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Archive for November, 2010
The following video will at least cast a glimpse of our vision for the preaching rally. Again, please consider your involvement, and plan now to attend the meeting on January 9!
Preaching Rally 2011 from Calvary Baptist Church on Vimeo.
Attorney David Gibbs Jr. will be joining us on Sunday, Dec. 12, for our evening services. It has been some time since we last heard Dr. Gibbs, and you will not want to miss his preaching. The following paragraph gives a snapshot of the ministry that he founded:
The ministry of the Christian Law Association effectively began with a phone call from a pastor in Ohio. As a young attorney, David C. Gibbs, Jr. could hardly believe his ears as the pastor relayed how his church was being sued by the state for operating its ministry. As he reviewed the legal documents, Dr. Gibbs was astonished that such a thing could happen in modern America. From that very first case through the present day, God has blessed Dr. Gibbs’ commitment to legally help churches, pastors and Christians. The ministry has grown substantially through God’s blessing over the last 40 years as attorneys, legal assistants and other ministry workers have joined our team of “legal missionaries.”
Dr. Eldon Martens of West Coast Baptist College will be preaching all services on Sunday, Nov. 28. The following has been said about his life and ministry:
Dr. Eldon Martens has been serving Christ in full-time ministry for more than forty years. For fourteen years, he served as the pastor of Central Baptist Church in Clovis, California. In May of 2007, he resigned his position as pastor and is now serving with West Coast Baptist College representing the department of advancement and church planting.
The following graphics can be downloaded for free and used as promotional material for the Preaching Rally. If you have any troubles with any of the downloads, please let me know and I can email you the files you desire. If you click on the link, your download should start immediately.
Posters
Print and crop:
Print. No crop:
Postcards
The following postcards can be printed on an 8.5×11 sheet of card stock and cut to size (4.25×5.5 – quarter sheet). The download is a 2-page PDF and the font is Arial. Feel free to use your own wording or add to what’s there as you see fit!
Sign-up Sheets
For your convenience, the following sign-up sheet can be downloaded for use in your group:
Announcement Sheets
The following sheet has 2 half-sheet handouts that can be used for Sunday School announcement sheets. These handouts contain the same information as is found on the posters, and we have included both a color and a grayscale version for your needs.
With trepidation and extreme excitement I make the announcement that our church will be hosting its first annual Preaching Rally, a day designed by content and directed toward young people’s hearts. On the 4th Saturday of February, churches from all over Southern California will come to our church to hear three specifically designed messages from Romans 12:1-2. The theme will change from year to year, but this year’s theme is simply entitled Surrender, and will compound to show The Motivation, The Strongholds, and The Victory. Much more can be read on the subject by clicking here, and we will be adding as much as possible to this website as the event grows nearer.
With as large a scale as we have envisioned, and with the level of excellence that we desire to promote, this type of event will allow for LOTS of church involvement! While I do not even know yet what it will entail, a major overall goal is to develop leadership in the church and to involve 100% of the congregation. ”That’s impossible, Bro. Ryan! Some people never do anything around here.” Some have never been asked. Some have never taken the initiative. Some never really think about it. Some don’t know what they could do. As I write this, I’m thinking of Bro. Dave McCracken’s Sunday school message this morning on “Rugged Individualism,” and how he said that those who are not involved think that 1) The church doesn’t need their help (pride), or 2) They don’t need the church’s help (pride).
I’m confident that if every person were individually offered a role they could fill, they would do so joyfully. What eases SO many burdens of leadership is when people voluntarily offer their services and their help. What would be wonderful is to have members who would say, “I can be available when you need me for whatever you need done.” That is such a great spirit to have!
On another level, you would be invaluable if you could be trusted to become a “chief.” We have some major areas of things that need to be done, and I don’t know how to do it all; nor do I have the time or skill to be able to think through and complete each step. I cannot overemphasize the blessing that people are when they absolutely own a ministry or responsibility.
