|
Dear Riverside Church:
I hope this letter finds you all doing well and enjoying the beginnings of a new year. I want to personally thank you for welcoming me and my family to Riverside and the SW Florida area. As some of you know, uprooting your family away from their closest friends to come to a place where they don’t know anyone can be difficult, so thank you again for your prayers, encouragement and love. We are very thankful that God has us here and look forward to the years ahead.
As I think back over this past year, it’s been a real joy to see God change people’s lives. We’ve seen a number of people get saved, baptized, plugged into ministry inside and outside the church and allow God to stretch us in the process. It’s also been exciting to see our church work together to bless our community with the Candy Carnival, Project Back Pack and Turkey Drives and other missional opportunities that have been put before you. I appreciate your giving hearts. In fact, I also want to tell you how proud I am of you for being faithful stewards financially. This past year, our giving was above budget which allowed us to hire strategic staff positions, expand our ministry reach and see more people impacted for Kingdom purposes. Praise God!
So as we thank God for last year and look forward to this next year, I want to bring up a GOD-sized opportunity for us to partner in together again. After a lot of prayer and discussion, I am convinced that God has called us to do a church-wide campaign on the topic of Heaven. It is something that I have wrestled with for years and now feel prompted by the Holy Spirit to do. I strongly believe that your understanding of Heaven and Eternity is absolutely essential in your spiritual growth and maturity.
So here is our commitment to you:
- Provide solid biblical teaching on Heaven and Eternity
- Provide multiple environments for you and your family to discuss the teaching (Children’s, Youth, Life Groups, Sun. AM)
- Create safe and relevant environments for you to invite your friends who have a lot of questions about God, death, afterlife, etc.
Here is what we are asking of you:
- Pray for yourself, your family, our church and five people that you will invite to this series.
- Faithfully attend Sunday mornings Feb. 6- Mar. 27 and get into a small group for these eight weeks
- Purchase the Heaven book and Study Guide by Randy Alcorn. We will have them available in the foyer. Books: $18 Study Guide $7
- Invite the people that you have been praying for.
I can assure you that this Heaven campaign is much bigger than what the staff and I can pull off. So I’m thanking you ahead of time, because I am confident that you will join us as God has invited us to partner with Him in what He is doing here to see this area impacted for His Kingdom.
We will be communicating with you more in the weeks ahead, and the website will be updated regularly – just click on the Heaven series graphic at Riversidechurch.org. Otherwise, feel free to contact the office with any questions or how we can get you plugged into a small group.
Here for you,
Bob Reed
Senior Pastor
|
