I am excited about this retreat! It will be an incredible opportunity to come together to receive some training on principles of making disciples who make disciples with guest speaker Mike Mohler of Trinity Point Church, Easley. One of the last things Jesus said as He ascended into heaven was, "Go and make disciples..." We must obey what Jesus commanded!

Every Christian in our church is at a certain level as a disciple. They may be a spiritual infant who has just come to Christ. They may be a spiritual child that is developing the habits of Bible study and prayer and growing in their relationship with God. Others are spiritual young adults; they are becoming less self-centered and more others centered. They are beginning to see themselves as a minister. Our goal for every disciple at Ridgeview is to become a spiritual
parent. A spiritual parent is a mature disciple but continually growing and developing in their personal relationship with God and as a disciple of Jesus Christ. They understand their role as one who needs to intentionally invest in others- making disciples who can make disciples.

The most important thing we must be about doing at Ridgeview is going and making disciples who can make disciples. We are convinced that the best way to do that is through relational environments! The relational environment tool that we use at Ridgeview is Growth Groups. We have seen time and time again over these last seven years great spiritual growth in the lives of those who choose to be a part of a Growth Group.

So, let me ask you to seriously consider coming to this retreat May 6-7. For $25 you will have three meals paid for and an incredible opportunity on how you can learn to be a disciple who makes disciples. This is one of the most important training events we've ever done. I hope to see you there!

Easter Sunday and Parenthood

What a wonderful Palm Sunday worship celebration we had, especially the baptisms! I'm looking forward to this Easter Sunday as we begin a new series entitled, "Parenthood." This Sunday we will deal with the parent's two priorities in raising their children. Let me encourage you parents to be here Sunday with your family. I'm going to share an interesting study Sunday. You've got to be here this Sunday to fill in the blanks, but here it is:

Kids Who Become Active Christ-Followers As Adults
If mom and dad went to church: __________ % of kids will as adults.
If mom only went to church: __________ % of kids will as adults.
If dad only went to church: __________ % of kids will as adults.
If neither mom nor dad: __________% of kids will as adults.

I promise the percentages will surprise you and are a big wake up call for all of us! One final thought; what does a series on parenting have to do with Easter? Well, I believe that because Jesus rose from the dead, He can help us with our families. Scripture says in Ephesians 1:18-20,  18) I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19) and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20) which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms..." Because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, the penalty for our sin has been paid for. And because He rose from the dead, for those who have believed in His name (like many of the parents at Ridgeview), they have the power to lead their families; the same power that raised Jesus from the dead!

Praise God! You may be struggling in your parenting skills but you have help available. You have God's Word and you have God's Spirit that gives you power. I look forward to seeing how God's Word and God's Spirit come together as we share principles from Deuteronomy 6 on effective parenting and praise the Jesus who gives us all hope!

See you Sunday!

Pastor Tommy

Good Week; Great Palm Sunday Coming!

I am looking forward to this coming Palm Sunday as we celebrate together the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. I am also looking forward to celebrating the lives He's changed Sunday as we baptize several people. It will be a unique service as we host the North Greenville University drama team, Act II. They will bring to life the book of Jonah that we have explored the last four weeks. This will be such a powerful service that we want our Ridgekidz in for the service this Sunday.

Let me remind all of us as we enter this Easter season to look for opportunities to share the love of Jesus with people and invite them to church. I'm so thankful for the crew that came out this Wednesday morning and passed out free coffee at O'Neal Village along highway 101. Week after week our church is building bridges in our community. So thankful God gives us those opportunities!

See you Sunday!

Pastor Tommy

This Small Church Made A Big Kingdom Impact This Week!

Okay, let me state the obvious. Ridgeview Church is a small church. But I believe Jesus uses the small things of this world to make a big Kingdom impact. All he needed was five loaves of bread and two fish and fed the 5,000! Ridgeview Church is a small church that is making a big impact! This week the Brown Growth Group went out on Monday night and took Panera bread to new homeowners. We built more bridges in our community! On Wednesday, we provided refreshments for the Skyland Elementary faculty meeting and our Ridgekidz had their service project where they went to the Cottages off Fairview road and passed out more Panera bread (see pics above). Let's celebrate the number of people we touched with the love of Christ this week (over 100)! I look forward to celebrating with you this Sunday as we finish up the book of Jonah. I will be preaching live, in person, in living color!

