Celebrating Generosity: The RBC Garden Project
A volunteer-lead imitative that began in the Spring of 2018, the RBC Community Garden Project grows and provides several hundred pounds of food a year to guests of our weekly Food Pantry.
If you’re interested in volunteering, we are always looking for help with planting, weeding, watering, harvesting and produce delivery. We also can use help with special projects like mulching, garden box construction and grounds maintenance. If you want to volunteer or would like more information, please contact Rob Schulman. You can download a Garden Volunteer application form here.
CELEBRATING GENEROSITY: Annual Report & Succession Update
RBC ANNUAL REPORT 2018: From Sunday, December 9, here’s Executive Pastor Bruce Campbell giving an end-of-year financial update. You can find this information and much, much more by reading through the 2018 Annual Report. It is a joy to look back and remember the great things God has done, and the Annual Report allows us an opportunity to do that in the context of our church. May this year-in-review be an encouragement to deeper worship and more profound trust as we look back and are reminded of the good God has done among us for the glory of His name.
SUCCESSION UPDATE: The video above also includes a brief update from the chairman of the RBC elders, Eric Smith, regarding where we are as we trust the Lord to raise up Pastor Mike’s successor. The text of Eric’s announcement is also included below.
Since it has been some time since we have addressed the subject concerning the status of Mike Minter’s succession, the elders wanted to provide you with an update: To be clear up front, we are not announcing Mike’s imminent departure or replacement.
It has been said that every pastor is an interim pastor. God provides a pastor so that he might teach & shepherd the flock until the time that he hands off the baton to the next pastor, also provided by God. National statistics tell us that the average tenure of a senior pastor is less than 8 years. We are glad that Mike never got the memo, as he has persevered more than 40 years the senior teaching pastor of RBC. We are tremendously blessed to have Mike stand in this pulpit for all these years and although he remains youthful, we are all aware that Mike is not eternal (at least not in his present flesh).
You might not be aware of this, but as a result of Mike’s humility, he began engaging in dialog with the elders almost 15 years ago, about what a healthy succession plan might look like. Mike has demonstrated great faith in the Lord and willingness to “step out of the way” at anytime, should it be deemed best for RBC. I want it to be clear that no one in leadership is looking forward to his departure and there is no imminent concern for his replacement. At the same time, we desire to be diligent and thoughtful about the future. Our hope is that the Lord would grant us the opportunity to identify Mike’s eventual replacement, perhaps even years prior to Mike’s departure. We are also excited as we look to the Lord to see who He will provide as Mike’s successor. Understand, Mike is in excellent health and enjoying the opportunity to serve RBC with his preaching and teaching gifts.
The elders have for many years been prayerfully considering what a healthy transition looks like. We have been revisiting the position description and continue dialog regarding a succession plan. At some point in the near future, we will, Lord willing, invite the pastors, staff and all of you to consider your network of relationships in order to harvest potential names for consideration as we conduct a soft search. We will not be advertising or retaining a search firm at this time.
Although the future is not certain, we are confident that He who has begun a good work in the Saints at RBC will be faithful to complete it. He who has raised up Pastor Mike so profoundly, will He not care for His church?
We invite you to continue joining us as we earnestly pray and seek both His timing and His choice. It is our sincere purpose and hope that this transition will honor the LORD, honor you, and honor Mike & Kay, servants through whom much fruit has been born.
Thanks for co-laboring with us.
Celebrating Generosity: Youth Summer Camp 2018
A few hundred Senior and Junior High youth recently returned from our 2018 Summer Camp in Mt. Hope, WV. We saw the Lord do some incredible things in the lives of students as we examined the topic of fear through a biblical lens. Thank you to the many volunteers who graciously gave of their time, talents and treasure to serve our students and show them the love of Christ throughout the week. Thank you, RBC, for being a generous church!
Celebrating Generosity: Amazon Pastors Conference
Through your generosity, our church is grateful for the opportunity to “pastor the pastors” of the Amazon.
Celebrating Generosity: Annual Report 2017
Like everything else we do at Reston Bible Church, our giving is about worship, about declaring God’s worth, about knowing Christ, and about making Him known.
Again this year in our Annual Report, we are celebrating generosity. We celebrate the generosity of the RBC body, who give of their resources so faithfully each week, allowing us to do ministry that reaches hearts and lives in Northern Virginia and every corner of the globe. Even more so, we celebrate the generosity of a Father who gave His Son to make sinners His treasure, and who uses our treasures to make His Son known.
God loves a cheerful giver, and God is a cheerful Giver. That’s worth celebrating.
Watch the video above for a brief glance at how God used your generosity throughout 2017 and check out annualreport.restonbible.org for a more stories of how the Lord worked within and beyond our walls.
Celebrating Generosity: Hurricane Relief
After the devastation left by several hurricanes this year, Reston Bible Church engaged in relief efforts in Texas and Puerto Rico, providing manpower and supplies. Here’s a brief update from two trips. If you’re interested in future relief trips, please contact Dale Peak.
