Upstream August 14
Dear River Life,
PLEASE STAY HYDRATED!!!! There, I had to get that off my chest! I hope you have found a way to keep yourself cool these past couple of days and that the rest of the week you will be able to not exert yourself too much. The River Life Camp Out is this weekend beginning on Thursday and, for those that are going, the weather in Tahoe is supposed to be very pleasant. For those of you staying in town…well, we will pray for milder climate!
Here’s an update this week on the happenings at River Life…
Baptism
Our baptism this summer will be at the Family Camping Trip to Lake Tahoe on Saturday. If you are not going on the camping trip, please consider driving up for the baptism and time together with River Life! Those being baptized are Cameron Kapicka, Kate Widman, and Alyssa Ainsley.
Church Directory Photos
We are in the gathering stage for our new church directory and need your help! We will have photographers waiting after church this Sunday (here in Sacramento AND Lake Tahoe!) as well as 8/26 and 9/9. This gives you THREE SUNDAYS to gather up your family to get a picture taken for our Church Directory. We hope to put the directory out this fall but it won’t happen if we don’t have photos. If you would like your photo taken, please go to the front of Fellowship Hall after church for a picture to be taken. Thanks!
Leadership Team Nominations
It’s that time again to begin praying about our new members for our Leadership Team. If you would like to nominate anyone to serve in the capacity of giving vision, direction, and discerning together where the Lord may be calling River Life, please email me their names and/or Catherine Puckering at cpuckering@hotmail.com (she is our Church Chair). To serve on the Leadership Team, they need to be members of River Life.
Financial Operations Team
We are currently creating a new team here at River Life and want you to pray about being involved. As River Life has continued to grow, we are in need of a group of people to serve us in the area of fiance and stewardship. A job description is currently being worked on that, hopefully, will be completed by the beginning of next week. This will be a ministry team as stewardship is ministry! If you’d like to talk further about serving in this team, please contact me at bmwidman@riverlife.org.
Membership Class
Our final membership class is AUGUST 26th after church! Again, it’s a “bring your own lunch” type of thing in the ministry house. If you were not able to join this membership class and would like to join River Life, please let me know and we will offer another class this fall. I have already been contacted by three more families that would like to be added to the next class offered.
Children’s Ministry Teacher Training
Last count…we have a little over 80 children under 6th grade here at River Life…yes, I said 80!!! That’s not counting the new babies being born amongst us as the newer families that we have yet to count! Needless to say, we need your involvement in our children’s ministry. On August 26th right after church there will be a mandatory teacher training to help out for the upcoming school year. Please mark your calendars.
2012-2013 Classes
On September 7th, from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Patti Watters is offering a class for the women here at River Life. It’s titled “Do You Trust Me?” Again, this is a class just for women. The class will be held at River Life in the Fellowship Hall.
Fall Sermon Series
Our fall sermon series put out by Peter Scazzero called “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” will begin September 9th. “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” will be helping us with 2 important parts of our discipleship paradigm by addressing our UP relationship with Jesus and our IN relationships with other people. This fall, I will be sending out discussion questions you can use in any group you are a part of (Life Group, men’s bible study, women’s bible study, etc…) to discuss the 8 weeks we will be in this series. If you would like to be in a group beginning this fall, but are not currently in a group please email me!
For fun, there is an inventory at http://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/index.php/emotionally-healthy-spirituality-inventory-test/ to evaluate where you might be regarding emotionally healthy spirituality. It’s free until August 23rd.
Convoy of Hope
As this year’s Sacramento Convoy of Hope approaches, (Saturday, September 15), we wanted you to have early advance information and links for signups and more. The link below is for the main page of Sacramento COH, the links at the top of page provide all the essentials, and of course the “volunteers” link will be the “place” that most of you and others sign up for serving that day, along with our entire community of faith. Signups need to be done personally for security and other purposes, the earlier, the better for the Convoy team. http://www.sacramentocoh.org/ If you do not use a computer or are uncomfortable with them, you will need to fill out a form and give it to Pat Watters. These forms will be available at the church office and on Sunday mornings. Further questions can also be directed to Pat Watters.
Women’s Retreat Registration
Registration is now open for the Women’s Retreat on September 21-23 at Sky Mountain Christian Camp and Conference Center in Emigrant Gap. Laurie Polich-Short, Associate Pastor of Ocean Hills Covenant Church in Santa Barbara (lauriepolich.com) will be our speaker for the weekend. Scholarships are available. Please visit one of the women’s ministry representatives at the round table in the foyer after church or contact Lisa Spagnolo or Patti Curtis for more information.
Have a great week and remember to stay cool!
Grace & Peace,
Bret
River Life Covenant Church
“There will be swarms of living things wherever the water of this river flows.” Ezekiel 47:9