See you Sunday!

Rediscovering Biblical Discipleship

This past Monday & Tuesday John Mauldin, CJ Cauble, Paul Eill, Tanya Hargrove, and myself attended a conference at Trinity Point Church in Easley. This conference was called Immersion I. The point of the conference was to help churches rediscover Biblical discipleship. Okay, I know what you are thinking. Pastor Tommy has gone off to another conference and now he's going to try the latest church growth fad on us. Well, actually we have some great structure in place to continue to make disciples. This conference reiterated the things we are doing right, and how we can do them even better.

Some things we were reminded about in discipleship:

1) God's plan is relational discipleship- We weren't created to do life alone. To be successful in our relationship with God and in the mission He gave us requires relationship with one another. (John 15:4-5, Hebrews 3:12-13).

2) God's plan is intentional leadership: Jesus focused his resources on making disciples. He was a coach and didn't play all the positions himself. He invested in a few to reach the world and released his key players to develop other leaders.

We as a church must do the same. Also, as we develop intentional leadership we must all be on the same page. We must be in alignment. The key areas we must be in alignment are: 1) Theological alignment- we are a Southern Baptist church. We teach our key doctrines in our membership class. 2) Aligned philosophically- our vision is where we're going, our mission is how we are going to get there, and our process is the tools or road map to the mission. It is the intentional discipleship process. 3) Aligned relationally, 4) Aligned organizationally.

3) Relational Environments (Growth Groups!): We have always believed that true discipleship comes through relational environments with real teaching through God's word and by interacting with it.

As we continue to work through this process, we will be training our leadership on the discipleship process where we can see where people are and help to move them out of that stage into a deeper level of commitment to Christ. Our goal is to move everyone in our church into a mature, parent level discipleship where they are discipling others. We believe this is best accomplished through our Growth Groups. We will be implementing some incredible, life- changing Bible teaching through what is known as Bible storying.

I know this is a lot to process. In many ways this has been helpful for me to put in writing the things we've been through the last couple of days. I promise, this is not a conference we went to and the notebook will end up collecting dust on my bookshelf. You will see our church do a better job of making disciples in the months to come. After all, that's what Jesus called us to do!

From Pastor Tommy

Wow, great week! Lots of great stuff happening in the life of Ridgeview Church!

1) The Advisory Team, upon the recommendation of the student search team, has approved CJ Cauble to be our new Pastor to students. CJ brings a wealth of experience to this position. He has served churches in Rocky Mount, NC and Ware Shoals, SC. He is a graduate of North Greenville University and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has preached numerous times for me in my absence. Welcome aboard, CJ!

2) Stepping up our bridging! We had some great bridging opportunities this week in our community with our bridging with bread and Dunkin Donut Coffee Giveaway at Blue Ridge Middle. I will let the video share the rest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_3eGnvuMv8

3) Jonah series begins this week! I promise this will be a powerful message series. Here's where we are heading:
March 20- The Jonah In Us
March 27- Jonah's Prayer
April 3- Jonah Obeys
April 10- Jonah's Anger
April 17-(Palm Sunday) Act II Drama Team from North Greenville University (The Book Of Jonah Drama)

4) So proud of Kathy Green and family! Last Sunday they brought to church a young girl named Alexis that we saw come to Christ in our Good News Club a few weeks ago who is unchurched. That's what being a bridge of God's love is all about!

Japan
Also, the recent events in Japan have been awful to watch and read about. If you would like to help financially, let me encourage several options. You can write a check to Ridgeview Church and memo: Japan Earthquake Relief. We will send it to the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. They have personnel on the ground in Japan and will meet physical and spiritual needs of the Japanese people.

Also, if you want to give directly to the IMB: 
The IMB has established a relief fund for the Japan earthquake. Donations may be sent to Office of Finance, International Mission Board, 3806 Monument Ave., Richmond, Va. 23230. In the memo line write "Japan Response Fund." Or you can give online by going to imb.organd clicking on the "Japan response" button. For further information call the IMB toll-free at (800) 999-3113.

I also recommend Samaritan's Purse organization led by Franklin Graham. You can give online at samaritanspurse.org.

Pastor Chip Ingram has a great video blog response to this tragedy entitled, "How Jesus Would Respond To The Tsunami." 

You can check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiQiyaMG22o&feature=related

May the peace of Christ be with you this week. I look forward to celebrating Him with you this Sunday!

