Welcome Back, NGU students!

Tim, Anna, & Judah Norton Update (He's another NGU graduate!)

 

Welcome Back, NGU students!

 

It was great to have North Greenville University students with us in worship last Sunday. They are back for the Fall semester. They have been a wonderful part of our church the last five years. They bring an energy to our worship services just by their presence. They are an integral part of our church! In fact, our entire brass instrument team is composed of three NGU guys: Brandon Graves, Jon Haney, and Austin Blake. We have one NGU student who will be working in our Good News Club. We will also be having a college Growth Group this semester led by a NGU student. It is encouraging when I read their Connection cards and the question that asks how they heard about Ridgeview. Many say they heard about us from friends on campus. Our church has had a great relationship with the school for the last five years as we have hosted their sports teams for worship and lunch. We have also provided commuter luncheons for them on campus. We have helped freshman move in. I have had the opportunity to speak on campus for their chapel service. Our own Worship and Student Pastor Milo Wilson is a graduate of that fine instution. Let me encourage our entire church to pray for these precious students. Maybe offer to take them to lunch. Befriend them! They are some of the finest young men and women you will ever meet. It is an honor for many of them to call Ridgeview their church home away from home!

 

 

 

 

Sunday morning Growth Groups. Fall change is in the air!

This past Spring, after hearing from some leaders in our church and exploring some options, I felt led to explore Sunday morning Growth Groups. It was too quick to implement this summer. I believe the timing is right as we go into the Fall. Our Fall Growth Groups semester will be from September 13 - December 13. I am meeting with our leadership team tonight and we are flexible on many aspects of this change. Paul Eill is working closely with me in helping to plan for this semester. I am simply requesting we offer Groups on Sunday morning before the worship service and that we allow our kids to worship together with our families during the worship time (babies and toddlers would be the exception and we would provide childcare for them). I believe this offers many benefits: 1) It will allow our church to better connect with one another. Currently, on Sunday mornings we rush to set up, have our worship service, and then rush to take down. I believe by having Groups on Sunday morning we will add more fellowship time along with Bible study and this will help close our back door. 2) I believe it will enable us to better connect newer people to our church in Groups by having the advantage of them meeting on Sunday morning before the worship service. This will also help us better connect people who begin attending Ridgeview but drop out after a month or two because they never connected with anyone. 3) I believe this will bring even more unity in our church. Currently, if a volunteer is serving in our preschool or children's areas, they miss the worship service. Many times when they serve for a month they feel out of the loop and uninformed. I believe this will help alleviate that. 4) I see a value in families worshiping together. We as a parents need to model for our kids and I believe a great way we can do that for them is in the worship service. 5) I see this as freeing up the week to enable more and more people to find a Life Transformation Group (LTG) for deeper discipleship. They can meet anywhere or anytime.

 

I have said for many years that people are not looking for a friendly church, they are looking for friends. Ridgeview Church is a friendly church. We consistently get them in feedback from first timers. But, one area we can improve upon is helping people connect more at Ridgeview. If  they don't do that, they will eventually leave. I believe this is a step in the right direction. We don't have all the answers yet, and I would love to hear your feedback. We simply are trying this experiment for the Fall. If we find it isn't working for us we will reevaluate it for the new year. Rest assured, our purpose will never change: To be a bridge of God's love to all people so they may experience His purpose for their lives.

 

See you Sunday!

 

Pastor Tommy

 

Show Me Your Faith!

Show Me Your Faith!

 

I look forward to sharing with you a very important message this Sunday from James 2:14-26 entitled, "Show me your faith." I encourage you to read this passage beforehand. I believe it sums up why Ridgeview Church seeks to be a bridge of God's love to all people so they can experience His purpose for their lives. We have been saved from our sin by the blood of Jesus Christ. As a result, the fruit of our salvation translates into good deeds we do for one another and for our community. It naturally flows out of us because of our faith in Christ.

