A Message From Pastor Aaron Barham

Proverbs 3:5 – 6 (NLT)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.

 

The year 2022 is officially in the history books, and what a year it has been. Despite all the challenges you may have faced, one fact remains true: God is faithful, and we can trust Him with our whole hearts! He has blessed RCA in so many ways. We have seen tremendous growth with new and familiar faces, as well as unity in the Body of Christ. PTL!!!

I want to take a moment and thank you for your faithfulness in serving and giving to the Lord. Because of your faithfulness, we have been able to bring the hope of Jesus to a city in desperate need of what we have. That hope was also spread throughout the world as we were able to continue our support for missionaries overseas and in our own nation. On top of all that, we were also able to continue the building of our new sanctuary, and very soon we will be worshipping in it!

So, again, thank you for giving sacrificially and serving with joyful hearts of love. Truly we have been blessed beyond measure and I give God all the praise and glory for everything that was accomplished for the Kingdom of God in 2022.

We pray for God’s continual blessing on you.

When Amber and I accepted the invitation to become your pastors, The Lord spoke to us and said, “I am going to bring about a great healing in this church and then revival.” Since 2020 we have seen The Lord faithfully do that. Then in 2022, He challenged us with the theme of “Better Together.” We are Better Together as a Church when we Love God Together, Love People Together, Share Jesus Together, and Make Disciples Together. We have seen God bring healing and unity, and this year I believe is the beginning of revival. I believe He has so much more for us in 2023!

As I was praying about our theme for this year, the Lord began burning the word “Pursue” in my heart. You see it was “His Pursuit of us that made it possible for us to Pursue Him.”  What God has been witnessing to my heart is this: He has brought healing and will continue to do so. He has brought unity and will continue to do so. What He has next for RCA Church will require us to PURSUE, follow and keep pressing forward after Him.

Amber and I are so grateful for this opportunity to serve as your pastors. We love you and look forward to all God is continuing to do at RCA Church! The future is bright for RCA, and should the Lord tarry His return, I believe that RCA Church will leave a lasting Legacy for future generations!

Finally, I would like to thank our church leadership for their dedication and faithfulness in ministry. From the nursery to the nursing home and everything in between, you are making a difference for the Kingdom of God. I would also like to say a big thank you to our Church Board of Directors, Mike Freese, Allen Strickland, Kelly Karakas, and Steve Bridges, for their great support. Thank you to our Office Staff, Lindsay Pratt, Mary Reitz, Tresa Wyatt, and Joshua Barham, for their hard work and dedication. Also, to our Pastoral Staff, Matt & Kallie Bockhahn, Moriah Muncy, Amy Taylor, and Greg & Sheri Rickets (Lone Pine Campus Pastors), we appreciate your dedication, excellence in ministry, and friendship. We love each one of you and are honored to work alongside you!

Lastly, I would like to thank my wife, Amber, and our amazing children, Joshua & Abigail. I wish I had words that were adequate enough to express how much I love and appreciate you. You are such a blessing to me, this church, and to His Kingdom.

Looking forward to 2023 with my RCA family. We are truly better together, so let’s pursue Him more this year!

Pastor Aaron & Amber Barham

 

 

RCA Staff

RCA Church Lead Pastors

Aaron & Amber Barham

Lone Pine Campus Pastors

Greg & Cheri Rickets

RCA Youth Pastors

Matt & Kallie Bockhahn

RCA Children’s Pastor

Amy Taylor

RCA Worship Arts Pastor

Moriah Muncy

Communications & Marketing Director

Mary Rietz

Front Office Assitant

Lindsay Pratt

Presented by Board Treasurer Mike Freese

2022 Financials

Luke 6:38 (NLT)

Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

God is so good! I am so grateful for His loving kindness and many blessings He has poured out on RCA Church. Thank you for being faithful and obedient in your giving this year. Because of your generosity we have been able to accomplish so much for the Kingdom of God. From supporting Missions, helping our community, taking care of our current facilities, building a new building, and much more.

Here is a summary of your faithfulness:

RCA Church ended the year $105,231.89 to the positive and the RCA Lone Pine Campus (under the leadership of Pastor Greg Rickets) ended the year $15,215.67 to the positive! Praise the Lord!! Below is a comparison of 2021 to 2020.

2021 Giving towards New Building: $100,574.82

2021 Giving towards Missions (Projects and Missionaries): $68,662.39

 

Thank you for your faith and trust in us as we continue to be good stewards of all God blesses us with. Again, we are thankful for His faithfulness and your faithfulness as well. We pray many blessings on you!

