RBC Annual Report 2015
“I will remember the deeds of the LORD, I will ponder all Your work and meditate on your mighty deeds.” – Psalm 77:11-12
Our Annual Report is not a list of our accomplishments, but rather a recounting of some of the great things God has done in us, for us and through us over the past year.
The 2015 Annual Report is available in print format at the Welcome Desk in the church lobby, or you read through the online version here. You can also click here to download a PDF.
We hope you’ll take some time to read through it, remember the mighty deeds of our great God, and be moved to deeper gratitude and trust in our great Savior.
God at Work in First Fruits
For over 20 years, the youth ministry has run the First Fruits project the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Every year, we raise money by raking leaves and doing other jobs throughout the day. That evening, we purchase lots of food and deliver the food to families in need in our community. This year, with an army of over 650 workers, we raised over $43,000 to provide food for over 100 families. We were also able to provide college scholarships to five local high school seniors.
Because we have been doing this for so many years, it is easy to just assume numbers like these will happen. But every year God does something that just makes us realize it is His work and His plan, not ours.
First, this year we had over 200 students from Parkview and Herndon High School sign up to work with us. These students have no affiliation with RBC, but the schools announced the project and they came to work with us. As a youth ministry, we are always trying to think of creative ways to reach out with the truth and hope of the Gospel to the students around us, and it’s so cool how God has taken something we designed to care for those in physical need and open so many doors for us to tell so many students about their greatest spiritual need. We never had a “strategic plan” or “vision” to turn First Fruits into an outreach, but it is now our biggest outreach of the year. Please pray for the hundreds who heard the Gospel at First Fruits.
Second, God orchestrated several food deliveries in ways that only He could. To identify many of the families we assist, we work through parent liaisons at several local public schools. We seek families that are experiencing hardships, but not currently being helped. These families are then randomly assigned to one of our 32 teams.
This year, as one team was entering the home of the family they were delivering to, the face of a young girl and her parents lit up. They were excited not for the food, but that one of the people delivering the food was the girl’s preschool teacher from several years prior. This instantly broke the ice and allowed for a powerful opportunity to share the love of Christ. When a group of strangers walk into someone’s home with bags of food and gifts, it can be awkward. But God, in providentially working out the right family with the right team, completely changed the situation. Only God can work out situations like that.
A similar situation happened with another team. They were supposed to deliver food to a different family, but at the last minute their delivery was switched. It just happened to be switched to a family a team member knew, which has opened the doors for additional ministry and care for the family.
God is not random. Our God is powerful and is doing great things in our midst, even when we don’t recognize it. Thank you so much for giving us jobs, working with us, donating to the project, and being part of what the Lord is doing to make His name known in Northern Virginia.
Below are some highlight pictures from the day. Enjoy!
A Quick First Fruits 2015 Update
Praise God with us for the work and blessings during First Fruits this year. Last Saturday, November 21, we had 32 teams composed of 659 volunteers completing 133 jobs. This day raised $43,490! The teams used some of what was raised to buy groceries and bring gift cards to 32 families with financial need that night. An additional 40 or more families will also be receiving grocery gift cards in the next few weeks. Five local high schools will be participating in a Perseverance Scholarship for seniors as they prepare for college. Teachers will also be nominated for a gift from us. All of these opportunities to exemplify God’s love to our neighbors is only possible because of the many people who sacrificed their time, energy and finances. Thank you!
To learn more about how First Fruits has an impact, read First Fruits: Beyond the Leaves.
Memorial Service for Oral Mizelle
After a long battle with liver disease, Oral Mizelle went home to be with his Lord early Tuesday morning. His memorial service will be this Friday, November 20 at 2:00pm here at RBC. There will be a small reception immediately following the service.
In lieu of flowers, condolences to the family may be made in the form of donations to the RBC Missions Fund, which supports our global missionaries and mission projects. Letters of sympathy and encouragement to the family may be brought to the service or sent to:
The Mizelle Family
c/o Reston Bible Church
45650 Oakbrook Court
Dulles, VA 20166
Please be in prayer for Oral’s wife Laurie and children Elizabeth and Nathan as they grieve their loss and rejoice in heaven’s gain.
