daily! So what's the difference?  The Mind.  The Attitude.  The direction of my focus and attention and heart.  But also a great reality is that this day that brings great focus on getting candy and dressing up has seemingly taken the focus off of a huge day for us as believers.

We owe much to Martin Luther and the Reformation period.  Don't know much about him or that great day back in 1517? (most of you weren't alive then I don't think)  

Below are some articles to bring you up to speed and also bring a fresh, biblical and christian point of view to both days.  

• 9 Things You Should Know About Halloween & Reformation Day (The Gospel Coalition)
• Trick or Treat?  It's Martin Luther! (John Piper)
• Christians & Halloween (John Macarthur)

What a day this will be!  A great big family dinner at The Rock SM.
Parents, we need your help.  Please visit the link and sign up to bring something to help us celebrate Thanksgiving as a family!       SIGN UP PAGE

Two events coming up soon!  Turkey Bowl is November 25th at the Central Middle Football Field.  New LOCATION!   Go grab some lunch after church and then head out to the field.  We need all those interested in playing to sign up beginning this Sunday

Refuel is close!  Signups are going, deposits are due.  Visit our Refuel page for more information for this great trip.
​

Since we do not have the Rock tonight and since our new devotion book begins tomorrow, we wanted to make sure everyone gets their hands on them!   You can visit any ROCK booth tonight and pick one up or you can do the devotions on your phone until then by clicking here.

Another week down in 2018.  This year is absolutely flying by!  One way we can live Biblically is to redeem each minute by doing God's work and will.  Ephesians 5 speaks of this and so I encourage and challenge each of us to remain focused on the prize.  Don't allow the seaweed of this world to engulf you.  See past it, through it, and around it as we seek to please God by devoting each moment of our day for Him.

​We have a few things to let you know about below.  Make sure you check those out, save the dates and plan to join in!

Andrew Toney led us in the Word last night at The Rock as we continued our series "The Gospel & You."  This series has helped think through how the gospel affects every part of our lives.  This good news is not just for our salvation, for heaven, for a new home/mansion.  This good news is also the power by which we can live in this world as salt and light.  The way that happens is by allowing to do it's work in every part of who we are and what we do.

Our mind is a powerful thing.  Our eyes are the doors of this powerful thing.  We must be careful to guard this mind as we carefully wade through a world of nastiness or even simple things that can easily derail us.  So this week we look at the gospel and our minds.

• October 27 - Hangout & Evangelism training - This Saturday from 6-8p we'll hang out at the Rock with some chili and some gospel training.  We want our students to be careful in sharing the story of hope, grace, love and redemption.  We have a simple way for us to do that and we look forward to enabling our students to share this great news! Parents welcome!  We all need sharpening right?
• October 31 - Hallelujah Night - 6-8pm - A great night to use our new evangelism tool.  There's plenty to see, experience, help with and do this night.  It goes without saying but I'll say it.....No Rock this night as we'll all be in the gym!
• November 14 - RockFeast - 7p - We'll have a sign up beginning Monday and really need your help in pulling this night off.  What is the RockFeast?  The RockFeast is a night where we as a family share a meal of epic proportion. Yes, epic is not longer epic but whatever.  Be looking for this email sometime next week.  
• Refuel - Please visit the Refuel page for the information.  We now need deposits for both trips.  Please sign up and place a deposit so we have a good idea of our numbers!

That's it for today.  Be encouraged!  Today is a new day and one that God has gifted us.  It is to be used for His glory as we wade through the details of our day and life.  Though today may be tough, full of good stuff, harsh, easy, stormy or full of sunshine we can no one simple truth; God is over it!  Be reminded of that and walk in confidence, boldness, and joy!  Jesus is alive!

​Chris

Good afternoon!  Hope everyone is having a great Thursday! Wanted to pass along some event details as well as a recap of our time together last night.

We were led by Alex Stewart last night as we continued our series "The Gospel & You."  This series is a look into how the Gospel of Jesus Christ affects every part of our lives.  We often view the Gospel as a one time thing, our ticket to heaven.  But the Gospel is the very thing that enables us to live a life that glorifies God, our chief purpose in this life.  Last night we look at our Talents.  We all have talents, big and small.  These talents are gifts to us from God.  He has wired us this way and empowers us to go and use these for Him.  But are we?   Much like last week we see the question of who owns who?  While we possess things they often seem to be possessing us.  I'd encourage you to follow along with the sermon notes and continue the conversation at home with your students.

Some things that are coming up for you to mark down, plan out and help with over the next few weeks and even months.

