People love Proverbs 3:6-7: “Trust in the LORD with ALL your heart, lean not on your own understanding, but in ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” Rightly so. It is a great promise. But it hit me this week: the next thing God does is give us His practical illustration of one key way to trust like that, and it is very pertinent to this weekend: “Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the first-fruits of ALL your increase. Then…” (Proverbs 3:9) = it goes on to describe partnership with God. I’ll let you read that part for yourself; but I have found Him to be absolutely faithful to His side of the equation.

If DRCC is where God has called you, this weekend is mission critical! NOW is our time to step up, to plan and build for all the children and adults God is sending our way—to participate in an enduring God-story. It is our two-year commitment card weekend. We have started well: Sixty-five couples or single adults from our staff and key volunteer leaders made early commitments. Over 75% of them said this was the greatest financial investment in Kingdom work of their lives—and the average committed increase in their giving was actually 100%! Which is our goal = 100%... participation.

Those leaders represent about one-tenth of the adults in our congregation. We have begun well, but we take a hill this size only when all of us take our next right step and do our part [whatever that is] in following God’s heart to our future. Please step up, step in—and let’s do this together. See you this weekend.

In Christ,
Richard Fredericks
Senior Pastor

As painful as some memories are—of things we have done or said which we wish we had not done or said—my guess is that those will not be our biggest regrets when we actually stand in the presence of Jesus, still bearing the scars of the Cross on His hands. Our greatest regrets will be realizing all the things we could have done and should have done for Him that we dodged or ignored due to selfishness, the smaller life we lived because our fear silenced our faith; and we quietly believed in our hearts we knew better than God how to manage our lives. That lesson specifically applies to this stretch in our life together—but please hear me: it applies to so much more. Join me this weekend as we consider the one guy who got out of the boat—and what the eleven missed who didn’t

Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt—and the LORD your God redeemed you.

Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ…without hope and without God in the world.But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Remember therefore what you have received and heard—and keep it!

In the great story of human redemption, God makes crystal clear again and again how important it is that we “remember.” Who we were before Christ. What God has done for us in Christ. Often the shortest route to repentance and renewal is to remember what God has done for us. G. K. Chesterton said: “If the Gospel is true, the primary characteristic of a Christian should be gratitude.” The Christians faith centers in “the Gospel,” which is not good views or good advice—it is good news! It is remembering what God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17-21) has already done for us as the basis of our identity and hope. Join us this weekend as we prepare to take the next right step together in our journey, this day we will pause and rehearse—remember together—how God has led us.

We live in a world where stuff is glorified. People spend their entire lives working harder and harder to accumulate it, children fight over it, siblings get torn apart because of it, and nations go to war over it. But the Bible paints a very different picture of stuff and what it means to honor God with our stuff. And when that happens, a new form of culture gets shaped and formed. Join us this weekend as we look at the kind of culture where the upside-down, right-side up Kingdom Economics is practiced, and how it leads to the experience of a flourishing, thriving, and abundant life (the way we were meant to).

Would you take a moment and read Acts 2:42-47? These verses contain a remarkable set of words, and they have inspired millions of people over hundreds of years. The community Jesus started was so amazing, so transcendent, so remarkable, that these people were, the text tells us, champions of generosity. This explosion of generosity stunned the world and fueled the expansion of the Kingdom of God. The Acts 2 church stood up to the challenge of their day. Now it’s our turn. We have this awesome legacy and a holy responsibility to build and pass on the flame of the gospel to the next generation. Join us this weekend as we look at what happens when a church gets full of people whose hearts are all in with God.

Here we go! We start our All In journey by looking at the heart. The Bible talks a lot about the heart – more than seven hundred times. The heart is such a precious thing – Scripture tells us to be careful what you give to it to. Your whole life could be shaped by what you give your heart to. And the way to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus – being all in – is to love God with all our heart. Join us this weekend as we look at how to get a heart that is so tuned into God that it results in a life marked by uncommon boldness, radical faithfulness, and unshakeable love.

Do you ever feel like the life you’re leading is not operating on all cylinders? That you were created for something “more”? This weekend, we’re going to explore ways to have a relationship with Jesus Christ that could be deep, intimate and personal. In Matthew 4, when Jesus called out to Peter and his brother, Andrew, while they were fishing, he said, “Come follow me”. At once, they left their nets and followed Him. God used them to change the world after they developed an All In relationship with Jesus. For each one of us, Christ is offering something “MORE”. Come this weekend as we explore the possibilities.

This week’s message is really a dialogue—a time to talk together. So let’s talk! Taking the key perspective of the first three messages in our series: “How Big is your God,” we’ll apply them to who and where we are in our shared story as a community. We’ll talk about where we are going (our 2020 strategy)—and why. This message will set the stage (contextualize) for our seven week ALL IN journey. In the best and simplest way I can, I will try to share the God-story ahead of us in terms of what it means for each of us. On the eve of heading out with 57 pilgrims to walk in the footsteps of Jesus in Israel, I look forward to following in His steps here, with us and through us. See you this weekend.

Every September I do a couple of messages focused on vision-casting the direction we believe God is leading us for the next year. These are crucial, heart to heart weeks for our community. These next two weeks I will share those messages, as part of our “How Big is your God?” series. In week one of this series, we wrestled with the fact that God does His work through us, not apart from us: our trust—His power. Last week we looked at living with a God-sized perspective. This weekend we will begin to apply all this to the opportunity we have, here, now, together—to truly be a Community of Light to a huge wave of new neighbors. It is a God-story in the making, and it has already started. Last weekend we were 3 children shy of 300 children for the weekend, with ten new families visiting. God is handing us the next phase of our life together. Let’s use it well. Join me as we look at my favorite Bible promise about life as a Christ-follower, as the bedrock for our unfolding congregational vision.

The Bible tells us that Shammua, son of Zakkur, and Gadiel, son of Sodi were esteemed leaders in Israel. Ever heard of them? Nope…you haven’t. Guaranteed. There is a significant reason why their obscurity applies to us, which we will explore this weekend. The answer has everything to do with the perspective we carry into each day, both on our present circumstances and future challenges—and how much trusting in the risen LORD factors into our planning and actions. The question we are wrestling with is: How BIG is your GOD? This weekend we explore: “The Power of a God-sized Perspective.”