Guilford Updates: Bingo Night & Book Fair
BINGO NIGHT: RBC helped sponsor a Bingo Night at Guilford Elementary last Friday evening. The event is one of the school’s biggest community events with 300-400 families attending. The Guilford staff and PTA were so thankful for the RBC volunteers and the financial support we were blessed to be able to provide.
Here’s an excerpt from a note we received from Alex Collier of the Guilford PTA:
“The volunteers really made the evening run smoothly. They were up for helping with anything we needed, and added a definite air of excitement to the night! Katie VanDorsten and her son were the best 50/50 raffle hawkers we’ve ever had! Together they raised almost $100! Julie and Micah Loesch worked the popcorn and cookie concessions like pros, and Tyler Preast and his friends did a spectacular job manning the bingo sales table, selling cards and daubers with confidence and pizazz!”
BOOK DRIVE: We are thankful to God for all who donated books and time for yesterday’s Guilford Elementary Book Fair. We were able to give out over 1500 books! Each child was able to take home 3 books of their own, and the librarians and resource teachers were able to restock their dwindling supply of books and resource items. The principal and entire faculty were so thankful to RBC. Many of these children have never owned a book and were joyfully overwhelmed to be able to take three books home. RBC is sharing the love of Christ to children in need in our community, and we are grateful for the many who invested your time (and books!) in serving them.
VIDEO: Youth Winter Retreat Slideshow
Last month, RBC hosted our annual Youth Winter Retreat. We spent the weekend with the kids teaching them and hearing about how we should live as Christians as Biblical men and women. The gospel was also shared and several of the youth indicated they had prayed to receive Christ! On our activity day, the youth did either indoor activities which included bowling, roller skating, laser tag, or an outdoor activity where the kids went skiing and snowboarding at Elk Mountain. It was a blast and it was great to see God work in our youth and speak to them that weekend.
Please be in prayer for our youth from winter retreat:
1. Pray that those who accepted Christ would continue to walk and seek to grow in their new-found faith in Jesus Christ.
2. Pray that the teen guys would take to heart the teaching on authentic manhood and would seek to no longer live passively or in laziness, but that they would become strong Godly leaders and initiators.
3. Pray that the teen girls would take to heart the teaching on biblical womanhood and would seek to live a God-centered life as daughters of the Most High King, living a humble life in His unfailing Love.
4. Pray that all our teens would remember and live from the fact that God created them for a specific purpose.
Call for Volunteers: Conversations
Conversations is an evening of music, humor, drama, and moving real-life stories. This year, nightly shows will begin the week of March 25-29. If you’re unfamiliar with Conversations, you can get more info here.
Our first performance is less than two weeks away, and we are in critical need of at least 60 more bakers and at least 40 more Children’s Ministry workers. There is also a less-critical need for ushers, parking attendants, prayer warriors, and make up artists. To volunteer for any of these positions, please click here.
We also need volunteers to provide food for the cast and crew prior to each performance (March 25-29). Each night during our Conversations outreach we will be feeding more than 100 people involved with the production. Please consider signing up to provide one or more items of food. To help with these meals, please click here.
For more information on any of these needs, please contact Barb Ruffner or sign-up online. And don’t forget to pick up invitation cards from the Welcome Desk and other tables throughout the RBC lobby the next time you’re here! We hope you’ll prayerfully invite many friends, coworkers and neighbors to this great event.Thanks.
Dale Peak
Administrator
VIDEO: Women’s Retreat 2013
Join us Friday, April 19, through Sunday, April 21, for the 2013 Reston Bible Church Women’s Retreat.
The Women’s Retreat is for all women, college age and above, who desire to step aside from their daily routine and focus their hearts and minds on our Lord Jesus Christ for an entire weekend. The retreat will include wonderful Biblical teaching, Christ centered worship, and small group discussion. Saturday afternoon is whatever you want it to be. You can attend a workshop, participate in a service project, spend time with friends, join other women in a planned activity, read a book, or just take a nap.
The retreat is a unique opportunity to gather with other women of RBC. It’s a time to deepen existing Christ-centered friendships and develop new ones; a time to connect with women in your stage of life; a time to meet women across the generations. It is a great opportunity to find community. We hope to see you there!
Event Update: Daddy-Daughter Dance
The arrival to our annual Daddy-Daughter Valentine’s Dance was posh this year with valet parking, corsages upon entry, and a formal photo shoot before heading into the exhibits area for this year’s dance, The National Gallery of Heart: Love on Display. The girls and their dates visited several exhibitions, including the Hope Diamond room where they fashioned their own version of the necklace or the Portrait Gallery where dads and daughters could choose a frame to draw their own work of art right on the wall! A bit later in the evening, the Dessert Café opened with a sundae bar, and then came the big reveal in the auditorium with a freshly-installed wooden dance floor and a DJ showcasing some struttin’ music! With a little over 200 folks in attendance, the night was brimming with joyful laughter and sweet smiles.