 

One way our church displayed our faith recently was the bookbag giveaway last Sunday night. Pictured above is the event at Century Park. It was organized by Freedom Fellowship and several churches joined in like Ridgeview. Many of you donated money to buy bookbags for kids. Well, Sunday night around 1,400 people showed up and around 725 bookbags were given away with school supplies! Thank you Chris Crist,Tonya Crist, Bill Howell, and Debbie Howell for coming out Sunday night and working the balloon stand. As kids and parents waited in line sometimes twenty to thirty deep to get a balloon animal, the joy and fruit of your salvation was awesome to see! What I love about Ridgeview is that we have many in our church who are showing their faith by their deeds. We received great compliments from Northwood Baptist on how our people were enthusiastic and just loved on the kids who showed up at the Mega Sports Camp.

 

So, again, the question and also challenge I will lay before us is, "Show me your faith!" James challenges us all in chapter two verse fourteen, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can his faith save him?" This is a tough verse and one of the most controversial in Scripture. I'll unpack it Sunday and you will see there really is no controversy at all. It makes perfect sense.

 

See you Sunday!

Partnership

Partnership

 

I've been reflecting this week on some of the ways our church has been partnering with other churches and organizations this year. Maybe that's on my mind because we are in the middle of our Mega Sports Camp that is being held at Northwood Baptist Church in Greer. It is a beautiful sight to see: people from Ridgeview and Northwood coming together and pulling off a great sports camp. No matter if our membership is at Ridgeview or Northwood, all of us claim our allegiance to Christ and citizenship in Heaven.

 

I thought about how our church will partner with Freedom Fellowship, Springwell, and Living Way Community Church this Sunday night. We have helped to provide six hundred book bags with school supplies for the community that will be given away at Century Park. I thought about how our church partnered with Taylors First Baptist and Habitat for Humanity to help build a house off Edwards Street in Taylors. I thought about the six Friday nights we were downtown Greer hosting the Kidszone for the Tunes on Trade Greer Idol. (I just received an email today thanking our church for our involvement in that event and asking us to come back next summer.) I thought about how our Good News Club partners with Mtn View Elementary and Child Evangelism Fellowship to provide an after school program for kids on Thursdays during the school year. I thought about how our church partnered with Crossroads Church in Staten Island, New York to host a sports camp and how we helped them paint several rooms of a school. I thought about how our church partners with thousands of Southern Baptist churches by pooling our money with them and giving to the Cooperative Program. We give to the Cooperative Program so people from our church like Tim and Anna Norton can go to places like Madagascar and stay for four years and share the love of Jesus. I thought about churches that have partnered together in praying, in giving financially, and providing housing for the Wilson family as they care for Josiah at the Medical University hospital. Finally, I thought about the three year partnership between Ridgeview, Taylors First Baptist, and the South Carolina Baptist Convention over five years ago to start a new church. That new church today is called Ridgeview. Thank God for that partnership!

 

Ultimately, we must partner with Jesus to see any good done in this world. Jesus said in John 15;5, "...apart from me you can do nothing." Secondly, we must understand that partnership among other churches is essential in reaching the world for Christ. Thirdly, we must understand that partnering with our brothers and sisters in Christ in our local church is essential not only for the health of the church but for the health of us as Christ-followers.

 

You can partner with Ridgeview Church each week by:

 

1) Having an attitude of a servant and find out how you can get involved. Please see the weekly Ridgeview email and your program on Sunday for numerous opportunities.

 

2) Giving financially- When you are faithful in your giving you enable your church to extend the reach of its arm of outreach through great bridge events like Mega Sports Camp we are involved in this week.

 

3) Prayer- You can pray weekly for your church and the various ministries it supports. Linda Smith is our God's Power prayer ministry director. You can sign up for her weekly prayer emails at dlmasmith@charter.net.

 

I enjoy being a partner with you in ministry. We're all on the same team serving the same Lord. If there are areas in your partnership that are weak whether you are involved at Ridgeview or a member of another church, would you pray and ask God to help you step up to the plate (sorry for the analogy, been at sports camp all week doing baseball). Life is too short and fragile to waste the partnership opportunities God gives each one of us.

 

 

In Christ,

 

 

Pastor Tommy