Celebrating Generosity: Freedom Sunday
We are thankful for many who seek justice and love mercy. Over the past year, we have been able to contribute to both of these organizations because of your generosity.
To learn more about International Justice Mission, visit ijm.org or to learn more about the Northern Virginia Human Trafficking Initiative, visit novahti.com
Celebrating Generosity: Mom’s Connection
Mom’s Connection is a place where moms with kids from infancy to elementary age can come and learn, share and connect with other moms. We’ve all been ’new’ before and we have a heart to make sure no mom feels alone.
We are grateful for the giving which supports this ministry and for the RBCers who give generously of their time to serve our young mothers. Get more information on Mom’s Connection at RBC, please visit www.restonbible.org/moms.
Celebrating Generosity: AWANA
We are so grateful for a church that gives so much of their time, treasure and talent to pour the gospel and the Word of God into the lives of our children. RBC, thank you for being a generous church!
Celebrating Generosity: Family Mission Brazil
It is our great desire to celebrate the generosity of the Lord here at RBC. Over this past Spring Break, Family Life Pastor Mike Meyers led a team of eighteen RBCers – parents and children – to serve in an indigenous region of Brazil. Our U.S. team partnered with a team of Brazilians that included several RBC-supported missionaries working with Open Arms Worldwide. The teams partnered with a tribal church in the village of Limão Verde in order to serve families and reach children with the gospel of Jesus. Many of you gave and prayed in support of their efforts, and we just want you to know how thankful we are for your generosity. Here’s a quick look at their trip.
Celebrating Generosity: Deacons Ministry
Scripture tells us to “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). With this in mind, the RBC elders have appointed a specific group of men and women in our church to help bear the burdens of those in need. The specific purpose of the Deacon Ministry of Reston Bible Church is to care for the material and financial needs of those who regularly attend our church and consider RBC their church home. Your generosity enables us to serve many people within our congregation who are dealing with a variety of difficult life circumstances. Thank you for being a generous church and helping bear each other’s burdens as an expression of Jesus’ love.
You can learn more about the Deacon Ministry at RBC at www.restonbible.org/deacons.
Celebrating Generosity: Nicaragua Bike Project
RBCers have donated over 500 bikes in support of an orphanage in Managua, Nicaragua. The orphanage has developed a thriving bike shop where orphans are discipled in Christ as they learn vocational skills like bike repair, sales and customer service. Through your generosity, here is how the Lord is impacting lives in Nicaragua.
Celebrating Generosity: Global Missions
The RBC Missions program officially began in 1978 supporting 3 missionaries with a total annual budget of $5000 per year. Since those early years, our involvement in what God is doing around the world has exploded. Each year we are blessed to send multiple teams of RBC adults and youth on short term missions trips to support evangelistic efforts, construction projects, camps for children and more. Additionally, 19 of our RBC families and singles are currently serving the LORD oversees long-term and it is our great privilege to be their home sending church.
Because of decades of your continual generosity, today your giving extends to 59 countries supporting 191 missionaries including many nationals serving in their country of origin. Through your prayers and giving, and our missionary family, God is planting churches in areas where none exist, caring for refugees and bringing them to salvation in Jesus, training pastors in oversees bible colleges and seminaries, translating Scripture into other languages, supporting urban & rural churches, ministering to orphans and children and much more.
Through you and your generosity, God is reaching the nations with the love of Christ.
From our humble beginning of allocating $5000 to overseas missions, your faithful giving to the general fund has expanded the annual budget for these global mission efforts to over $1.5 million per year. The results since 1978? Over $36.8 million given towards world missions. Even more importantly, God has used you to bring tens of thousands of lives to a saving knowledge of Himself, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So again, I thank each of you for your generosity. I encourage you to keep keeping on, for our Lord is worthy of it!
Celebrating Generosity: Youth Winter Retreat
Here’s a quick update from Pastor Aaron Osborne on this year’s Youth Winter Retreat and how your generosity is impacting the lives of students for the glory of God. Thank you for being a generous church.
Annual Report 2016
“I will remember the deeds of the LORD… I will ponder all Your work and meditate on Your mighty deeds.” – Psalm 77:11-12
As 2016 comes to a close, we hope you’ll take some time to remember, reflect and give thanks for many things our God has done in and through the body here at RBC over the past year. Our annual report is a way of doing just that. It is not a list to highlight our accomplishments, but a way of “remembering the deeds of the LORD…”
In the annual report, you’ll find brief overviews of many things God has done as we sought to know Christ and to make Him known in 2016. Of course, He has done far more over the past year than we can put here – “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25) But our prayer is that this report will give you a brief glimpse of some of His mighty deeds, a taste of what He has done. Taste and see that the Lord is good! (Psalm 34:8)
As you read through and remember the goodness of God, we pray that you would rejoice in the glory of His grace and give thanks for the beauty of His gospel as it goes forth in so many ways in Northern Virginia and around the world.