Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers. God isn’t offended by your biggest dreams or boldest prayers. He is offended by anything less. If your prayers aren’t impossible for you, they are insulting to God. Why? Because they don’t require divine intervention.

Join us on Sunday mornings at 10am @ River City Church as we find out what it means to pray audacious prayers! We’re believing that as we step out in audacious prayer during this season, that God is going to show up big time!

I wanted to share some good news with you. So far we’ve raised $5500 for the To Save A Life Campaign! We’re getting really close to our goal of $8000. That’s amazing for our church, especially during this time of year. Thank you to those who have given so generously!

In case you haven’t heard, let me fill you in on what I’m talking about. Last month we made a decision to reach 200 people this fall with the life-changing hope of Jesus. In order to do this, we need to raise $8000. That may seem like a lot, but it’s only $40 for every man, woman, and child we are able to reach. This is not going to be an easy task, but I know that God and His people are up to it. How do I know this? Because it’s God’s will that none should perish. He sent his Son because he loved the whole world, every last person. And He’s an Ephesians 3:20 God. And I believe He would do whatever it takes to reach the people of Missoula. And we as a church want to have (and should have) the heartbeat of the Father…a heart for his lost children. A heart to see them reconciled and made whole. And we should be willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

So although we’re well on our way to raising enough money to see 200 new people come through the doors at River City Church, we’re still $2500 short. Here’s where we need your partnership.

1. We need you to sponsor some lost souls. It’s $40 for each person we’re trying to reach. We’ve had one family sponsor 62 people. Another has sponsored 50 people. And yet another has sponsored 25.  That’s amazing. And that leaves us with 63 people left to sponsor.  And it doesn’t matter if you sponsor 1 or 50. But please consider sponsoring at least 1 person. If each of us did this, we’d be well on our way to easily reaching our goal!  Click here to make a one time donation.
2. If you don’t have the cash to sponsor someone, no problem. We’re having an RCC Yard Sale on Aug 25th. Please consider donating some items and helping out on that day so that we can raise some additional funds. But please, consider donating some items of value. Remember, each $40 could change someone’s life forever!
3. Please commit to praying for the people you are sponsoring. Ask God to show you your people, and pray and believe that God is going to change their life this fall through this campaign.
4. Invite, invite, invite! You need you to be inviting your friends and family. We’ll be kicking off a new series Sept 16th (see below). Invite them on this Sunday. We’ll have invite cards for you soon.
5. Last but not least, we need people to step up and contribute by serving. We need help in children’s ministry, greeters, worship, food and drink, setup, and LifeGroup leaders. If you haven’t already, please let me know how you can help to welcome and minister to all of the new people who are going to be coming through the doors in the next 2 months.

Here’s the plan for this fall. We’re going to be kicking off a series starting Sep 16th called “The New Normal”. The bottom line is this: Normal isn’t working. The normal American family is broke, stressed out, overworked, too busy, and lives a life of broken relationships.

There IS a better way… it’s the new normal. A normal where families have more than enough. A normal where families spend quality time together and aren’t running around frantically. A normal where relationships are whole and prosperous. It’s the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And it is possible for you and for all families. You’re going to want to invite your friends and family to this one.

We’ll also be kicking off a variety of LifeGroups. Relationships are the heart and soul of River City Church. And what better way to experience relationships than through hanging out with a group of great people each week.

So please, let’s partner with the others in your church who are giving generously to this campaign. It’s what RCC is about. And we’re not going to stop until we’ve done whatever it takes to reach Missoula with the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

For HIS Kingdom!

Brian

“A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” – C.S. Lewis

So what did Jesus say about himself?

1. Jesus Said He Came Down from Heaven

John 6:38, 42 – “I have come down from heaven.” … They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

2. Jesus Said He Is More Than Just a Good Man

Mark 10:17–18 – As he [Jesus] was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.”

3. Jesus Performs Miracles

John 10:36–39 – “Do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works. …” Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.

4. Jesus Said He Is Sinless

John 8:46 – “Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?”

