December 2011 Rhodes Family Church Planting Update

Dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas from the Rhodes family! It is hard to believe that we are already at the end of another year! This year went by quickly and brought about a lot of change for our family!

To sum up, we began the year with our newest family member Titus! It is hard to believe that he will be one year old at the end of this month! He has been an amazing blessing in our lives and it is as if he has always been there! In January we were given a facility to meet in for free for Fusion, which was an answer to prayer and has made it so much easier for us as a church. It has been great having a place to call our own. Gabriella also turned 6 this year and is doing an excellent job in first grade. Josiah just turned 5 and is looking forward to going to Kindergarten next year. Our new house has been great so far. We love the neighborhood and are looking forward to getting to know our neighbors better.

As the year comes to a close so does the financial support we have from Converge. In our last few newsletters we have appealed to you all about continuing to support us this coming year as well. We have received many positive responses and are excited to see how God is using you all to fill our needs. We are about half way there and are still in need of your help. If you have not yet let us know if you are able to continue your support, we would love to hear from you. Any amount will help make us closer to our goal.

Jeremy just got some additional hours at the Jesus Center and the additional income is helping us quite a bit, but it is still not enough for us to make all our bills.  We are not ready to give up on Chico and the people here. God has uniquely designed us for this task and we are ready and willing to serve here for as long as He allows us.

We decided when we started this church plant that we were going to trust God to build his church. We were going back to the basics of being a community filled with Faith, Hope, and Love. We don’t have a lot of bells and whistles. Our goal is to preach the message of Christ and make disciples. We have grown our church one relationship at a time. Doing church this way has made it much harder and slower than we ever could have imagined and we are unwilling to compromise our beliefs to get more people in the door. This is what God has placed on our hearts and we are going to stay on this path.  We need your help to keep the doors open!

If you have any questions or would like to know more about what is going on here we would be more than happy to talk to you. We are more than willing to share with you in an open and honest way.

If you have already committed to continue giving to us please begin sending your support directly to Fusion at 1354 East Ave. Ste R #180 Chico, CA 95926.  We will send you a reminder in the mail.

Blessings!

Jeremy and Elizabeth Rhodes

email: pastor.jdr@gmail.com

October 2011 Rhodes Family Church Planting Update

Dear Family and Friends,

Fall is here is here and we have some relief from the heat. September was an exceptionally hot month. With the new season upon us we also find ourselves entering a new season in Fusion and in our family life! The last few weeks have been exciting for us and much change is afoot.

Gabriella has been playing soccer and she has a game every Saturday. This has opened up some new family fun for us. Josiah is enjoying the big open field to run around in with other little brothers from Gabriella’s team. Titus enjoys crawling around on the grass and being outside. Elizabeth is enjoying seeing her little one follow in her footsteps by playing soccer.

Jeremy has been able to get part-time job at the Jesus Center as the volunteer coordinator. This was a big answer to prayer, but is also an adjustment. This means that he has limited hours to work on Fusion related things, but it has allowed many members of our congregation to step up and take on leadership responsibilities. This way Jeremy can concentrate on all the specific senior pastor responsibilities.

Another change in our lives us that we were notified at the end of September that we need to find a new place to live by the end of October. Our landlord has decided to sell this house. We enjoyed living here these past few years and will miss it, but God has already supplied a new home and we are waiting for all the repairs to be finished so we can move around mid-October. This new place is around the corner from Gabriella’s school, where Josiah will be going in the fall, and we are all very excited to walk to school and have young families as neighbors. Please pray that we will be a light to the neighborhood and that many new relationships will be formed as a result.

Fusion has been very blessed! We have been running an ad in the Chico News and Review and we are seeing many new people as a result! We have had returning visitors for the past few weeks. We also had seven new adults and three new kids on Sunday. We are bursting out of our small meeting place. If these new people return we are going to need to add an additional service, which is an amazing problem to have!

These ads have been really speaking to the community and it is very exciting to see the response. Our name is having more of a presence through our ads, facebook, and website and people are starting to come and see what all the buzz is about.

Thank you so much for all of your prayer and support. We are getting a good response from many of you about supporting us beyond December. Please prayerfully consider doing the same if you have not made a decision yet. The economic climate in Chico is bad and so I have only been able to find part-time work for low pay. We will need your support going forward. As always we know that God will provide for us as he always has! If you have not yet sent in your support for October please do so at this time.

Blessings!