Haiti Update & Christmas Hope
Pastor Aaron and his family spent the month of October in Haiti working with Pastor Francois’ church and orphanage in Pignon. In this video, he gives a brief report from our sister church there.
If you would like more information on the family mission to Haiti during Spring Break 2016, visit www.restonbible.org/familymissionhaiti.
To support the Christmas Hope project, visit www.restonbible.org/christmashope.
Memorial Service for Ellie Jenkins
Dear friends of the Jenkins family,
Here is information on the Viewing and Memorial Service honoring the life of Ellie Jenkins next week.
The viewing will be held on Sunday evening (Nov. 1) from 6:30 – 8:30pm at Blue Ridge Bible Church (770 S 20th Street, Purcellville, VA).
The Memorial Service will be on Monday (Nov. 2) at 10:00 am, also at Blue Ridge Bible Church. It will be immediately followed by a graveside service at Ebenezer Cemetery in Bluemont (20421 Airmont Road, Bluemont, VA). After the graveside service, attendees are invited to return to Blue Ridge Bible Church for a luncheon reception.
In lieu of flowers, condolences to the family may be made in the form of donations to the Warren P. Jenkins Foundation supporting global missionaries and mission projects. Donations and letters of sympathy & encouragement to the family may be brought to the service or sent to:
The Jenkins Family
c/o Reston Bible Church
45650 Oakbrook Court
Dulles, VA 20166
Jr. High Update: The Amazing Race
Pastor Aaron sharing the gospel with a room full of Jr. High students for our first FNL of the school year.
Our Jr High’s first Friday Night Live of the new school year was a huge success!
The event was set to the theme of the Amazing Race in which the youth were placed into teams and given clues to find different stations around the church to complete challenges before advancing to the next station. As a team, they had to put together a giant puzzle, knock down boxes with tennis balls launched from a water balloon launcher, copy a small painting, learn a portion of a TobyMac dance routine, shoot baskets from either different locations in the basketball court, find and memorize a Bible verse, and several other challenges.
That night, we had over 20 youth indicate on their info cards that they had accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior after hearing Pastor Aaron preach the gospel! Praise God for the great turnout, great weather, no major issues, and for the students that indicated their new faith in Christ.
Bill Hurley Memorial Service
We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of prayers and sympathy from so many who knew and loved our dear friend and co-laborer, Bill Hurley. A memorial service to celebrate his life was held at Reston Bible Church on Tuesday, August 18 at 10:30am EDT.
For our extended missionary staff, friends and missions agencies here in the U.S. and around the globe who are not able to attend the service, we provided a live video stream of Bill’s memorial service on this page. We will archive that video here for those who were unable to attend.
In lieu of flowers, condolences to the family may be made in the form of donations to the Reston Bible Church Missions Fund (To give online, click here to go to our secure online giving page – Select “Missions Fund” in the Choose Designation dropdown menu). Letters of sympathy and encouragement to the family may be sent to:
The Hurley Family
c/o Reston Bible Church
45650 Oakbrook Court
Dulles, VA 20166
TRIBUTE TO WILLARD JEREMIAH HURLEY
Impact—yes, that’s the word, though many other words could be chosen to pay tribute to Bill. I think impact is most appropriate. Webster says it means to come into forcible contact with another object. Bill was the force, and those around him were the objects. Impact is usually accompanied by noise and commotion. But with Bill it was different. It was a quiet force with a penetrating edge. It was more surgical and came with carefully-measured truth. Be assured it was direct, and you never had to second-guess what Bill was getting at – after all, he had been a police officer for thirty years. The truth was often sprinkled with humor, but it was never ambiguous, and as the years unfolded, his words became truth mixed with ever-increasing grace.
I think we call that wisdom—yes, that’s the word, though many others could be chosen. Webster says it is the gathering of knowledge and insight. I think wisdom is the proper application of knowledge, which in turn has impact on the lives of those who receive it. Bill was a great dispenser of wisdom. Many of us inquired of Bill when difficult times would come or when confusion reigned. He was often the go-to guy when we needed clear thinking untainted with bias. Remember, Bill saw life through a black and white lens. He didn’t let political correctness get in his way. He let truth be his navigator, and grey was not his favorite color. You did the right thing even if it was hard.