• Hallelujah Night - October 31st - 6-8p.   This is a huge outreach night for our church.  So in short we need you, the church family to BE HERE - BE ACTIVE - BE SALT/LIGHT
• RockFeast - November 14th is our annual Thanksgiving dinner for The Rock SM.  This is a cool time for students to experience the big family dinner with their ministry family.  You'll be seeing a link in the next few week.  This will be a great way for you to help out.
• Turkey Bowl - This is our annual flag football game.  It will be held after church the Sunday after Thanksgiving at 1:30p.  Save the Date!
• REFUEL - Visit our Refuel page for the full details.  For now just know we are now needing deposits for both the MS and HS trips.
• Devotions - Did you know The Rock SM leaders have been writing devotions the last two months?  We've been collecting and assembling these and making them available online and in print.  Pick them up in the Rock or find them online under "Daily Devotions".

Hope everyone survived the rain and thankful for those who were able to join us last night at The Rock.  Our time together was great, needed and refreshing!  So thankful we have the freedom to come together as a community of believers.  It's something that is so needed and not something we should take for granted.  We are blessed and I pray we never take that privilege lightly.  With that said, let's get to the point.

We continued our series "The Gospel & You" last night by looking at our possessions.  Ouch!
The Gospel was given to us to make impact in our lives but also to empower and enable us to make impact in our world.  God changes us and then uses us to change the world for His glory.  Our possessions can be something that helps this purpose or hinders this purpose.  Last night we looked at this thought and asked the simple question:  WHO OWNS WHO?

My sermon notes are attached below along with the slides.

Refuel is our winter retreat.  We have two separate trips for MS and HS.  I'd encourage you to head over to the REFUEL PAGE to learn more about the trip. 

We are now needing deposits for both trips, $20.  For more info, head over to the REFUEL page.  So excited about these trips!


That's it for today...be praying for those affected by the hurricane!
Chris

What a busy, exciting time!  I see your Facebooks, Tweets, and Instagrams.  I see you scurrying about as I scurry about.  I know that this is a busy and an exciting time.  Be encouraged and be reminded to make the best use of that time.  That's what Paul says in Ephesians 5, make the best use of the time, redeem it rather than waste it.  It's not a sin to be busy.  Definitely not a sin for that time to be exciting.  The sin comes when the time pushes Christ to the background.  That's why Paul goes on to say don't be foolish, but understand (and do) the will of the Lord.  So be encouraged but also be reminded to make the best use of that time.  Busyness is a strange business.  Insert the Mary and Martha story here.  All that to say this: Enjoy the busy, exciting times but make sure it's not coming at the expense of our following Christ.

What a joy to walk through Scripture with students and see their eyes light up when they connect heart to mind.  Of course this doesn't always happen and hardly ever happens to all of them at the same time but it's a journey right???  Last night as I spoke I saw many "dialed in" eyes.  I can only pray their heart was affected as well.  
The Gospel & You series is a up close look at the impact the gospel makes in our lives and then the impact the Gospel makes through our lives.  Many times, many people see the gospel as something that "gets them to heaven" while discounting the rest of their lives part.  The Gospel does enable us to spend all of eternity in Heaven but it also empowers us to make Jesus known in our lives here on earth.  In short the gospel impact our lives and then uses our lives to make great impact in our world.  But how, where, when?  That's where we're going the next few week. We'll look at the gospel and our possession, talents, mind and issues.  What we have, what we can do, how we think and how we view and handle the issues of this world are all impacted by our view of the gospel. The hope is we allow the gospel to make impact through us.  Ask you student about the yellow jacket illustration.  This was a great way to understand how the gospel WILL make impact.   Below are the slides and sermon from last night.

Hopefully you've all heard about our Refuel trip by now!  Here's the short, also available on our Refuel page.  Refuel is a time to get away.  It's a mini summer camp.  It's not as long but it has the potential to be make great impact.  We spend a lot of time talking, relating, studying, playing, and growing at Refuel.  It's just has great potential to be a connecting point for many students.  It's a great trip and one that has been a highlight of mine the last few years.

As of now we need to be getting deposits for the MS TRIP.  This deposit needs to be at least $20.  The HS Trip has another month but you could always go ahead and pay that to be ahead of the game.

If you have any questions regarding the trip please email or call.  We'd love for your students to be a part of this trip and we think they'd also love it!

You may have heard about our new shop at The Rock or you may have wondered why your student needed a $1.  We have opened a small shop at the Rock, The Rock Shop.  The main purpose is to help create a space where students can buy old Rock shirts and some other cool Rock things.  We also wanted to offer some food and drinks, though small.  These are all very cheap and the shop is by no means making money.  We feel like this is something that can help students out a bit with a quick bite after practice to a cool sticker to put on their notebook to a new journal to write their thoughts from their time in the Word.  All things to make life better for them.  At the end...if their better we're better!   Where else can you get a slice of pizza and a can of coke for $1?   If nothing else we no longer hear stomachs chirping during the sermon!  If by change we were to "come out ahead" we would dump any proceeds to The Seed Company/Bisoto Project each month.  So in a way students buying pizza could provide the Word of God to people around the world!



Have a great weekend and we'll see you out there, in the busyness of life! 
Don't forget that everywhere you go is an opportunity to make Christ known.

So thankful our team has the opportunity to be leading and walking with your students.