Ridgecrest

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Lone Pine

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Presented by Rich Merati

    New Building Update

    We begin the update with great anticipation the building will be finished in the first half of 2023!!! There has been a lot accomplished in 2022. At this point the carpet is all installed, the bathroom partitions have been installed, all tile work is done, cabinet countertops are installed, the parking lot is graded and ready for asphalt. A lot of the interior finishes are complete. We were able to finally track down the electrical issues and they are all fixed!!! Concrete is still being placed for access to the building and all the curb work is complete. The doors have all been installed as well as the hardware on most of them. We are waiting on warmer temperatures for the asphalt to be placed at this point. The light poles for the parking lot have been delivered and will be installed as we get the sidewalks in place. All in all, the project has seen many items completed in the last couple of months and progress is moving along very well. Looking forward to opening God house and can’t wait to see what he is going to do in it. Blessing

     

     

    Presented by Pastor Moriah Muncy

    Worship Arts

    2022 was an amazing year for the Worship Arts Ministry here at RCA Church. We went through major rebranding at the beginning of the year, and after much prayerful consideration, we renamed the RCA Worship team to Hope United Worship. We feel this name best represents the purpose and vision of our team. With this rebranding came the first-ever original release of our song Many Voices One Song! We have had over 1500 streams across iTunes, Spotify, and Youtube Music.


    Another goal of the Worship Arts Ministry is to always bring our best as an offering to God. In that effort, we’ve worked hard to improve our Audio Visual, Media, and Livestream teams. Bringing more consistent and higher quality live streams, announcement and bumper videos made in-house, and excellent live audio and visuals.


    This year we hope to release more original music, host anointed worship leaders from around the united states, and continue serving God diligently through our music and service production. We plan to continue providing powerful worship and services that draw both our in-person and online congregation and aid in expanding the kingdom of God through our service at RCA Church. Most of all, we will continue to be vessels for the Holy Spirit, so His will is done in our worship on and off stage.
    Huge thank you to all of our Worship Arts volunteers! Without each of you, your talents, and your dedication, we would be unable to do what we do.

    Presented by Debra Nelson

    Missions Ministries

    This past year it has been an honor to serve RCA Church and the Missions team. Our team has relentless love for missions, our missionaries and RCA Church. Our goal is to reach out with the love of Christ Jesus to impact and transform lives both locally and globally through awareness, prayer and service. We continued our goals to grow our mission, outreach and missionary awareness through prayer, communication and support.

    This year on January 16th we launched our Annual Missions Kick-off with guest speakers pastor Larry Emerson and missionary Roger K. The missions team spent time with pastor Larry and Roger who provided us with encouraging words and ideas. Those blessings flowed over to Sunday morning as he shared the heart of missions with our congregation and kicked off our first Heart of God revival.  JJ Ferrell came and spoke to our youth. We were blessed to have missionary Simon Gounder speak during a Sunday service. He brought to us a great word and the ability to go on a one-day trip in 2023.

    During 2022 we expanded our missionary support to include support to new missionaries and projects. RCA currently supports 41 missionaries and 6 mission organizations/projects. Our community outreach projects were met with open arms and God’s presence as our congregation and community partners blessed families with God’s love.

    Click Below to view Missions  2022 Highlights

    Missions Financial Totals

      • Income $91,530
      • Tithe to Missions: $62,297
      • Expenses: $135,071
    Missionary Support
      • Income: $37,528
      • Support including Guest Speakers: $43,420
    Mission Trips
      • Vision Trip to Portugal: we sent a small team to evaluate the need in Portugal. God blessed us with the ability to spend time with our missionary Mike Pratt and their family in Poland. We raised $10,799.49 in relief for Ukraine.

      • The Disaster Relief Trip to Louisiana was a huge success. A team of 12 was blessed to serve with Samaritan’s Purse on rebuild projects.

    CityServe
      • Total family contacts: 119
      • Income: $2,711
      • We did a 1=2 service to help pay for trucks
      • Expended: $6,512.83
    Royal Family Kids
      • $6000 donation from Men’s ministry golf tournament
      • Income $5,455
      • Our RCA Congregation filled the summer camp store with items needed for the camp
    Easter Offering

    Exodus Project: In Easter of 2020 and 2021 we raised funds to go to the refugee camps in Turkey/Syria. 

      • 2020/$1,635
      • 2021/$18,038
      • Total Sent: $17,438
    Care Bags

    Care Bags distributed to the homeless: This year the missions team made care bags and asked the congregation to distribute them. We gave away approximately 125 bags

    Serve Day
      • May 22nd, 7 projects completed /30 volunteers.
      • Oct 23rd, several projects on church grounds. Approximately 30-40 volunteers.
    Fire Bibles

    Tom Green spoke about Fire Bibles: We raised $14,980.

    Operation Christmas Child
      • 177 OCC Boxes RCA Ridgecrest
      • 38 OCC Boxes RCA Lone Pine
      • 730 from the community (transported from RCA Missions to the collection center)
    Ornaments For Angels

    We provided Christmas for 118 children/40 Families. We had donations of $850 come in to help support the buying of gifts

    Aditional Support Provided
      • Convoy for Hope $165
      • Disaster Relief $1000
      • Feed One $1040
      • Guest Speakers: Income $7,000

      Support $13,183

    Presented by Pastor Amy taylor

    I came on mid-August as the Children’s Pastor for RCA.  We have added several new RCA kids team members since then.  Although we need to add to our teams, we are thriving and there are more kids coming to kids church!  We look forward to the coming year adding activities, building our team, partnering with the parents in teaching our kids about Jesus and having FUN doing it!

