Redefining what is essential (one chair at a time)

One of the epic challenges of life is to suspend our own personal conveniences for the sake of others. The problem with our lives of convenience is that we have become accustomed to them--so much so that often times the conveniences we enjoy have come to feel like ESSENTIALS and the line gets blurred. In fact we have convinced ourselves that these conveniences are essential to our lives to the point that we feel very real anxiety when one of these conveniences is tampered with...[cable, our second car (or first car), our house, our x box, our iphone, our starbucks habit, our hair coloring appointment, our vacation etc]

I want to extend a challenge, Ridge Church...let's step up and allow ourselves to be inconvenienced for the sake of people whose lives will be changed! We have made a decision not to take out a loan in order to complete our current up fit project. Simply stated--when we run out of funds we'll will stop building until we can raise the rest. You have been generous and we have been fantastic stewards of resources and time and as a result now we can literally see the finish line! We need to sell 450 chairs ($199 each) that symbolically represent the people we are praying for. So PRAY for a person--PAY for a seat. For some of you, buying one chair will be a stretch. For others of you buying 100 chairs would be very doable. So do what YOU can. Allow yourselves to be inconvenienced for the sake of this mission! USE EGIVE HERE.

"I left the church when I was 17"

When we were still doing interest meetings for Ridge Church I remember quoting this alarming statistic that 85-90% of high school seniors that grew up in church would leave the church as soon as they graduated and most would never return. The number one reason why?--"the church and her message was judgmental and not relevant to life". That bothered me so much that it literally shaped much of how our church functions. We are passionate about creating environments that would capture the hearts of a generation teaching them how to apply God's word to every day life and equipping them to pursue Jesus even beyond high school or college. We also wanted to work hard to create environments where the "85-90%" would one day, maybe even as adults, come back and find the church and message of Jesus to be more relevant than they ever knew it could be. I share this because Nicole's baptism story is evidence that IT IS WORKING! This is our mission in action!:

This never gets old!

We had the privilege of baptizing two more adults this weekend at Ridge Church. When we started this church our dream was simple "To create a church where 'church people' would love bringing their un-churched friends...and a church where those un-churched friends would love attending". Along the way we've had people of all ages realize their need for a personal relationship with Jesus. Every person has a story--they are all powerful! This is just one of them.

I'll post the other video later this week. This never gets old. Grateful to have a front row seat to life change!

Ridge UPDATE: Demo has begun!

DEMOLITION BEGINS
I'm long overdue on an update of the happenings around Ridge Church. The demo permit is here and we are starting demo on our future home. Demo should take 2-3 weeks then construction will begin. Our capital campaign called "1 twelve" has been wrapped around the idea that every chair represents a person that matters to us and even more importantly matters to God. We have received just over half of the funds necessary to renovate our future home. We are in our final push to the finish line. Our new facility will have 450 total seats and we are inviting people to symbolically purchase a chair for $199--for a family member, friend, or co-worker. If all 450 chairs are spoken for that should enable us to finish the interior. Go HERE to give through e-give or you our 1 twelve ipad kiosks on Sundays.

NEW STUDENT ENVIRONMENT OPENS THIS SUNDAY
Our middle school and high school students get to start in their new environment before the adults will arrive in theirs. We we make the audio/visual installs this week in their new permanent environment. I heard rumors of a DJ and free XBOX drawing--9AM at this address: 1031 Matthews-Mint Hill Road, Matthews, N.C.

NEW SERIES BEGINS
Last but not least we begin a fantastic new teaching series this week called "Recovery Road". Can our nation be saved from economic crisis and political turmoil? Come see what Jesus had to say about it. 9:30A.M. and 11:00A.M.

What's up with the new facility?

Today in the midst of a completely packed house I had the privilege of celebrating progress in our building campaign. People have given $35,000 since our first big give date just a month ago. We are giving 10% of everything received since that day to our local serving efforts, so $3,500 was available for our "Unexpected Christmas Store"--which along with another $2,000 from Ridge Church operating budget and $3-4k in donations, supplied Christmas for 14 local families.

So how are we doing? Really?
We have received over $148,000 total to date for our 1 twelve campaign! So here is how it breaks down in comparison to our goals. As a refresher: "1" stands for bigger one time gifts designed to fund most of the up fit and "twelve" stands for 12 month commitments/pledges in 2012 to help absorb the remaining up fit and increased overhead costs related to our new facility.

1 "gifts": Approximately 55% of goal (*enough to at least begin the demo work in January)
Twelve "Pledges": Approximately 30% of goal

The "twelve pledges" are an absolute must for us to get into the building so lean in and dream big with us! Here is the video we showed today as a little reminder of why this matters. Awesome to be a part of this Church and this mission!

First Day Inside our FUTURE FACILITY

Amazing day for Ridge Church. We started off the day with a pancake fundraiser completely initiated and implemented by one of our awesome community groups (you should be in a group if you're not!) Then we went straight over to the future home of Ridge Church for the first weekend of our unexpected Christmas store. Dozens of volunteers worked like crazy to help create this red carpet experience for families in need. We will provide a complete Christmas for 14 families when it's all said and done...but more than that we are providing HOPE! Hope that no matter how hard their situation may be that their Heavenly Father hasn't forgotten them.

We literally got the facility keys yesterday at 1pm and within 7 hours our amazing people had created a "red carpet" experience for our Unexpected Christmas store guests. I love the fact, that the first time we ever gathered to do anything in the facility that will soon be renovated, it was to serve our city! Here's a sneak peak inside our facility and the unexpected Christmas store--(from my phone video camera but you get the idea):

Twelve in 2012--December 18th

I'm blown away and honored by the sacrificial generosity of the people connected to the Ridge Church community. I use the word "connected" because some of the people that have continued to support Ridge Church financially through the years don't even attend our church and some don't even live in our city--but they believe in what we are doing enough to to help fund this amazing mission.

[The "1"] We are making progress weekly on our "1 twelve" fund to renovate our future home. The "1" of the 1 twelve is our effort to collect bigger one time gifts to capture the bulk of the funds needed for our renovations. Our next big give date is December 18th

[The "twelve"] The "twelve" of 1 twelve is equally if not more important than the big gifts. The "twelve" represents a 12 month commitment in 2012 to increase our monthly operating budget. Without this monthly increase we won't be able to sustain the increased costs related to a 24/7 facility. On December 18th we are doing a "pledge" day. The chart below represents our current giving, our goal, and what it will take for us to bridge the gap. We only need 25 families or individual to either START giving or INCREASE there giving (picking up one yellow box each). This goal is very achievable...so we would love for you to pray--then pick a box for 2012. TOGETHER WE CAN DO THIS!!