5. Jesus Said He Is God

John 10:30–33 – [Jesus said,] “I and the Father are one.” [They] picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” [They] answered him, “… because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

6. Jesus Forgives Sin

Mark 2:5–7 – When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” … [Critics said,] “He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

7. Jesus Said He Is the Only Way to Heaven

John 14:6 – Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

8. Jesus Said He Would Resurrect from Death

Mark 8:31 – He [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.

(Taken from Mark Driscoll’s Blog)

• What an amazing day at River City Church!
• It was our 2nd week in our new facility, and we broke attendance records for the last 2 years.
• We had a lot of new families, AND we had 42 kids!
• Our Kidway program has totally stepped up their game. We’ve got a new check-in system that is top of the line. But we did get a bit overwhelmed with the number of kids. We usually have about 20.
• Jasmine and Jamie did “Your Great Name” as a special song and they knocked it out of the park! Seriously, if you weren’t moved by that song, you need to check and see if you have a pulse!
• We took up a special offering for Hellgate Elementary. We’re going to partner with them and help them in any way we can.
• I spoke out of Romans 1:18-2:3. Paul identifies 2 types of people here: the unrighteous and the self-righteous. His point is that even the righteous can tend towards self-righteousness by judging the unrighteous.
• The point is that we all need Jesus. He is our righteousness. We can’t earn God’s approval. It’s by faith alone.
• About 12 people made either 1st time decisions for Christ, or renewed their faith in Christ.
• It was an amazing day! He is risen!

• We’re moving! In about a month we’ll begin meeting at the LifeStyle Fitness building on North Reserve, in the Arby’s parking lot.
• You may be wondering why we’re making the move. I spent the evening laying out the rationale for the move and fielding questions. You can listen to that below. But I’ll try and summarize it here.
• We’ve been talking about our mission for the last month, which is to “Make followers of Jesus wherever we go.”
• Our mission flows out of God’s mission, which is to “Grow His Family and Kingdom”. When God looks at the world, he sees a whole bunch of people that aren’t a part of His family. Radical problem.
• Radical problems call for radical solutions. His solution was to send His only Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life. He appointed His church, us, as the messengers of this radical solution.
• If you’ve ever heard someone say that God doesn’t care about numbers…well, they’re wrong. There’s a book in the Bible titled “Numbers”. Hmmm. Also, read the book of Acts. How many times does the Author boast of thousands being added to the church daily? Sounds like it might be important.
• Numbers aren’t everything, but God wants to grow his family, so numbers obviously have to matter.
• Since RCC has made the move from Sunday mornings at the City Life building to Sunday eves at Convergence, our avg attendance has dropped 30% and stayed there.
• As your pastor, I’m here to tell you, “That’s a radical problem!!!” We can’t be satisfied that we’re doing everything we can to reach this city for Jesus when our church isn’t growing.
• We need a radical solution.
• Don’t get me wrong. I love our church. I believe that God is moving among us, and we’re seeing lives changed. I’m not questioning that. But there appear to be some barriers that are keeping our church from growing.
• The first barrier is our meeting time. Sunday evenings just aren’t the best time to meet. In fact, it is the worst time to meet. Particularly for young families. Many people WILL NOT come to RCC because of the time. Something needs to change.
• The second barrier is our location. It’s not bad, but it’s just not good. For the last 2 1/2 yrs we’ve met on the south end of town, which is saturated with church buildings. We feel strongly that God has called us to meet on North Reserve, which has very few church buildings (see map), and is the fasting growing part of our city.
• We’ve been knocking on doors in that area for the last 3 yrs but haven’t found any open…until now.
• The LifeStyle group fitness building has become available and will make a great meeting location.
• The third barrier is lack of momentum. We haven’t reached a critical mass at our church that provides the momentum necessary to move us forward. This is working with the 1st two barriers to keep us from growing.
• Radical problems call for radical solutions. We could just stay where we’re at, and hope for the best. But that’s not the type of leader I am.
• As long as you are a part of RCC, I will challenge you to do whatever it takes to reach this city for Jesus Christ. I will never settle for good as long as we have the potential for great.
• So in about a month, we will be moving to Sunday mornings on North Reserve. Don’t know the exact time yet, or the exact date we’ll be moving, but it’s happening!
• In the fall, we’re going to create some momentum by doing a huge Grand Re-Opening in our new location.
• So what needs to happen in order for us to make the move?
• We need to raise about $3500 to do this right. Good news is that we’ve already raised $1500! We’ve only got $2000 to go. The 2 largest expenses are chairs and a cargo trailer to keep them in. We’ve already got the cargo trailer. Now we need 100 chairs.
• Here’s how we’re gonna do it: I’m asking each one of you to help out by purchasing a chair for yourself and each person in your family. However, if that’s all we did, it would be a little shortsighted, because we want the church to grow, right?
• So I’m also asking each of you to purchase an additional chair for each person in your family.
• So for myfamily of 6, that would mean buying 12 chairs. At $10 each, that’s $120.
• Now maybe you don’t have any extra cash right now. I understand.
• That’s why we’re doing a church eBay garage sale! All you have to do is bring in your items that are worth $25 or more, and we will list them on eBay for you and sell them to raise funds for the move.
• I’ve already found enough items to raise at least $250 for our portion. I’m sure most of you are just like me, and have stuff lying around that you haven’t used in a while. Bring it in next Sunday!
• So for the next 2-3 Sundays we will be accepting offerings to help pay for the chairs. If you decide to give money, just write on your envelope “Chairs” so we will know that it is not your usual offering, but it is above and beyond to help pay for the move. Also bring in your eBay items. We’ll take care of the rest.
• I hope you can get excited about what God wants to do with RCC. Our goal is not to become a mega church, but to reach as many people with the life-changing message of Jesus Christ that we can. It’s to see this city transformed by the love of God. And by the grace of God, we’re going to see that happen!
• Can you believe that with me? Will you do whatever it takes to see that happen? Me too!