At one point in the evening, everyone was assembled to discuss that there are lots of ways that dads can put “Love on Display” for their wives and children. However, the only perfect example of “Love on Display” in history was Jesus Christ’s death on the cross (John 15:13). Jesus took on the penalty that we deserve for the times when we don’t love perfectly, forgave us for the times when we turn away from Him, and opened the door for us to live with Him in heaven for eternity. All we need to do is trust in what Jesus has already done for us. Jesus truly is, always, love on display.
For myself personally, there was never a moment to sit as I poised my volunteers for the next transition in the evening’s agenda or checked on the maraschino cherry stash. I’m so thankful that my duties kept me in and out of every room constantly throughout the night so that I could witness the fun and the awed faces of the couples with each new reveal! My eyes vigilantly searched in the nooks and corners in each room and I was never disappointed in the findings as I saw dads and their girls involved one-on-one in their own conversations, whether it was answering some questions we posed in their Gala Guide, or telling their own stories as they worked their way through each gallery exhibit.
The girls and their dates were blessed with a dedicated crew of volunteers and several staff members who made this night shine! May we be blessed to continue this event for years to come.
Have a story from the Daddy-Daughter Dance you’d like to share? We’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or drop us an email at stories@restonbible.org.
Event Update: Jr. High Epic Fun Night
With each of our Jr. High Friday Night Lives, we strive to create fun, safe environments where our students and their friends can have a great time & also hear about what Christ has done for us. On January 18th, the Jr. Highers had a blast at our Epic Fun Night. A series of Epic Fun activities were spread throughout the youth building so teens could compete in RC car racing, basketball, dodgeball, sculpting, Mario Cart, foosball, Super Smash Brothers, and more. The video below gives you a glimpse of all the excitement. It was a great time for our volunteers to hang out and build relationships with our students and over 40 of their friends that came.
In the middle of the epicness, we paused to watch some epic near-death experiences. In lots of epic movies it always seems when certain death and failure is imminent, at just the right moment salvation comes. The same was true for us in our spiritual lives. As Romans 5:6 says, “While we were still helpless, at just the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.” While we faced certain judgment and eternal punishment, Christ came in God’s perfect timing to die for us. This makes us some of the luckiest and most blessed people ever.
Praise the Lord for His salvation and for the 12 students who indicated they trusted in what Christ has done for them & began a relationship with God that evening.
If you have a Jr. Higher or know one you want to reach out to, go to www.restonbible.org/breakthru and check out our latest calendar to find our details for our next Friday Night Live.
VIDEO: Marriage Booster Promo
IS IT SAFE? How to Take Your Marriage to a Deeper Level of Emotional Intimacy.
Are there some topics that are taboo in your marriage? You know, those areas of discussion that you avoid because venturing there always seems to end up shaking the foundations of commitment to one another. In other words, you “don’t feel safe going there”. Join us on Friday, January 18 for our first Marriage Booster of the year. Pastor Paul Goodnight will help us learn how to take marriage to a deeper level of emotional commitment and trust.
The evening starts on your own with a dinner date for you and your spouse, with discussion questions provided by Pastor Paul Goodnight. Afterward we’ll meet back at RBC, where Pastor Paul Goodnight will speak.
Event Update: Jr. High Minute To Win It
Back in December, the Jr. High Ministry held our 3rd annual Minute to Win It: Friday Night Live. Guy Feiri (played by Erik Palmer) hosted our own version of the TV game show as our students played a series of pressure-packed challenges to win prizes.
We had a full room of excited Jr. Highers (with about 50 friends who do not regularly attend RBC) trying to throw rolls of toilet paper through hoops, making Diet Coke volcanos with Mentos, and bobbing their heads trying to tally steps on a pedometer.
The highlight video below gives you a small glimpse of the excitement. In the middle of the event, one of our Jr. High Volunteers, Amy Stegeman, shared about her life (you can also watch her story below). Just like how in the game show you only have a short time to complete a task, she shared about how she has learned that our time here on earth is short. But unlike the game, we don’t win prizes based on our performance, but by believing in the performance of the God who came into this world at Christmas 2000 years ago.
Praise God for the over 20 students who indicated they trusted in what Christ has done for them & began a relationship with God that evening.
Support Hurricane Sandy Relief Efforts
Interested in joining a team to help Hurricane Sandy victims in New York/New Jersey?
Click here and sign up to learn more.
If you’d like to support relief efforts financially, you can give online (be sure to designate “Hurricane Sandy Relief” in the box at the top.) Click here to give online.
(If you prefer to give by check, please put “Hurricane Sandy Relief” in the memo line and drop it in an offering box. Offering boxes are located in the lobby and in the back of the sanctuary.)
A Quick First Fruits Update
The Youth Ministry would like to extend a huge thank you to the body for its prayers and support in all aspects of First Fruits. God answered your prayers in many different ways last Saturday. There were more than 600 workers, spread over 30 teams that did close to 150 jobs, and raised almost $40,000 to immediately impact more than 70 families in the local community with groceries and gift cards. It was a long, but good day, one in which God provided near perfect weather. It was also a blessing to have Park View High School stepping out with volunteers (students and staff) and providing a place for us to meet for our morning and evening programs.
Check back in the near future for pictures from that wonderful day. For this and countless other reasons, we are truly grateful to God for richly blessing our body. Have a very special Thanksgiving.