Small Groups at The Ridge!

Yep! We're starting our first small groups at Ridge Church. And, they begin just one week from tonight!

Small groups are awesome! What are small groups? Small groups are groups of people from The Ridge who gather together during the week to share a time of fellowship and friendship, Bible learning, and care and encouragement. Gathering together on Sundays for worship is awesome and VERY important to our Christian growth and maturity. However, small groups are the best environment for people to "know and be known" by others, because there is a greater opportunity for closeness and true personal interaction than we can have on Sunday mornings.

Our core values at Ridge Church are:

• Truth
• Grace and Faith
• Community
• Serving Others
• New Churches
• Fun!

Small groups provide a wonderful venue for Truth from the Bible--the Gospel--to be discussed and learned, Grace and Faith to be shared and encouraged, Community between believers to be built, and Serving Others to be practiced and enjoyed. Our value of New Churches may very well be lived out sometime soon as small groups assist new churches in creative ways. Finally, our small groups will be Fun! Fun is an important part of small groups... You'll learn more about that when you get to that first gathering!

Wednesday, May 6, we'll start our first two small groups. One will be led by Bill and Sue Irving, the other by Kevin and Emily Layne. This Sunday, we'll share all about times and locations and what you can expect. So, keep your Wednesday nights free, and be at Panache on Sunday to worship with us and get all the info you'll need about small groups. See ya soon!

Lotsa Good Stuff Coming Down the Road...

Hey! I hope you all are having a great week!

Just wanted to touch base, say hey, and let you know a brief summary of what's coming up in the next weeks at The Ridge. God is up to alot in our midst!

First, I want to thank Ken and Christy Garrison for hosting our Sunday worship gatherings at Panache. Thanks guys... You set a great example of hospitality and service.

Here's a little bit about what's going on:

• We're meeting every Sunday morning for worship at Panache from 10 until 11:15 (ish) a.m. We have graciously been invited to stay as long as we need to meet there. So, invite a friend, family member, or co-worker and come join us Sunday! After a week off after working hard to prepare for our Easter celebration in Fountain City Park, our worship team returns this week... Thank them for their faithfulness!
• Our Ridge Church small groups start on May 6! I can't begin to tell you how pumped I am about this... Small groups are where we believe the local church finds its greatest and purest expression. Sunday morning worship gatherings are wonderful and necessary for honoring our God and building community. But worship on Sunday is not personal enough to stand alone as a discipleship tool. Along with the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives and personal prayer, we need the community, encouragement, and discipline that only real relationships with other believers in the name of Christ can give us. So, make plans to "know and be known" in one of our first two small groups starting Wednesday, May 6! More info on Sunday!
  
• We're having a special "baby dedication" time in our Mother's Day gathering on May 10. We'll be dedicating our children who have not already been dedicated to God. Really, this time is a time for the Christ-following parents of "Ridge Kids" to dedicate themselves to raising up their kids in a way that God would be honored by. See Ephesians 6:1-4 (there are many other verses on parenting in the Bible!) for an idea of what we mean. If you have questions or are interested in dedicating your child to God (and any age is appropriate!) let Emily know. We're taking a break from our awesome study of Colossians on Mother's Day for a chat about kids and parenting. As a new parent, I don't have all the answers, but God certainly does... See ya there. Bring a friend!
  
• We're taking a break from our Sunday worship gathering schedule on Memorial Day Weekend, Sunday May 24. This is a way to honor our hosts at Panache, our worship team, and me (hey, the pastor works too!) with a break. It's also a way for Emily, Chloe and me to take a trip to visit our old friends in Charlotte and attend the wedding of two of the students from our student ministry there. So, worship at another local Bible-believing church, or take a trip out of town... Have fun!
• We're having our regular Ridge Church Service Project on Saturday, May 30 from 9 to noon. We're helping the folks of the Fountain City Town Hall clean up First Creek in the Fountain City Park area in partnership with Keep Knoxville Beautiful. This is a great way to serve our city, get to know our town leadership, and honor God's creation as stewards of His wonderful Earth. Parents and kids both are very welcome! You will need to make plans to hang with your kids in the park area if you bring them, however.

