We are actively searching for some brave, dedicated souls to move to Missoula, MT and become a part of the RCC Ministry Team. We are currently looking for a Children’s Pastor and a Worship Arts Pastor to join us.
River City Church is one of the newest churches in Missoula, MT. Missoula (pop. 100,000) and is nestled in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of western Montana. Missoula is the home of the University of Montana, and has a growing population of college students and young families. River City Church is continuing to build its core team in preparation for a possible re-launch in 2012. We are looking for motivated individuals to join us in reaching Missoula in a culturally relevant way.
Please check out the links above for more information. We would also welcome hearing from you even if you don’t fit the 2 job descriptions above. Perhaps you have another passion/gifting to offer? Let me know if that’s you!
As you probably know I own a tent business (westernwalltents.com) and we have been sending tents to Haiti and we have some potential deals in the works for Chile as well. For $120 you can house a family in Haiti for the next year or more. We are sending a container of 500 tents next week, and another container within the month. The organization purchasing these containers is Global Aid Network, a subsidiary of Campus Crusade for Christ. If you would like to sponsor a family, you can send a check to River City Church with “tents” in the memo line. The funds we raise will go to purchase more tents than would have otherwise been purchased by these aid organizations.
We kicked off Love Missoula month by talking about being missionaries to our city.
All of us are missionaries.
I believe that in Acts 1:8 Jesus called us to go and be witnesses to our city first, our region next, and then the ends of the earth.
If we are making an impact in the cities God has placed us in, we have no business going anywhere else.
The primary way we will take our cities for the Kingdom of God is through prayer.
Anybody can serve, but only God’s people can serve through the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to be filled up each and every day.
Jesus’ disciples were very ordinary people until the day the Holy Spirit came down upon them. They were never the same again.
From that day on they were filled with dunamis power that resulted in the lame walking, the blind seeing, the dead living, and THOUSANDS of people coming to place their faith in Jesus Christ.
If we want to see revival in Missoula, we have to pray it in.
We also talked about the need for the church to be the most generous people on this planet. I doubt we’d be accused of that right now. We have some work to do.
Generosity opens doors to hearts and cities. We need to be the most generous people our city has ever seen, both with our time and finances.
When the church of Missoula comes together in prayer and generosity, we’ll see this city turned upside down for Jesus.
Had a bit of a rough week. Just felt dry spiritually. Had trouble preparing the sermon. Just wouldn’t come together. Don’t know why.
However, I have a great wife who prayed for me last night. Woke up this morning feeling refreshed and filled up. Full of faith.
Sometimes I hate my feelings. Feelings are a total ripoff. We need someone to speak truth into our lives when we’re feeling down for no particular reason.
Now, onto our service! We finished the Born Identity series by talking about our Rights and Responsibilities as a Christian. What are we to do with all of the blessings that God has given each of us?
Spiritual embezzlement is when we misuse/misappropriate the blessings that God has entrusted to us. They’re not all for us! Share the love!
God blesses us so that we can bless others.
American consumerism has infiltrated the church to the point that God has become a consumable commodity.
Example: “Like, I just don’t get anything out of the sermons” (in a Valley Girl kind of voice). Well, has anyone told you that church isn’t about what you get out of the sermon? Whatever happened to the church being the Body of Christ, and everyone doing their part to make disciples of all the nations?
We’ve gotten so wrapped up in “what can I get out of this” consumerism that we fail to see that God has made us stewards, not owners of His blessings.
We’ve been educated way beyond our obedience.
We as the church need a heart change if we want to change the world. We’ve got to get out of ourselves, and put on Jesus so that we can see the world through His eyes.
What has God told you to do with the gifts, talents, and blessings that he has given you stewardship over?
Crazy day today! I woke up at 2am and couldn’t go back to sleep. Tidied up my sermon for a couple of hours. I guess I wasn’t quite finished?
Had to have a heart to heart talk with God. Asked him, “We had all week to finish this. Why did you have to wake me up at 2am the morning of?”.
He didn’t answer me. But I’m okay with it because it was greatly improved by some stuff that God spoke to me while sleeping during my 3 hrs last night.
Got the sound system all set up, then Bryce had to run home because his 9 mo old fell down the stairs! She’s okay.
But we had no sound or powerpoint person. So Doug volunteered. It wasn’t his fault. I don’t know what happened, but we didn’t get to many lyrics on the screen during worship.
I had a lot of requests of the sound guy today. Recording sermons, showing videos, song lyrics, sermon powerpoint. I mean come on.
Did a new song called “The Stand” by Hillsong. Love it.
