Meeting the Risen Savior

Jesus teachings are truth and by following His principles for life, our lives will be changed.

But as we learned this morning at RCC, when we experience Christ's resurrection in a personal way, that is where real life change happens.

Sometimes we are afraid of talking about our spiritual lives in terms of "experience." It seems mystical and non-logical. And from some spiritual persuasions, it can be seen as heresy.

However, when you look at the early church leaders, their passion and their message was based on their experience with the risen Christ. It was not "Jesus taught this..." and "You should live this way...". It was..."have you heard about Jesus, the one who rose from the dead!!!"

Until we experience the risen Savior, His principles are simply "life improvement." But the only way to experience life transformation as His disciples did is to EXPERIENCE him as MY RISEN SAVIOR.

When I have experienced the risen Christ, my passion and message will be contagious just like the early disciples in the book of Acts. And once I have experienced that, His teachings can be applied to my life much easier.

Have you? And if so, how is that EXPERIENCE showing in your life and impacting those around you?

Three Services

This past Sunday, we unveiled that RiverTown will be going to three services beginning on April 5^th. As we all heard, the new service times will be 8 AM, 9:30 AM, and 11 AM. Please understand that this is not because we just want to add a service, but because we MUST. Our services, especially 2^nd service, is consistently running about 75% full, and in a rural area, when a room is around 70% full, people will not come back.

Just to share a statistic with you: During the month of February alone, over 1,000 different individuals attended a Sunday morning service at RCC. With our weekly attendance averaging right around 700, that means many are only coming once or twice. And could the fact that we are full provide a valid excuse for them to miss church?

More service times means more room to invite your friends. Our goal is to have maximum seating at optimal inviting hours. And on Easter Sunday with three service times, we will need all hands on deck. So if you are part of a service team (as a leader I hope that you are), check with your team leader to offer to serve extra. Then come to the 8 AM service and then serve the people who God will be bringing. You can encourage your group to do that same.

And, you really don't want to miss what we have planned for Easter. I know we have said this a lot lately, but it is going to be an incredible message, and I guarantee you won't forget it easily. And that friend who you have been trying to get to come to church--do everything outside of something illegal or immoral to get them to come.

And while we are talking about Easter, it would be a great time of the year to celebrate communion as a group. Attached is a document that gives the Scriptural mandate for communion, and well as some ideas of how to do that in a small group.