What is an Evangelical Christian?

I am a Christian. This means that I believe the Holy Bible is a message from God to humanity. To be more specific I could use the terms "Evangelical Christian". If you don't understand those two terms let me briefly share what they mean.

The word "Evangelical" comes from a Greek word that means "Good News".
(The word "Gospel" also means "Good News")
The word "Christian" comes from the Bible in Acts 11:26 to describe those who are followers of Jesus Christ.

Placing those two words together means that I am a believer in Jesus Christ and strive to be faithful in promoting the "Good News" in my action, attitude and speech.

Here are four points that summarize the message (Good News) of the Bible and what it means to become a Christian.

--RELATIONAL PROBLEM--
1. God: the loving creator of the everything, who is Holy, or set apart, from creation. AKA: is perfect!
2. Us: humanity is not perfect. Nobody would argue with the fact that there are no perfect people. (My wife can attest to this fact by being married to me!) We all mess up, act selfish and think/act in in unGodly ways. So we have a problem. Imperfect humanity cannot have a relationship with a perfect God. God cannot stand the presence of a messed up, selfish, sinful man.

--RELATIONAL SOLUTION--
3. Jesus Christ: God's love is so audacious that He wanted to provide a way for us to have a right relationship with Him. He did this by sending Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life, to die on a cross on our behalf. Our sin deserves death and permanent separation from God. BUT God allowed Christ to die in our place, for our sins, so that we can come into a permanent right relationship with God. Jesus saves us from the penalty of our sins. Is knowing this enough to have a right relationship with God? No. The devil even knows this and he is definitely not in a right relationship with God!
4. You and me personally: To cross the line into a right relationship with God you have to personally trust Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord.
A. Savior: Trust that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.
B. Lord: You must decide in thought and deed to make Jesus Christ your ultimate authority. What Jesus modeled and encourages people to do is what we must strive to do. Granted, you will not be able to do this with perfection BUT your new ultimate life goal has changed from following and pleasing someone/something else to following and pleasing Christ in every area of your life. How can you grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ? By reading the Bible and getting involved in a church where the Bible is taught and you can rub shoulders with people who will encourage you in your relationship with Christ.

There is nothing more significant in life than growing in your relationship with Jesus Christ. That's why I do what I do at RPCC.

Nobody can force you into this relationship with God but my hope and prayer is that you would honestly consider exploring this God who is passionately in love with you.

If you have any questions please email me: james@riverparkcc.com. If you would like to find a good church where you live I can help you find one no matter what part of the world you live in.

Catalyst West Coast

Had a nice drive through Malibu and then the gazillions of people who call LA, Orange & Riverside County Home. At dusk I stopped at a Malibu beach for 15 minutes to think, pray, be still, eat a McDonald's Fruit N Yogurt Parfait, watched planes take off from LAX and saw the lights from the Ferris Wheel on the Santa Monica Pier. Now I'm chilling with my in-laws tonight and then an early start tomorrow. Heading to Mariners church in Irvine for www.catalystwestcoast.com. In being a poor church planter I can't afford these conferences... and our church can't afford to pay for these right now. So, I'm volunteering which means I get in free. I get the privilege of doing sound all day tomorrow in pre-conference seminars and then helping with sound for "The Before Part" hosted by Carlos Whittaker. Day two and three I'm a stage hand, aka 'grunt' from 6am-10pm. Expect to be exhausted at the end of the week but at the same time refreshed and encouraged by a great line up of leaders. The last 7 months has been a joy but no question a lot of hard work and this week will be some needed encouragement as I continue the journey.


I miss my family already... in fact, I missed them before I even left.

Are you Canadian?

I woke up Canadian a while back. You might now be Canadian too! ;) Unlikely but funny video clip!

River Park Egg Drop!

Yesterday was REEEEEDICULOUS!!! We had over 4,000 people show up to riverparkeggdrop.com!!! The people just kept coming and coming and coming! We advertised registration opening at 10am and people started to line up by 7:30am!!! My wife was in charge of the registration team of about 16 people. They did a phenominal job at getting 4000 people registered and gave all the kids wristbands within about 90 minutes.

Ventura County Star did an article on the event today. You can read it here. Make sure you read all the comments below. Some of them are a little dramatized but they'll help you get a feel for how CRAZY it was! Most people actually did have a great time but we sure learned a lot and if we do it again next year we will definetly be better prepared. It was so funny when the helicopter arrived... all the parents pulled out their cameras and video cameras like they have never seen a helicopter before. (They fly over many times a day around these parts!) The helicopter did about 4 fly overs before he dropped the 2,000 eggs. We advertised 10,000 eggs but the helicopter couldn't hold more than 2,000. Who knew?

Bottom line: it was a typical Easter Egg hunt (Ok, a helicopter is not so typical)... took a lot of time to plan and about 90 seconds to finish and there are always kids (and in this case parents!!!) who hog a ton of eggs and kids who get none. It's really a great activity to test (and teach) a child's character! We were honored to be able to bless our community with such a fun event.

If you ever want to plan an event like this in your area, I'd be glad to share with you how we put it together (and the mistakes we made!). We are now praying that many people who showed up would come by riverparkcc.com over the next few weeks and grow in their relationship with God.

-Stay tuned, I will post pictures and a YouTube video soon.

What did you do for Easter this year?

Are You Really the Leader?

Great post on Leadership by Tony Morgan!

1 Helicopter... 10,000 Eggs

Tonight I have begun the process of preparing my share of about 10,000 plastic Easter Eggs. I'm stuffing each one of my 2,000 with candy and a raffle ticket. Why? Because the RPCC team wants to be a blessing to Oxnard, CA. We just want to bless the families of west Ventura county with the biggest, most fun, unique Easter Egg hunt ever!
We're calling it the River Park Egg Drop.

I'm excited to see what is in store for us April 11 because everyone we talk to about this gets REALLY excited! Every time I turn around we seem to get a new sponsor. So far we've got 9 corporate sponsors and we're also teaming up with another local church plant to make this happen. All our prizes and candy have been donated. We've put up posters, put post cards in thousands of doors and car windows, pulled out Facebook ads. If you're in the area April 11, you will not want to miss this! I just hope there won't be too many scuffles with kids scrambling for the eggs! Don't worry, we will have plenty of candy for all, security and an ambulence on location! :) (They will not treat sugar highs!)

What Easter Events have you attended that were the most memorable/successful?