Oh yeah, all of our Kidway leaders were gone due to children falling ill or falling down stairs.
Thankfully my lovely assistant offered to help with Kidway. Did I mentioned I’ve been sleeping with my lovely assistant?
Other than a hectic morning, I think the service went well.
Spoke on Joshua 7-8, the effects of sin in our life, and the sin/shame cycle if the guilt is not resolved.
Thankfully, God resolved this issue before the foundation of the world through his son Jesus Christ.
Here are the steps to rid ourselves of sin and shame: 1) Confession Leads to Forgiveness; 2) Forgiveness Leads to Repentance; and 3) Repentance Leads to Restoration.
We dedicated 10 children today! What an awesome day. I really believe that this will be a day to remember for both the kids and the parents.
One of the things we did was pray a scripture over a specific area of each child’s life. I believe this was a prophetic action on our part. The bible says that our words have the power of life and death. Today we spoke life into our children and their parents.
Lot’s of visitors today. It was fun to have so many people. It just gives the room a different dynamic when it’s full.
Jordan and Tevan came over from Lewiston to help out this weekend. Jordan led worship with his usual energy. Love that guy!
Thanks Tevan for all of your help setting up today. It was fun hanging out this weekend.
In case you are a part of RCC and are wanting to plug in, we’re looking for help in the following areas: music, sound, video, kids, guest services, setup/breakdown, book keeping. That’s all!
Another way to plug in is to join our Thursday Night Dinner Group. We had about 30 people last week! This is gonna be a great summer! Email me if you want details.
Thanks to John and his crew for filling in on the worship team this week! It’s nice for our team to be able to take a break every now and then. No, it’s more than nice. It’s actually a necessity!
The song set really spoke to my heart this morning. The song “Give Us Clean Hands” has a line in it that says “Oh Lord we cast down our idols”. I had to personally face the fact that sometimes I make River City Church my idol. I’m sorry Jesus.
The song “The Heart of Worship” was a great reminder of how easy it is to just sing a few songs each week, and totally miss the heart of worship. God wants more than just a song…He wants our entire lives.
After church on the way home, my oldest son Riley said, “Dad, I really liked worship today.” Now that is huge. I’m not sure if he’s ever said that to me!
My family and I took a break this last week and went to the Courageous Leadership conference at RCC in Lewiston, Idaho. They had 2 amazing speakers, Paul Reid and Robin Mark, both from Belfast, Ireland.
Talk about powerhouse speakers! Wow. I’ve got some stuff I’m going to share with the rest of you someday.
The main reason I tell you about this conference, is that I came back refreshed. I don’t get to sit and listen much anymore. And I don’t get to sit around all day and just do nothing. I even got to drive my friend’s BMW convertible around all week. Thanks Mike!
I wrote my sermon last night on the way home, but it wasn’t too bad! I was hoping we’d have enough stories from the RCC Gives Back website that I wouldn’t have to preach today, but not so!
Great stories from RCC Gives Back. If you haven’t yet posted your story, do it now! I am so stoked about all the creative ideas that God has given us. We spent about 15 minutes this morning just reading stories and letting people share what they’ve done.
I shared about being the greatest in the Kingdom of God. Jesus said in Matthew 18 that we need to become like toddlers to even ENTER the Kingdom of God. We talked about 4 attributes of little children: innocence, simplicity, humility, and faith. We’ll never be great unless we can work these out like little kids do.
51 people today. Must be Post Easter Stress Syndrome. Or perhaps a sign of summer?
We’re praying for a new worship leader. Kristin and Jeff are leaving us next month and we’re going to need someone to step in. Please be praying with us for this person. We know that God has someone in mind and He just needs to show us who it is!
It’s funny that I haven’t mentioned finances for a long time in my blog. Just in case you were wondering, it’s because everything has been going well! We’re still getting about $1600 a month from outside sources, but giving from within has been steadily increasing. I don’t think we’re totally ready to fly on our own, but we’re really close!
RCC Gives Back is a grassroots effort of River City Church to bless the people of Missoula in a unique way. On Easter Sunday 2009, River City Church did the unthinkable and gave the offering back to the people with the charge to go and bless someone with the money.
I have already heard of some great ideas on how people are going to use the money to bless someone this week. But perhaps the best thing about all of this is that it is causing us to be intentional about blessing other people. Everyone I’ve talked to this week is so excited about thinking of ways to bless others. What if we did this every week? We’d constantly be looking for ways to bless others. It would completely change our mindset. We’d stop living for ourselves so much. I guarantee that if you live your life this way every day, you will be blessed!