I just wanted to let you know that we will be doing 2 Christmas Services this year. The 1st service will be this Sunday, Dec 19th. We will have our full worship team doing our regular music plus some Christmas music. The sermon is titled “God With Us”.

The 2nd service will be Sunday, Dec 26th. We will have an acoustic worship set with Christmas music, and the sermon is titled “A Cosmic Gift Exchange”. Both services will start at 6pm as usual.

If you’ve been thinking recently about inviting a friend or family member to church, consider these statistics.

People are most open to matters of faith:

• #5 – After the birth of a baby (28%)
• #4 – After a natural disaster (34%)
• #3 – After a major national crisis i.e. 9/11 (38%)
• #2 – During the Easter season (38%)
• #1 – During the Christmas season (47%)

All of us have friends and family members who are WAITING to be invited to church this Christmas. You may be their only lifeline. So pray about it, and offer up a simple invite to join you at one of our services. It could change their lives forever.

Merry Christmas!

• We did an acoustic set last night and even included a couple of Christmas songs! Sometimes it’s nice to get rid of all the frills of music and just focus on the simplicity of worship.
• We had 8 visitors last night, which is big for us. It was fun visiting with each of them.
• We continued the Real series this week with Real Jesus.
• We answered the question, “Who is the Real Jesus?”
• I would say that most Christians don’t just believe that Jesus was a good teacher, a prophet, or whatever. Most believe that he is the Son of God.
• But what many of us suffer from is what I call a “Plastic Bobblehead Jesus Theology”. Plastic Bobblehead Jesus is much more convenient than Real Jesus.
• For example, Plastic Bobblehead Jesus never tells us that we’re doing anything wrong. And we can always just put him back in his box if we don’t need him around.
• We even kicked off the sermon with a song called “Plastic Jesus” by Billy Idol. I think you’ll like it…