Jeremy and Elizabeth Rhodes

Email: pastor.jdr@gmail.com                                   

Blog: http://rhodes-project.blogspot.com/           

Church Website: www.fusionchico.com            

August 2011 Rhodes Family Church Planting Update

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s August and that is back to school time here in Chico. Gabriella starts 1^st grade on the 10^th and the college gets going on the 22^nd.

We are thankful for a restful summer! Gabriella participated in a musical where we were able to get to know even more parents in the area! Josiah also got to have a fun camp experience at a Sports Day Camp. Titus is growing quickly and is already 7 months old. We were able to go camping for the first time as a family and had family visit us. August is when things start getting busy again.

Fusion took a big step this month; they had their first Sunday with the pastor gone. I was gone over a Sunday for the first time since we had Sunday gatherings. The young man who filled in for me was someone who has been apart of our team since day one. He did a great job! He has been my ministry assistant for the past year and this was his first shot at teaching. He would like to pursue ministry professionally and this was the first step in that process.

I have spent this summer connecting with the fire department as well. I have been spending my Monday mornings at a different firehouse each week. I even got to experience a training exercise where they did a controlled burn in Bidwell Park. I am excited to see how God is going to grow the relationships that are starting there.

We are excited for the trajectory for Fusion. The future looks bright and we are thankful for all that God is doing in our Church. We have seen God’s hand in the relationships that we have been able to develop along with the organizational partnerships. We look forward to continue to partner with the Jesus Center and Habitat for Humanity of Butte County.

            We praise God for you! If you have not yet sent in your support for August please do so at this time. And if you are able to increase your support in anyway, please feel free to do so. We love you all very much. Please send us your prayer requests so that we can also pray for you.

Blessings!

Jeremy and Elizabeth Rhodes

Email: pastor.jdr@gmail.com                                   

Church Website: www.fusionchico.com            

July 2011 Rhodes Family Church Planting Update

Dear Family and Friends,

July is finally here and with it comes the Chico heat. Although it doesn’t seem to be as hot as the previous years it is definitely warm enough to blow up the kids pool and have lots of fun summer water play!

Summer is very slow in Chico. The heat seems to slow down every ones pace and people tend to do everything they can to escape it. We learned when we first moved here that summer is not the time to make any big plans but to enjoy the slow pace before it kicks back up in the fall when all the university students return.

With that in mind we have some wonderful plans for the fall. We will begin a advertising campaign in the Chico News and Review which is a weekly paper that is very widely read. We are also praying about starting a free tutoring program for students who need a little extra help with their studies. Please pray with us as we continue to brainstorm new ways to reach the community. Jeremy is focusing on getting more active with the fire department as the Chaplin. He is also looking for possible part time employment to help supplement our income.

We want to thank all of you for your prayers for Gabriella and we are pleased to report that she is doing much better! Praise God!! The doctor has given her a clean bill of health with no follow up appointments necessary at this point! We are thrilled with the results and we are seeing a little girl who almost always had dark circles under her eyes feeling full of energy and of life! 

We ask that you continue to pray for Jerry who is adjusting to life without his wonderful wife Kay. He is showing an amazing strength and we are so blessed to have him here with us. Also please pray for our financial situation. We continue to fall a little short each month. It is great to see the wonderfully creative ways God is providing for us during this time! Thank you to those of you that have answered Him and sent extra money when you are able. We are deeply thankful for you!

            You may not be here in Chico with us, but we still consider you part of our planting team because without you we wouldn’t be here. We praise God for you! If you have not yet sent in your support for July please do so at this time. And if you are able to increase your support in anyway, please feel free to do so. We love you all very much. Please send us your prayer requests so that we can also pray for you.

Blessings!

Jeremy and Elizabeth Rhodes

Dear Family and Friends,

Will we see an end to this rain anytime soon? We have been blessed with a late summer I am not looking forward to the heat. Despite the weather, all the other signs of summer are present. Most of the CSU students are gone and all of the churches have started gearing done for the summer. Summers in Chico are very slow but I am looking forward to all of the outdoor activities the summer brings.

We are very sad to let you know that one of the people that helped Fusion get up and running has gone home to be with Jesus. Kay Liston was a dear friend and helped us in so many ways, she was a master of behind the scenes ministry and she will be missed. I had met Kay back in 2003 as I started working at my fist full-time ministry position. She was on staff at the church was working at and she was an immense blessing. When her husband retired they moved up here to Chico and I was ecstatic. Her husband Jerry is still with us, he also has enabled the ministry of Fusion to take place.