Well, that's a bunch of cool stuff! Rest assured that The Ridge is not all about programs. However, because of our core values, we are committed to small groups, Sunday worship gatherings, and regular corporate service projects (and fun events!). See you soon, and don't forget to tell someone about The Ridge so they can hear about Jesus and get to know us!

Easter

I couldn't have imagined a more enjoyable Easter Sunday than Easter 2009!

God truly has been good to us! Although we lost our awesome free meeting location last Sunday, God gave us a beautiful day on Easter for us to enjoy our worship gathering and picnic in Fountain City Park. Of course, He gave that day to everyone in our area, but maybe we appreciated it more than most of Knoxville did!

This was our first worship gathering outside. More importantly, it was our first worship gathering where we shared the Lord's Supper or Communion together. After the teaching on Jesus' identity as fully man, Jesus' crucifixion--taking the punishment we deserved for our sins, and Jesus' proof that He is fully God through His resurrection, sharing the Lord's Supper as a community of believers in Christ was extra meaningful for me. I hope it was for you, too. We will observe Communion regularly as a church, so look forward to it!

As I mentioned Sunday several times, Jesus has done all the "heavy lifting" (as well as the "light lifting" and "any lifting at all") to secure our forgiveness from God for our sins. We cannot earn our forgiveness from God no matter how badly we may like to try. We can, however, respond to God's calling in our lives and trust Him with our entire selves in faith. This all can happen because of God's gift of grace in Christ's death on the cross. When we celebrate the Lord's Supper together, we celebrate God's love for us, and Jesus Christ's obedience to die on that cross. We also look forward from the cross to the resurrection of Christ three days later on that first Easter. The Lord's Supper is so much to celebrate in such a simple act... It's a big deal and it's awesome to participate in it with you.

I pray that every Ridge Church Easter gathering is as glorifying to God as this one was. And, I pray that you are here to enjoy it with us!

As I mentioned Sunday, we have moved meeting locations... This Sunday, we will be meeting at Panache Hair and Body at 3501 Tazewell Pike in Fountain City. We're still meeting at 10 am (we'll keep as many things "regular" as we can!) until 11:15 or so. Ken and Christy Garrison have been very generous in allowing us to use their facility on Sundays, although they are already there six days a week!

If you read my last post, you know that having a building to meet in isn't everything and doesn't make a church. However, it does make things easier when, for instance, it rains! We'd also of course like to have more room as God blesses us and more people join into community with us. We want every friend and family member and neighbor who is invited to come to The Ridge to hear about Jesus to have that opportunity.

Rest assured we are keeping our eyes peeled for available, affordable meeting locations near I-640 and the general Fountain City area. Consider this an open invitation to participate in the search! Feel free to email me any ideas you have. No stone will be left unturned... Either way, we trust God will send us to our next location in His perfect timing!

One more thing you don't want to let get past you... Our April fellowship time! This Saturday, at Cris Patterson's house, we are having a cookout! This event is open to anyone who is interested in coming... Ridge folks and their friends and family and anyone else who is interested! This is another great time to bring someone who isn't too sure about Jesus or His people so that they can get to meet us and find out we're "normal" and really do care.

We're hanging out from 5 to 10 pm at Cris' house at 1718 Woodhaven Drive. If you want to eat, bring your own meat (and buns)! It's a really casual evening, so come and leave when you need to. Thanks a ton to Cris for hosting this evening. Hope to see you there!

Hello on Good Friday...

Well, today was Good Friday, the ironically-named day commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem at the end of His earthly ministry. The day is named "Good" because although Christ's death was absolutely horrible, it is unbelievably good for us that He chose it. Because Jesus took the punishment for our evil and sinfulness that we deserved and surrendered Himself to die on the cross, the way for us to be forgiven by God through faith in Christ was created. The Gospel, the Good News of Christ, is right there before us in the story of Jesus' act of obedience.

So, Good Friday indeed is a memorial to the greatest, best Good ever to happen in time. Our sinfulness met its required perfect substitute and sacrifice in God's Son Jesus. Thank God for His perfect plan to fix our relationship with Him, His perfect Son, and His perfect sacrifice of Himself for us... Even us.

Sunday at the Ridge, we will honor Jesus for His gift of life that was made possible by His gift of death on the cross. There will be some quiet time to worship and thank Jesus for His death. Then, we will celebrate His resurrection... Proof that He is Lord over death! There will be some happy, joyful time to worship and praise Jesus for His Lordship and status as God. At the end of our gathering, we will celebrate our first Communion together as believers and as a church. You definitely want to be there!