• What an amazing night tonight!
• For starters, Sam Maynes, Largent Rape, and Ryan Stephens came over from RCC Lewiston and rocked it. Our very own Kelly Indreland played drums with them and I’ve never heard him play so well. It was hot!
• The presence of God was thick tonight. For us, these have been somewhat rare times, but becoming more common. I’ll never take these moments for granted.
• They introduced 4 new songs tonight. 3 of them were written by the guys from Lewiston. Serious anointing on those guys for music.
• I preached on the topic of Salvation tonight. Big topic, but I narrowed it down to these few things: Most of us have settled for something less than what God has intended. If we would collectively believe the life-changing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we would see our city transformed.
• I loved to see the Spirit flow the way He did tonight. We had some ministry time after the sermon and James laid hands on people and imparted the gift of faith. I’m believing for greater faith for all of us who were prayed for.
• I just love River City Church. I love the people. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want anything to change. But there’s another part of me that knows we are called to reach Missoula with the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh the tension. But not really. We must grow because we must reach those who are far from God. We must do whatever it takes.
• JustKeepingItReal.org

• Tonight was a defining moment for River City Church. One of those once in a lifetime experiences in my opinion.
• Why tonight? I don’t really know. Why was the worship so absolutely incredible? It’s hard to say.
• All I know is that Jesus showed up in a big way and we were changed forever. I think it’s just a sign that we’re on the verge of something big. Something we’ve been praying for, for quite a while.
• It feels like we’ve been climbing this mountain for a while, and it’s been non-stop vertical for quite a while. I feel like we just crested something…not the summit per se, but definitely a milestone.
• Not only was worship incredible, but the testimonies tonight were off the hook. Seriously couldn’t plan a more Spirit-filled night.
• God is at work in people’s lives. We had so many people want to share a testimony, that we had to cut it off before it got too late. I hated to do that, but we needed to get to Famous Dave’s for dinner.
• Seriously though, God is working in people, and working through RCC.
• I couldn’t be more encouraged. As usual, we recorded the mini-sermon and testimonies, but for some reason the recording sounds horrible. Not gonna post it.
• If you’re a member of RCC and haven’t been in a while, you need to get your butt down here on Sunday eves. I just don’t want you to miss out on a move of God that could change your life.
• If this is your first time reading this blog and you’re in Missoula, you need to get your butt down here so that you don’t miss out on a move of God that could change your life.
• If you’re reading this from afar, just know this: God is still on the move and working in your life. He is writing a powerful story…your story. He’s not finished with you yet. There are greater things to come.
• JustKeepingItReal.org

• Sorry for the short post last week. I was busy, and in a bit of a funk to be honest.
• This week is different. God is moving so big in people’s lives that it’s hard not to be excited!
• I’m reminded that if 1 person enters the Kingdom of God, that all of the angels rejoice. It’s all worth it.
• We got a new drummer this week. I put out a call on Facebook for a drummer, and one of our own, Kelly Indreland, texted me within minutes saying he used to play all the time.
• So we went to the church yesterday for a couple hours and practiced. He can drum!
• Worship went awesome tonight, except that I broke a string on the first song. Of course I’m the only one that noticed. How can that be? I didn’t even finish the first song!
• I feel like we’re in this season right now where it doesn’t even matter what our talent level is. It’s more about the heart. Even so, I think worship has moved up a notch in the last month.
• Preached on grace again. Big surprise. I think we’ve preached on that the last 4 weeks. Doesn’t get old.
• In fact, it’s causing some serious life change for people. I’ll preach it for the next 80 yrs if people’s lives are being changed. Billy Graham did it. If you listen, his message didn’t change for all the years that he preached.
• He preached Christ and Him crucified. That’s all. The greatest preacher of all time.
• Oh, btw, if you want to know the real driving force behind all the life change, that would be prayer. God is moving RCC to pray more, and it’s working.
• Here are some lyrics from David Crowder’s song, How He Loves Us:
• “When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory”
• “If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking”
• “And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss”
• The original says, “And heaven meets earth like sloppy wet kiss”. I like that better.
• “I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about, the way, He loves us…”