Even though there is sadness there is also great joy. A young couple in Fusion is getting married in June. They are excited to start their life together.

We have also seen growth in Fusion over the past month. People are finding a home with us. Some for the first time in years are attending church. We are excited to see the people that God is bringing to Fusion.

My hope is to see many of the people that we have been praying for and loving on come to Jesus.  We have had many more opportunities to meet non-Christian families as Gabriella has started school and been involved in dance class. We are hoping that God can use our relationships to reach these people.

Please continue to pray for Gabriella as we try to discern how to help her with her GI issue.

Thank you for all of your prayers and financial support. We do pray for all of the prayer requests that we receive so if you have any needs let us know so that we can lift them up in prayer.

The ministry of Fusion would not be able to continue without your support thank you so much.

Blessings!

Jeremy and Elizabeth Rhodes

Email: pastor.jdr@gmail.com                                   

Church Website: www.fusionchico.com             

 

May 2011 Rhodes Family Church Planting Update

Dear Family and Friends,

Things are warming up as the seasons roll on. The weather forecast states that it may reach 90 this week! Yikes already!

Thank you for your prayers for Fusion. It means a lot that we have people praying for us.

This is an exciting time as we move forward. We are partnering with a local Church group to do some campus ministry in the next year. We are working together with university students to reach people who do not know Christ. We are attempting to be more intentional in reaching out. We are not going to start a worship service on campus we are going to work toward serving the campus… I am excited about this and will let you know more details as we begin working on this new part of Fusion.

We are also looking to start two more small groups using leaders from Fusion and people who are not connected to Fusion. This is a great outreach opportunity. Please pray that these groups will reach many new people.

Please pray for our family. Gabriella is going through some medical tests to determine what is wrong with her gastronomical system. They are giving her laxatives and we need to get x-rays. This involves us driving to Sacramento to see a specialist. Please pray for her, as we do not know what is going on.

We were able to receive our full salary this past month! Thank you so much for your generosity.

The ministry of Fusion would not be able to continue without your support thank you so much.

Blessings!

Jeremy and Elizabeth Rhodes

Email: pastor.jdr@gmail.com                                

Church Website: www.fusionchico.com            

April 2011 Rhodes Family Church Planting Update

Dear Family and Friends,

It is sunny, everything is in bloom, and there is still a cold chill in the air… Spring is wonderful in Chico!

We truly have been blessed through the trying times. God has confirmed over and over again that we are doing the right thing. We have been seeing God working in the lives of unchurched people that we are spending time with. I have a friend who is seeking right now, please pray that I have more opportunities to share Christ with him. A young woman who refuses to attend any church returned for the second week in a row. After the gathering she shared with me that she hates church but loved our gatherings, she told me that she even blogged about our gathering the previous week.

I have recently partnered with a friend of mine who is former Muslim from Kuwait.  We are working together to reach a growing Muslim population in Chico. He recently shared his testimony with us and that can be found on the website http://www.fusionchico.com/sermons/message3-13-11.mp3 if you click on the link or enter it in your Internet browser the audio will automatically begin playing.

Gabriella is coming to the end of her first year in school. It is amazing to see her learning so many new things and reading on her own. Josiah has had a hard time adjusting to Elizabeth needing to spend so much time with his little brother. Josiah keeps asking when Titus will be old enough to play with him. Gabriella and Josiah both love their little brother and always ask to hold him. Titus is growing fast he is 3 months old and wearing 6 month clothes. He is smiling and laughing, every Sunday when the message starts and he hears his Dad’s voice he gets really still. It makes me think about when we hear the voice of our Heavenly Father how we get really still and feel safe.

If you could pray for one thing for the ministry, pray that the Churches in Chico will wake up. The believers here are asleep. There are so many hurting people in need of Jesus and there are only a handful of believers reaching out. Fusion is a community that gathers to equip believers and scatters them back out to do the ministry. I recently asked the mid-week Bible study what I value most. They answered, discipleship, outreach, and service. I cannot wait until they value those things well.

Please remember us in your prayers because we are still in a very hard place financially. Many of you have been able to give above and beyond your normal giving and I thank you. Please remember to send in your support each month and share your prayer requests with us we do pray for those as we receive them.

Blessings!

Jeremy and Elizabeth Rhodes

Email: pastor.jdr@gmail.com                                 

Church Website: www.fusionchico.com