This Sunday, we will meet at Fountain City Park. We lost the meeting location we have been enjoying for free this last Sunday. Our landlord has been great to us, and even called me this week to check on our arrangements for Sunday. The time just came that he needed to rent out the space to someone else.

So, we don't have a whole lot of leads on new, fancy meeting locations. We do have a place to meet next week, so no worries there. (We'll let you know that on Sunday, so come to our Easter gathering!) But, it's OK that we don't have a new fancy meeting location!

So many churches are so hung up on their building/facility/fortress/comfort zone/idol. Unfortunately, many Christians are so dependent on their church buildings that they can't imagine "doing church" outside them, rarely seem to have any gatherings or fellowships that aren't at them, and even are confused about "the church" being a building.

This is unfortunate and so sad! I can go on, as this is one of my pet peeves... But just let it suffice for me to say two things:

1) Jesus (our Great Shepherd) didn't have a building. Luke 9:58 (ESV) says: "And Jesus said to him, 'Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.'” Jesus wasn't a building manager. He was a guy who went all over talking about His Kingdom to people (who act just like sheep!). He preached in houses, on a boat to people on shore, and on hillsides. He loved His Father's creation and hung out in it with others. That's pretty cool to me.

2) The early church had no buildings. Folks met in the homes of those who would open them in hospitality. Believe it or not, Christianity had very few dedicated buildings until Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity a legal religion in 313. In fact, worshiping openly would in many cases result in arrest and did result in death for many believers. Many Christians even today meet in homes for fear of their government (China, North Korea, Iran) or due to financial constraints (Brazil, etc.). Meeting in a home or other location makes sense for alot of reasons!

So, we'll keep our eyes open for a new place to meet... And we'll keep you updated on our progress! But, we're not too worried about it because having a building has absolutely nothing to do with spiritual authenticity. It just makes things easier, in exchange for costing some of the money God provides to His people. God will provide a new location when He's ready, and his church (His people) will keep on being the church at The Ridge. We'll keep on worshiping Jesus and focusing on our Core Values. No matter where we end up, we're Ridge Church!

A Great Month of Worship Gatherings...

Hey! We've had a great time at our Sunday morning worship gatherings together over the past couple weeks, and there's more to come...

Two weeks ago, we had a special guest, Andy Hughes of Journey Church of the Highlands in Boone, NC. Our church supports Andy with our finances and our prayers. We want you to get to know all of the church planters that we support, so we invited Andy to visit and have some time to share with us on a Sunday morning. He had hoped to bring his wife and kids, but he had a sick child in the house, so that didn't work out. Maybe next time!

Andy drove nearly three hours to be with us because he is excited about what's God is doing in Boone, and also because he is excited about what God is doing through Ridge Church in Fountain City. Please pray for Andy and his family... Boone is a tough place to plant a church. If you'd like to send an email greeting or prayer to Andy, just email me, and I will get it to him.

Last week, we discussed the future of The Ridge and what you can expect to see, hear, and experience with our church in the next year or so. Believe it or not, Emily and I have been back here in Knoxville for 9 months, and we're pretty pumped about what God is going to do through our church in the next 9 months!

We talked extensively last Sunday about what commitments are expected from everyone who calls Ridge Church home. We also talked about what you can expect The Ridge's leadership to commit to as part of our relationship to each other. Being part of a community of faith is a big deal, and we take that "community" and "faith" stuff seriously at Ridge Church! (As a matter of fact, those words are both in our Core Values!)

We shared last week our core values and also our statement of faith. I will be adding these to the website soon. Also, if you don't have a copy of those from our worship gathering, keep your eyes open for them this week and pick 'em up. Or, you can just let me know and I'll email you a copy.

This week, we're celebrating our first Palm Sunday together as a church! This will be a great two gatherings... Next week is Easter!

This is a perfect time to bring a friend to check out The Ridge. For those of you who've been bringing friends and family to see what Jesus and Ridge Church is all about (and there have been several of you)... Awesome! It's the invitations of family, friends, neighbors and co-workers that carry the most weight and are most often used by God to draw people into a relationship with Himself. Keep it up!!!