October-November Sermon Series

Are you wondering how you can grow in living an authentic life? Wanting to experience the blessing God longs to give you?

Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount are often seen as an impossible ideal disconnected from the real world of modern life. However, Jesus intended to give us instruction in doable discipleship. He wants to help us follow him as he follows God in cooperative partnership. Jesus wants to help us learn how to live in God's Kingdom of goodness and grace. Join us as together we learn from Jesus how we can do this in our everyday lives.

This News Just In ...

Read All About It ...
ROVC gets a nod on PrideSource.com about giving away hot dogs to walkers.
http://www.pridesource.com/article.shtml?article=32213
--- lead from Jim Renaud, co-guru of the Royal Oak Vineyard Church's AIDS Walk Detroit participation

Journey Out, Journey In

Jesus invites us to both journey out with him in service to the world, and journey in with him in devotion to God.

We've had a great time of serving our community this past AIDS Walk Sunday. And now I'm excited for the Cause Conference and the opportunity to draw closer to him. All for the purpose of being sent back out to the world. It isn't too late to register - you can check it out online at The Cause Conference.

See you there!

AIDS Walk Sunday 2008 A Huge Success!

Well, our AIDS Walk Sunday for 2008 was a huge success! I think it probably blew away the expectations of everyone involved. I know it blew mine away. Hats off to everyone one of you who helped make the event such a huge hit - walkers, servers, food preparers, ushers, cheerers, rallyers, everyone.

Six short stories capture the spirit of this event for me:
1. One of our young boys, Robbie, running back and forth happily handing out free water and loving it!
2. This guy, a random walker, walking along clapping his hands over head and cheering, "I love this church! I love this church!"
3. One of the band members, Allie, singing People Get Ready in the perfect soulful gospel feel, and people everyone are dancing, and taking pictures of the band, and taking their team pictures around the tables we had set up while they're enjoying some good food.
4. A woman who came up to me, who attended another church, and, with tears in her eyes, expressed her deep appreciation for doing what we did. "Thank you," she said, "Thank you for being here! Thank you for doing what the Church is supposed to do!"
5. Harvey, the coordinator from First Baptist Church, doing a jig with our own Lisa Fosnaugh, and then kissing her on the cheek!
6. One of the Steppin' Out AIDS Walk coordinators asking us, "You did all this for us? You did this for our walk?" He was amazed and overwhelmed - his expectations were blown away. He was so appreciative and told me he was holding back a tear.

To me, these stories say it all. Do you have a story? Share it!

Jesus was happy and people sensed his love. Thank you for being you!

If you'd like to see one man's photo perspective, check out Jim "The Secret Experiment" Renaud's flickr collection. [We'll make more photos available as we have them.]

Sunday, September 21st ...

is AIDS Walk Sunday at the Royal Oak Vineyard Church! This Sunday morning the AIDS Walk: Detroit will take place in downtown Royal Oak. More than 5000 are expected to walk the streets, right past our church building, during our normal gathering time. So this Sunday we're taking the opportunity to tangibly demonstrate the love of Jesus in simple acts of service. We'll have a team of walkers raising money to help alleviate the suffering of those who may have felt distanced from God and his people. We'll be cheering on walkers, giving away free hot dogs and bottles of water, and even have a live band. It'll be a great time of letting our hair down and having some fun. And we'll do it all during our normal gathering time - after a few worship songs and a reflection on why we're doing this. So come join us for the fun!

Coming Up This September ...

If you've ever been to State or National Park, you're probably familiar with those signs that read, "Take only pictures, leave only footprints." You only have to walk around or watch TV for about 10 minutes to know we're taking from and marking up our world - and one another - worse than that! We want to leave a smaller footprint, and instead imprint the world with the fingerprints of God.

Are you fed up with merely consuming? Tired of living to work instead of working to live? Desiring to make a difference? Longing to live simply and love lavishly?

Join us for our sermon series on simplicity and service, starting this September 7th ...

Ethiopia Update from the June 2008 trip

Friends, as promised, here's the meat of what I had to say on Sunday in follow-up to my recent trip. Not everyone was able to stay after the gathering to hear this, so I wanted to make the substance of what I had to say available to you all. I did share briefly some stories from my trip, which you can read about in brief on my blog. I shared some additional stories of the ministry we saw among the poor, the handicapped and those far from Jesus. Now for the rest ...

With all that said, the needs we have here and the needs they have there are the same, though theirs sound more exotic. We both need Jesus. We both need the transforming power of his grace and truth. We both need to see the Kingdom of God break into our churches, into our communities, into our lives. We both need the healing and deliverance and hope and change this Kingdom brings.

And we share similar opportunities. Jesus loves us all. He’s made his Spirit available to us all. We have the Bible, and we have one another.

I felt a real burden of the Lord for this while I was there. That this is a real thing, a serious thing, a Kingdom thing. The Ethiopian Vineyard leaders, especially, are sacrificing to see God’s Kingdom come. One new Vineyard pastor we met is supporting a network of at least 18 churches out of his own personal resources. Woody, the coordinator of the Vineyard’s efforts there, lost his job over this, and he nearly lost his life. Other pastors and evangelists are risking their lives weekly. We want to honor their sacrifice with our commitment.

We are committed to our friends in Ethiopia. We’re committed to helping them in their needs and we’re committed to helping them build on their opportunities, even as they are committed to us. We’re committed with other churches around the US and in Norway to encouraging, empowering, training and resourcing them to go for it.

And I’m humbly excited to do that with you and these others.

If you’d like to make a special offering to missions, above and beyond your tithe, then know that your gift to our mission partnership will be used to support this work.

And, also, so you know, we’re beginning to lay plans for a 2009 trip and we’ll have more information about this and travel opportunities, coming up.