“GET BACK UP!” …The Sunday After Easter. 04.12.15

April 9, 2015 by Pastor David Rathel

Dear RiverTown Family,

The Sunday After Easter is traditionally one of the lowest attended services of the year in all churches. You know how it goes. We shoot for heaven and reach it on Easter Sunday. Then What? Then, the Sunday after Easter gets ignored. Jesus is still alive, right?

Everyone who comes to worship and seeks God on holidays, occasionally, or once a month – all stay home. It doesn’t have to be that way!

The same God who raised Jesus out of the tomb and got every worshiper up on Easter Sunday morning can still raise us up to new life and help us GET BACK UP on the Sunday after Easter. It’s a spiritual struggle. Can I get an Amen?

The Sunday after Easter inspired me to write a new message series that will start this Sunday:

The fighter is knocked down. His face is bludgeoned, swollen and bleeding. His body aches. The arena is spinning out of control. The crowd boos and hisses his name. Every cell in his body is screaming out the words: “STAY DOWN!” What’s he gonna do?

What are you going to do? In the fearsome fight of life, every one of us has been knocked down. That’s your test! That’s when you find out who you are. Your decision to get back up is not a fight against your opponent. It’s a fight against yourself!

God has never allowed one of his children to be knocked down without also giving him the ability to get back up. The most beautiful thing in the Christian life is when a believer has been knocked down and gets back up. The reason it’s so beautiful is because it’s so rare.

Together this spring at RiverTown let’s make it commonplace. Let’s be the comeback congregation. For six weeks starting the Sunday after Easter we’ll take an indepth look at the best comeback’s of the Bible.

So take a deep breath. Look up to heaven one last time. And… GET BACK UP!

Pastor David Rathel

P.S. We Didn’t quite make our Easter Sunday Financial Offering Goal toward building our new CROSS and PRAYER GARDEN on the front of RiverTown’s buildings facing Schomburg Road. Praise God that $9,242.72 was given. So, we almost made it. Ask God if He wants you to help put us over the top. The new contractor estimates are coming in and the total cost may be more than $10,000 to complete everything. We only want God’s glory in this project. I am committed to the faith and belief that He will supply all the resources necessary.

Check out these trailers for the new GET BACK UP message series:

About Pastor David Rathel

My wife, Melanie, and I moved back to Columbus with our two week old little girl, Hannah, after finishing Graduate School in Fort Worth, Texas in 2001. RiverTown Church was born in a movie theater on September 9th that same year with a vision to be “a church for people who don’t go to church” here in our hometown. God has blessed us since then with a great location on Schomburg Rd. near my old neighborhood and High School. New people are coming to RiverTown all the time and discovering that God can “transform their lives into the likeness of Jesus Christ” through a church family where you can Believe, Belong, and Become!

From our first prayer meetings in a living room in nearby Phenix City, to our preview services and grand opening the Hollywood Connection movie theater, and finally to our current property and buildings on Schomburg Rd. God has led us all the way.

My wife and I both grew up here, so we know the people and love it here. Melanie keeps me going! We’ve been through all the good, the bad, and the ugly of life and have found that everything is sweeter together. You’ll never find us at a church event on a Friday night. We’ve had date night on Fridays since my first day as a Pastor. We met while working together in a Franklin Graham evangelistic crusade here in Columbus in 1996. Our second child is named Graham for that very reason! Our first child, Hannah, was born in Forth Worth just before we finished Seminary in 2001. Two weeks after she was born in Fort Worth, we were on the road back to Columbus to knock on doors and start RiverTown. She and the church will always be the same age!

On this blog, you'll be the first to know what God is teaching me and teaching through me to our church family. We'll laugh together and sometimes cry together. Most of all, you'll be challenged to take your next step in following Jesus Christ.