Rob Ketterling

NCU MAGAZINE

You can imagine my surprise when I opened up the NCU Magazine and saw two full pages talking about our church and our team! Wow, two full pages and on another page, there was another picture so it looked like we had some very special help in being featured in the magazine!

We love NCU (North Central University) and all the hard work they do to train ministers and young people to go into their career as a sold out follower of Jesus. All of our worship leaders are from NCU and as you can see, so is a lot of our staff! I'm thrilled that we get so many good pastors and staff from NCU. We're also thrilled because our partnership has gone to another level as I now serve on the Board of Regents. This is a strategic partnership and one that will help us to start a school of ministry and other things we've been dreaming up. I keep hearing from prominent Christian leaders how strong NCU is and I agree, they're strong, we're strong and together, who knows what we can do!

ANOTHER GREAT WEEKEND!

What a great weekend at River Valley Church! I loved preaching on the idiom "Holier than Thou" and felt that God really spoke to all of us in the church. I sincerely want anyone to know that if a holier than thou person has kept you away from God, please, please, please give God another try. The Church was never meant to be that way, we were meant to be holy, but never holier than thou. If you missed the sermon, be sure to listen on-line!

It also was great to have baby/children dedications at all of our services and all of our campuses. I love the time that we get to stop the regular church service and dedicate the children and also for the parents to say they will raise their children in the ways of the Lord. I was so thankful for technology and the way it enabled us to include family members that couldn't make it to church. They were able to watch it with live streaming video all around the world. It was especially enjoyable to have Pastor Justin give a shout out to his parents in Arizona. I love technology and that it allows us to do multi-site church, on-line training and live streaming services.

$1,000,000 ON HIS HEAD

I met a man tonight that has a $1,000,000 price tag on his head for preaching the gospel because the country he is from (Let's just say it's in the Middle East.) can't stand that he's preaching and training leaders in his country. I was humbled, and honored to hear his story, pray for him and dream of ministry opportunities we could do together. He has been jailed twice, threatened daily and just radiates the joy of the Lord! Humbling and challenging as I look at my own life and ask the Lord to help me do more to spread the good news of Jesus.

I'm so glad that John Maxwell had him speak to us as leaders and I will never forget this experience. I hope we all can stand as strong and as joyful as this man with a million dollar price on his head for sharing the gospel and count the cost of serving Jesus.  

5 LEVELS OF LEADERSHIP

Once again, I have the privilege of spending some time with John Maxwell for 3 days and it's already been great! He shared with us an overview teaching of his new book, 5 LEVELS OF LEADERSHIP and it was so challenging. I've actually been looking for this book to come out for a while now and I was so glad he gave us a copy of it at this event. There are only about 100 of us here so it's very personal, intimate and informative as we hear lessons, ask questions and just get to hang out. Every time I'm around him, I get challenged to do more, think better and take my life and ministry to another level!

I'm glad that this year, not only do Becca and I get to spend time with John, but so do Darin and Jayne! Good stuff, good times and we still have two more days to go!

ELIM ONE CONFERENCE

It's the last day of the Elim One Conference and I can't believe we're almost done! Time flys when you're having fun! I have loved every minute of the conference and believe that good things will result from this trip. The ministry time has been wonderful and I have loved the daytime of teaching and the night time of preaching. In addition to that, I'm bringing back some good things we can do at River Valley, in The ARC (Association of Related Churches) and in other networks. Thanks for your prayers, I feel blessed to be sent here and to minister to these wonderful pastors and leaders! I'll be home for the Men's event at our Apple Valley campus this Friday as we get ready to hear from Rick Bezet! If you're a guy in Minnesota, don't miss it!!!! See you there!

IT'S OFFICIAL

It's official, I'm a fan! GO ALL BLACKS!

Thank you to the Elim Churches of New Zealand for the jersey, I'm official now!

OFF TO A GREAT START!

The Elim New Zealand One Conference is off to a great start and I feel right at home here. The people are so nice and it feels like River Valley Church to me when I'm in the services. I love that they get my humor and the few times that I've used illustrations in preaching that didn't fly, I just moved on quickly! Thanks for all the prayers for me from River Valley, I love being sent out from our church to tell of all that God has done at River Valley.

I spoke four sessions yesterday and loved the end of the night speaking to the sub 30 crowd. They call them the Now Generation and I love that! Can't wait to do 3 more sessions today!

F1 RACING HELP

In an effort to expand my horizons, I am going to start cheering for sports events that happen on a global scale and become a fan of some of the other sports in the world and I need your help. I have a Rugby team that I now will cheer for and that decision was made for me while visiting New Zealand. The All Blacks are now my official global Rugby team and my loyalty to them will be unchanged until America reaches the finals. (So as you can see, The All Blacks are in no threat of ever not being my team!)

Here's where I need help with F1 racing. I have NO idea who to cheer for in F1 and I'm completely open so if you could, suggest some racers/teams I can cheer for. As with my All Black Rugby choice, I would like to cheer for a strong team/racer but I'm open to an underdog but you better convince me, I already cheer for the Vikings, the Twins, the Wolves and the Wild...and sort of the Lynx (I was on the bandwagon for the final 10 minutes I admit.) All underdogs and only the Twins and Lynx have won it all. If I add an F1 racer/team I'm not sure I could handle another underdog.

So there you have it, not very spiritual as a blog but if you're looking for an angle, in 1 Cor 9:22 Paul says, I become all things to all men so as to win some. Maybe I will win over a Rugby fan or a F1 fan because I now care about these global interests! Help me out, send me an F1 racer/team that I can pull for!

READY TO TEACH AND PREACH IN NEW ZEALAND!

I'm down in New Zealand and I'm ready to start the Elim Pastor's conference! I'm excited because I get to do 9 sessions so hopefully one of them will be good! It really is fun hanging out with a group of pastors that I've never met and to see how the church is the same, all over the world. I'm really believing for great things!

Today I walked about 8 miles to fight off jet-lag and I'm glad I did. WIth a short trip like this, you need to fight it off the best you can, I didn't mind walking either, as you can see from the pictures, it's a nice walk!

WE HAVE A GREAT TEAM!

I have a great team, and I'm not talking about my fantasy football team, I'm talking about our church team of pastors, elders and deacons! I'm on my way to New Zealand to speak, teach and preach at a pastor's conference and it's a huge comfort to know that our church is in good hands.

I know that some leaders are insecure and they hope that when they're away, the wheels fall off or at least the church gets a flat tire! Not me, I hope it goes amazing, I hope people tell me how wonderful it was while I was gone, I hope people know that when I'm gone, it's still going to be great! I like coming back to good reports, no messes to clean up and a church that is still moving forward. It shows me that I've got a great team.

One of the things I pride myself on is that I can gather a good team and that the reputation of our church is so good, we have never have had a hard time adding staff. If anything, we have too many people that want in and not enough openings! (Hold on to all of those looking to join us, we have possibilities with three more campuses!)

So pray for me as I go to New Zealand, it's a last minute conference I'm speaking at and pray for our team as they take care of the church. We have a great team of leaders and never forget, great teams do great things!