I think we call that integrity—yes, that’s the word, though many others could be chosen. Webster says it means sound or incorruptible. I have often seen the word as encompassing the whole character of a person. This was Bill every step of the way. He was honest, humble, courageous, humorous and godly. He kept a clear conscience and always admitted when he was wrong. Bill’s integrity has helped landscape the lives of his great family and those he called his friends. You couldn’t be around him long before you realized he was a man of uncompromising character. He could hardly talk about the difficult times missionaries were going through without getting choked up. He was tough, but tender.
I think we call that compassion—yes that’s the word, though many others could be chosen. Compassion is to feel what others feel. It is the ability to step into their shoes. Bill did that better than anyone I know. He would drive long distances to surprise a young candidate going through their first day of missionary training. Why? Because he had compassion and wanted to encourage them to stay the course. For thirty-five years he lead our missions committee in the distribution of over forty million dollars to places many of us have never even heard of. Talk about leadership.
Leadership—yes that’s the word, though many others could be chosen. Leadership is that quality that encourages others to follow. Those of us that knew Bill wanted to follow him. He had a unique way of looking at life and could see what most of us were blinded to. I loved this man as all of us did. I will miss him dearly because he had such an impact on all of us, yes that’s the word… Impact.
Pastor Mike Minter
on behalf of
the Police Fraternity,
the body of Reston Bible Church,
& our Missionary Families
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ…
– Philippians 3:20
Kids Camp 2015 Recap
Jesus is calling us to move beyond the beach and into the waves, to a place of adventure, purpose, and true joy! “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” – Jesus (John 10:10b)
Kids Camp 2015, “Surf’s Up,” has come and gone. This year’s camp was a huge success with roughly 400 children and volunteers in attendance over the five days. The children of the church were challenged in their faith and their walk with Jesus, while many children from the surrounding community got to hear the gospel message presented through music, drama, and Bible teaching, perhaps for the first time. We were blessed with the positive feedback that came in from parents and children alike. Here is a little sampling:
“The kids were coming home from an afternoon summer camp and they practically ran to the car each day in order to not be late to RBC!”
“My heart leapt when my son, who never wants to lead prayer at home, asked if he could pray after coming home from Kids Camp.”
“Our son came home after the second day of camp and asked us to pray with him to receive Jesus’ gift of salvation and eternal life.”
To go along with our theme, “Surf’s Up,” the children were encouraged to bring an offering toward Christian Surfers International (www.christiansurfers.com) and enthusiastically responded. Those funds will be going toward a children’s outreach in Panama this summer through Christian Surfers. These are the moments that make the long hours and hard work of volunteers and staff alike more than worth it.
We are so very thankful for all that God did in and through Kids Camp 2015, “Surf’s Up,” and are already looking forward to next summer! We are also so thankful to the volunteers without whom Kids Camp would be quite impossible. Thank you for answering the call to raise up a generation that knows Christ and makes Him known.
CLICK HERE FOR STOKED TV’S DAILY SURF REPORT VIDEOS! Fresh from Kids Camp 2015, Surfjan Stevens and Keanu Reefs bring news, weather, beach conditions and more on Stoked TV’s Daily Surf Report!
about kids camp
RBC Kids Camp is a week-long day camp open to all children entering the 1st grade through the 6th grade* and takes place the last week of June. Through quality Bible teaching, art, drama, music, and a ton of awesome games, Kids Camp (formerly VBS) is a unique opportunity for children to begin or grow in their relationship with Jesus and to learn to share their hope and joy with others. Check out www.restonbible.org/kidscamp for more info.
*There is a Kids Camp program for nursery, pre-K, and rising kindergarteners which is open to children of Kids Camp volunteer staff only.
Kids Camp 2015: Daily Surf Report
Fresh from Kids Camp 2015, Surfjan Stevens and Keanu Reefs bring news, weather, beach conditions and more on Stoked TV’s Daily Surf Report!