We are working very hard at getting things together and gathering our thoughts on what needs to be done, but some of the overall major areas are as follows:
Registration
Decorations
Parking
Graphics
Mailings
Preaching
Food
Skits
Music
Meetings
Prayer
Setup/teardown
Cleanup
Media
Each area has several sub-sections, and some will be much more labor-intensive than others. However, in this list is an opportunity for every willing individual. What a blessing it would be for folks to take the initiative to say, “I’ll think through parking and get you a plan on what we’ll do that day. I’ll help with food, but I don’t want to be in charge of it. I’ll be in some skits if you need. I can set up tables and chairs. I will be on a decorating team, if you’d like…” The list is endless, but doable with help.
Within the next couple months we will have a meeting to allocate help. Please consider your part in this. As we do our part to serve others, we trust God to bless our efforts. Thank you for being so generous with your time already. I can’t even explain how much this event has consumed my thoughts over the last month, and I am already terrified and excited about how it’s going to go!
We will communicate as often as possible. Until then, enjoy the little preview that you have so far!
Thank you,
RR
We desire to communicate as often as possible, and the following two messages were the letters that we sent to 60 area pastors and youth directors. If you have any questions or desire to learn more, please let us know!
Dear Pastor and Youth Director,
With all that crosses your desk, I sincerely appreciate your time and consideration as we announce and invite your group to our first annual Preaching Rally. More correspondence, graphics, and information will follow, but I wanted to make you aware that on Saturday, February 26, 2011, Calvary Baptist Church of Temecula, CA, will host area churches for a time of fellowship, food, and especially preaching. The cost will be $5 per attendee, and the rally will go from 11am to 3pm. The latest information can be found by visiting www.cbctemecula.org/pr, calling Ryan Rench at (951) 676-8700, or emailing me at ryan.rench@cbctemecula.com.
CONTENT
The model set by The Men’s Advance, an annual men’s meeting hosted by Bible Baptist Church in Stillwater, OK, is that “Content drives everything.” We desire to host teens from around Southern California with a content-driven message ofSurrender: The Motivation, The Strongholds, The Victory from Romans 12:1-2. In what we are calling a “Preaching Rally,” teens will hear three sessions that are designed to drive home one central idea: surrender.
The preaching, the skits, and the decorations will combine to show that because God has been so merciful to us, we ought to surrender our own way and allow God to shape us in His will (the motivation, the strongholds, the victory). These sessions will be preached by evangelist Bryan Samms, professor and representative of West Coast Baptist College, and me.
While the guest preacher can often times be a determining factor in your attendance, we hope that the strength of the overall content is also a large contributor to your decision-making year after year (althought that is not to say our guest preacher is “sub-par” at all!) We are very pleased to have Bro. Samms with us this year, and if you have never heard him preach, I would recommend listening to any of his sermons through the website: www. preaching.lancasterbaptist.org/guest-speakers. Bro. Samms has preached to thousands of teenagers over the years, and his dynamic style helps convey God’s message clearly. You will appreciate that he does not preach from God’s Word; he preaches God’s Word.
Leading up to this rally, our church will make every effort to do our part in creating an environment in which God can speak to teen’s hearts. While we would never pretend to manipulate the Lord’s moving, we certainly want to remove any potential distractions, and will be working very hard to ensure that this rally is not a wasted Saturday for you and your teens.
VISION
To be transparent, I have all kinds of fears and worries about how well the teens will like it, how the schedule will go, who will attend, how smoothly the correspondence will take place, and so on; but at the same time I see this whole meeting as a potentially life-changing day for some. In my mind, the benefits far outweigh the tasks. A general need for teens today is more preaching, and a specific need is their complete surrender to the Lord.
Further, as teens make friends at camp and other activities, sometimes they never see them again until the following year. A side benefit to a February meeting is that it provides teens another opportunity to strengthen those bonds.
IMPROVEMENTS
With your help, I can see a rally like this not only increasing in benefit but also in number. Starting even now, may I request that you: 1) pray for the meeting, and 2) note every little detail and think through possible improvements that we can make for next time? If you have any questions or comments throughout this whole process, please let me know. We will certainly not be able to think through every scenario, and I cannot emphasize enough that I desire your help in improvements in graphics, registration, communications, parking, schedules, decorations, food, skits, music, media, and so on.
REQUEST
As this is our first time in a long time to conduct a meeting like this, we do not know exactly what to expect. In our financial considerations we explored several ideas, but rather than take an offering at the rally or charge more per teen, may we request that $25 be donated from each church represented? This will defray speaker costs, and can certainly be negotiated per church.