Pastor Tommy

--
Tommy Hargrove
tommyhargr@gmail.com
twitter: @TommyHargrove
864 630 9459

FYI

Random things I wanted to pass along...

*Lance Owens from SSI physical therapy will be sharing some thoughts this Sunday as we finish our series on A Bod For God. It's been a great series to focus us on the importance of taking care of the body God has given us.

*Dunkin Donuts free coffee giveway Thursday morning at Mountain View Elementary went well! Wish I had a picture to share but things were hopping so fast there wasn't a minute to spare. Great touches made!

*Our Bridge with Bread team visited several unchurched families Monday night whose kids attend our Good News Club. One family is allowing us to pick up their daughter for church this Sunday. This child accepted Christ recently at Club. That is so encouraging to me!

*Daylight Savings Time this Sunday which means set your clocks ahead one hour Saturday night. 

See you Sunday!

Pastor Tommy

Wednesday morning several from Ridgeview were able to serve free Dunkin Donuts coffee to midterm exam weary North Greenville University students. It was a great bridge event! As I came home I was reminded of the days when Ridgeview was just a dream God placed in my heart. As God continued to bring that dream to reality and brought a team of people together, I wrote a vision for the church that we now share in the membership class. I'd like to share it with you.

"Ridgeview Church will be a place where people are actively involved in a life-style of personal and corporate worship. It will be a place where Christians actively share the good news of Jesus throughout our community, our state, our nation, and our world. Our sharing will be done through acts of kindness, the development of authentic relationships, and seeking to meet needs in our community. Ridgeview Church will help people develop and cultivate a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We will also connect people to their Christian family where they will be valued and accepted and grow closer to one another and Christ through small group Bible studies. Ridgeview Church will be a place of faithfulness. We will be faithful in serving God by serving others. We will be faithful in finding how God has gifted us to serve and put our gifts into action."
Over these last seven years Ridgeview has sought to stay true to our vision. There have been challenges along the way and when one is gone another is right behind it. We also have to remember that this is spiritual work we do with real spiritual enemies who oppose the work of God's Church (Ephesians 4:12). Nevertheless, we press on! We have God's Word. We have God's Spirit. We have God's people. Serving free coffee to North Greenville University students this week was just one of a myriad of ways Ridgeview is seeking to fulfill the divine mandate Jesus has given us to "go and make disciples" (Matthew 28:19-20). We believe good deeds become the bridge upon which we can share the good news of Jesus. Sometimes it helps me to just step back and be reminded of the vision of our church. I hope it helps you too!

Pastor Tommy

Great To Be Back From Western New York!

Had a great time with our Ridgestudents & Brian Green at Circle C camp in New York! We were able to spend some time with our former worship & student Pastor Milo Wilson, Erin, and the girls. I was able to break away from camp Sunday morning and worship at The Well Church in Buffalo. It was exciting to see what God is doing there! So glad our church is able to partner financially to help this new church be a bridge of God's love to the wonderful people in the Buffalo area.

I want to say a big THANK YOU for the incredible gift I received when I returned. Pictured above is CJ & Shaneki Cauble's van we used for the trip. When I returned their van Tuesday I told CJ I had the oil changed and had his van washed and vacuumed. I was proud of myself. CJ then walked me over to my car and said, "Well, let me tell you what we had done for your car." I was in shock! Thank you for my new tires, my CV axle joints replaced, an oil change, and a good car wash. I understand the Growth Groups took up a collection. I can't thank you enough for your blessing! I serve such a wondeful church!

Again, so glad to be back as we continue our Bod For God series. We have some great worship services lined up in the coming weeks and months. Very excited about what God is doing at Ridgeview!

See you Sunday!

Daryl Hopkins To Speak This Sunday

I'm excited to have Daryl Hopkins, family life minister at Taylors First Baptist Church. Daryl is an expert in the area of health and fitness. He has been helping people in this area for a number of years. The last seven years he has been leading the family life center at TFBC. Most imporantly, Daryl loves the Lord and will share how taking care of our bodies will further enable you to pursue the purpose God has for your life. You will be blessed!

 

I would appreciate your prayers for me, Brian Green, Brice Green, & Spencer King as we head to our student retreat to Circle C Camp near Buffalo, New York this Thursday through Monday. We have a smaller number going but we are looking forward to growing closer to the Lord and to one another.

 

See you soon!