Rob Ketterling

MAKE THE CHANGE

I'm in a meeting today with John Lindell and we're talking about change in the church and it's really good for several of the pastors here, but for me, I'm so glad that we don't need to make major changes! Our church is already contemporary, focused on the mission of outreach and we don't look and feel like a traditional church. If anything, I need to be reminded about the fact that we're really outside of normal and so different from the traditional church that it's a huge step for people to just join us. We do church outside the ordinary, and I'm glad we do it that way!

Here are a couple of things that have been said that are worth repeating: * Get your leaders on board or else change won't work. Moses sent in 12 spies and only 2 were with him. 10 were against him and that 83% vote against going in, disqualified the people from the promise. * Expect resistance when you announce change and as the people have time to think about it, they will eventually embrace it. * People need steady leadership in change. * What you wear in church and what you sing in church can be the changes that bring the greatest resistance and complaints.

SING ABOUT THE PRESIDENT

Recently my father in law told ne that he's really concerned about America and here's why. He told me that it's not a good thing to sing about the president of the United States because he's just "this president" and only represents the nation. He's not the president forever and ever and when people start singing about the government leaders it's more like communist and socialist countries than republics or democratic countries.

Now don't think my father in law is a bitter old man watching FOX all day, (OK, he does tend to watch FOX, CNN, MSNBC and the Weather channel all day but not just FOX!) he's a retired history professor and he's really level headed. He's Norwegian so you know he's not a hot head for sure! But his point is that all throughout history, free countries sing about their country and oppressed countries sing about their leader.

So, with that being said, can you help me out and tell me of songs that we sing as a country about our country and also, songs we sing about our president. I'm curious to see what we have out there because lately we've been hearing a lot of songs from children about our president and not our country. I'll keep a list going on the blog.

LAST WEEK OF FOREVER

it's the last weekend of the Forever series and I hope that you've recovered from last week as we talked about adultery. I think I was able to get the message across and issue a warning, practical steps to avoid it and how to recover from it if you have fallen in this area. It was one of my best sermons ever, if I don't say so myself!

This weekend I'll be focusing on the scriptures that give us hope and direction on how to have a great marriage so you won't want to miss it. I think if the church can have strong thriving marriages we can really be a light to the world. It's something we should do well and yet, we don't so it's time to change and give our all to making marriages great so God looks great!

EVERYONE STOP BREATHING

Here's a good commentaryby a man that I think is brilliant and one of the leading thinkers of our time. In it, Chuck Colson defends those of us that believe that the efforts to curb "Global Warming" are mislead and actually harmful to the world.

MAKE ROOM FOR THE MIRACLE OFFERING

We have the Miracle Offering for Kingdom Builders coming up on November 14th and 15th and we all need to start focusing in on it and praying about our part. It's going to be an exciting time, but let me explain how it works for those that are new to the whole Kingdom Builders/Miracle Offering concept.

Every year we as a church set a goal to raise money over and above our regular giving to advance the Kingdom of God. Some years it's for projects at RVC as we continue to expand and other years it's for projects around the world as we help fund various church and ministry projects. Many people at RVC make commitments toward these projects and when they do this, they become Kingdom Builders. Throughout the year they continue to give toward the commitment they made and also attend Kingdom Builder events where we share updates and bring in special speakers to build up our Kingdom Builders. 

At the end of the year (Nov14/15) we have the Miracle Offering to complete these commitments that people have made. In addition to that, many people (Actually more than the number of Kingdom Builders.) give to the Miracle Offering and make it our biggest one time offering of the year as we try to knock out the remaining money for that years project.

So whether you're a Kingdom Builder or not (And I wish everyone was one!) I encourage you to pray about our Miracle Offering and the needed funds to complete the project. This year, we're raising money to build a youth center in Russia, a youth center in the Inner City of Minneapolis and build out the remaining 16,00 square feet at our Apple Valley campus. This space will hold a youth center and additional classrooms. Also, we are remodeling our Faribault campus to accommodate the youth center and youth group needs. It's a big goal and I know we all can do something to get us closer to making this a reality so please pray!

One last thing, (I realize this has been a long blog!) these youth centers are needed in a big way. We are in need of the space at our Apple Valley campus because just this week I was told that we no longer have room for any more kids in our midweek program because of space issues. We need to make room for the children and the youth God is sending us! I can't imagine a young child or teen coming and being turned away and the thought of that just breaks my heart! Let's make room for the miracle, by being part of the Miracle Offering!

PASTOR APPRECIATION MONTH

I just have to say thank you to all of you that have blessed all of the pastors this week and all throughout this past year. Many of you have taken the opportunity to bless the pastors this month because of Pastor Appreciation Month but many of you have blessed at other times and I want to say thank you! (Now I need to go work out to work off all of the treats I've been eating!)

SORRY HERE'S THE PIC

Some sort of glitch has caused the photo not to show up so here it is, the golf photo from my birthday. It was cold!

GREAT BIRTHDAY AT HOME

I had a great day today celebrating my birthday with my family, the team at RVC and all by myself on the golf course! I really wanted to play golf on my birthday and even though there was snow and temperatures in the 30's, I made it happen! I had a free coupon so it made it even better and I was happy with my score of 85 (14 over) considering I had four layers of clothes on! (The picture is one I took today and if you want to know how it is to play with snow, you have to stop to knock it off several times per hole!)

Later at night I just chilled out with Becca, Connor and Logan and enjoyed some ping pong and a movie. Just a small family celebration but I really enjoyed it because the last three years I was away in Russia training pastors and leaders. It was an amazing time working with John Maxwell and his Million Leaders Mandate but tonight, it was the Only I'm the Dad Mandate and it felt really good!

Thank you to all of you that sent Happy Birthday wishes to me via Twitter, Facebook, email, text messages and voice mail! It was a great birthday!

GLOBAL COOLING PART 2

Here's another motivation for my last blog! This is what we woke up to on October 12th in Minnesota! This has only happened 8 times in 60 years and this was the largest snowfall on record for this early in October. We got 3 inches and now it looks like golf is on hold for a while, hopefully it will heat up again so we aren't shut out until Spring!

IS THE EARTH COOLING?

I will admit, I am a Global Warming skeptic, I do not believe that the earth is warming because of man's actions and I do believe we are being manipulated into believing this by political powers. Most of what Al Gore predicted in his movie has not come true and now according to the research, the earth is actually cooling. I just wish that our leaders would look at the data, all of the the facts and be very cautious in their attempts to alter our way of living. I'm willing to be proven wrong, to look at the data and be convinced other wise but if you're wondering why I blog on this occasionally I'll tell you why.

In school, my son Connor shared his belief of climate change that was not in line with his teachers belief. To my surprise, his teacher called him out in front of the class! After he shared his opinion, the teacher said, "Now class, who can tell Connor why he's wrong?!" Then the teacher called on students to correct Connor and make sure he knew the correct beliefs he should have. So until I'm convinced of Global Climate Change being man made, I'll continue to defend Connor and give him the help he needs so he can stand up to his teachers and classmates. Until then, I'll enjoy the next 10-20 years of global cooling that's now being predicted!