THANK YOU
Finally, thank you very much for your consideration and involvement! We will communicate with you as we get closer and closer to the deadline, and we are already very excited to see what great things God will do! Once again, if you have anyquestions, please feel free to contact me any time. I will do my best to get back with you before the end of each day.
God bless as we work toward more surrendered teens!
In faith,
Ryan Rench
November 3, 2010
Dear Pastor,
Thank you for your investment in lives. I know that if you are reading this letter, you most likely have a heart to see people challenged, hearts changed, and lives that are growing in Jesus Christ every day. Few souls in the church that you pastor are more receptive to training and challenge than your teens, and we are praying that God uses them in your church.
I want to personally invite your group to join us as we host our first annual Preaching Rally. Teens all over America are regularly bombarded with the world, and very few activities will be more beneficial to their spiritual lives than being under the preaching of God’s Word. Other activities such as ball games, amusement parks, and bonfires are held for specific reasons, and they accomplish great purposes; but activities centered on preaching will help make an important statement to them when they attend.
Teams of workers are already being assembled to prepare for your teens as they come, and we pray that you will sincerely consider attending. We are doing all that we can to make it a profitable day, and we want nothing more than to create an orderly environment in which God can speak through His Word to your teens. Evangelist Bryan Samms will be preaching two of the three messages, and each detail of the Preaching Rally is designed to drive home the main point: surrender.
I certainly understand that you are constantly stretched to make decisions and monitor the balance between church involvement and family time for those in your church, and I simply ask your sincere consideration on the matter. We will do our part and allow God to work through it.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call us at (951) 676-8700 or email us at info@cbctemecula.com. Thank you for your service and your time.
Because of Him,
Pastor Wm. Rench
Satan will fight even what we consider to be “small” steps of faith, but our teens got to see God answer prayers this week. Even with big games looming and a lot going on at school and home, all five teens who went to the West Coast College Days now have no regrets about attending. That’s a simple answer to prayer. A couple Sunday nights ago we had our first parent meeting, in which we tried to convey a few goals for the Teens of Faith. A major goal that we have is to further promote an atmosphere, or culture, of Bible College, and we got an incredible taste of dorm life, great preaching, loving and true friendships, and the general “Bible College buzz.” That’s a simple answer to prayer.
The more trips that we take like this, and the more exposure that these teens have to all that is involved in Bible College, the warmer and warmer their spiritual fire will grow. I am so excited to report that God literally changed lives and mindsets this week, and he is leading and helping our teens every day in their walk with the Lord. With only a few paragraphs of text, no one could adequately describe God’s moving, but we sincerely hope that the fire continues to show brighter and brighter.
I appreciated the maturity and spiritual discipline that almost all the teens showed this week. At college days, everything’s exciting, and games are going on, and everybody’s happy, and the preaching is on fire, and the classrooms are packed, and the dorm life is new… it would be easy for some to be more easily swayed to make decisions based on the emotion of the moment rather than to wait on God. Praise the Lord that each one said in essence, “This might be where God wants me, but I’ve still got time for him to lead me.” I appreciate that spirit so much, and it says a lot about their life and future.
Another trip that has been mentioned before is the Heartland Baptist Bible College Days in Oklahoma City. We are already exploring options and costs, and many of those who are waiting on the Lord are waiting to see how he leads them while at Heartland. God has things that he wants to do with every person in the world, and a huge step in those plans is these teens’ choice of college. Not only is being around Bible College a very fun experience, it helps show a teen that there’s SO much more outside of day by day by day by day by day. There’s a group that desires God’s absolute best in their lives, and that desires to do all they can for Him.
As often as is physically and financially possible, please encourage every teen to be involved in trips like these. We played football, watched basketball games, went to Mulligan’s, and had fun, but the best part was that we were away from the TV and school life, and we were submerged in a sweet-spirited, God-filled place. Starting early next year we will introduce a process that will help our teens become givers and not just takers at college.
Overall, God was so good to us. We came away from this weekend absolutely refreshed, and we thank God for once again working in our teens’s lives. –Bro. Ryan