    We had some AMAZING student leaders jump in and bring the word with some crazy characters. Abi really stepped up and led this area and recruited to build this group.

    And of course Kids Church would not be complete without playing games and having FUN!

    We had 5 kids get baptized! That was more than the adults that were baptized that night. They were so excited to get baptized and to share the next week in KC that they were baptized.  Wesley was even able to get baptized by his DAD!

    We worshipped God!  What a sound to our ears and heart to hear our children worship God. I am so thankful for a team that loves to worship God and lead our children to do the same.

    We entertained our church for Christmas.  We had such a great time! I  hope you all enjoyed our children as much as we do.

    Presented by Pastors Matt & Kallie Bockhahn

     

    RCA Youth Ministry 

    The Student Ministry of RCA Church exists to glorify God by encouraging and equipping students in their pursuit of loving God, loving others, sharing Jesus, and making disciples.

    At the beginning of this year, we prayed specifically that God would provide more leaders for this youth group. And not just any leaders but dedicated ones who are engaged in the lives of these young people and invested in their own walks with God. The Lord answered these prayers almost immediately by providing four committed additional leaders to the team.  

     

    Click Below to view RCA Journey Youth’s  2021 Highlights

    Spring Retreat

    Many events, including our usual, yearly, Youth Convention were still on hold due to Covid so we decided to put on our own Spring Youth Retreat.  We took about thirty students and seven leaders to Crestline Thousand Pines Christian Camp. We put on our own camp program.  Hiring our own camp speaker and running our own games and activities. The theme God laid on our hearts for this retreat was “Faith in Action”- where we talked about, once we have faith in Christ, what do we do with it? 

    driven summer event

    Based on the success of our Driven event in 2020 and the uncertainty of summer camp being open in 2021, we decided to hold an annual youth event located right here on the RCA campus. This is not only a camp experience for our own students but also an outreach to the youth of Ridgecrest. Driven 2021 reached over 160 Jr. High and High School students with a camp atmosphere including games, times of fellowship, worship, and most importantly, the word of God. One of our goals for Driven this year was to place a physical bible in the hands of each student attending.  Thanks to generous donations from our RCA Church family, we were able to do just that. On the last night of the event, we baptized 17 new believers and had countless others recommit their lives to Christ. 

    Wednesday night youth group

    Wednesday night youth group continued meeting in person at the church through 2021. We were averaging thirty students at the beginning of 2021 and ended the year with an average of forty to forty-five. Our focus this year has been on leading the students into deeper, more intentional relationships with Christ.

     

    Presented by Traci Freese and Cheryl Bridges

    RCA Women’s Ministry

    Proverbs 31:26

     “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” 

    It has been a pleasure to serve the ladies at RCA church this past year. In 2021, our team planned and organized a year full of exciting events that reached out to ladies in our church and community in several different ways. 

    God Bless, 

    RCA Ladies Ministry Team

    Click Below to view RCA Womens  2021 Highlights

    Escape Room

    One of the first events of the year was a challenging Escape Room. Teams of ladies met together at the church, were locked in separate rooms and had to solve a biblical puzzle to escape their room. The first team to solve the puzzle “escaped” into the sanctuary and wrote out the solution scripture. After each team solved the puzzle, everyone met in the sanctuary for ice cream sundaes. 

    RCA Ladies Annual Spring Tea

    This year spring was back to normal as we hosted 90 ladies in our Annual Ladies Spring Tea. One of our very own, Mrs. Cheryl Bridges delivered a heart warming message about Esther. There were 12 participants challenging each other for the best decorated tea table. It was an afternoon filled with tons of laughing, talking, good food, and of course, tea. A great time was had by all. We are looking forward to what God has in store for us in 2022.  

    Splash Pad

    Recognizing that many of our RCA Ladies have young ones and would like to be a part of the events without seeking child care, our team put together a playdate for moms and kids at our local Ridgecrest Splash Pad. We brought out the snacks, relaxed in the shade, watched our little ones play and caught up on some much needed conversation.  RCA Ladies, let’s do this again!

     

    Mt. Whitney Hiking Trip

    Those who have a love for the outdoors got together one October morning and took a hiking adventure at Whitney Portals. The group included moms and kids who met up at RCA parking lot at the crack of dawn and car pooled to the Whitney Portal cafe to feast on plate sized (no joke) pancakes and then took a long trek up the mountain. Tons of laughter, breathing in fresh air and beautiful scenery was a perfect way to enjoy God’s beautiful creation.

    Soup and Testimony Night

    In 2021, our traditional Soup and Testimony Night was a big hit. RCA Ladies were hungry for fellowship after being apart and congregating in small groups for so long. Three lovely ladies from our own congregation stepped up in obedience to God’s call and gave their personal testimonies. Mrs. Serina Strickland, Mrs.Daniel Slaton and Mrs.Kylie Ornales shared their heart on how the Holy Spirit has influenced their life. God used them to remind us how much He can use circumstances in our lives to encourage us to be obedient to what He asks us to do. The soup recipes were fantastic.

    RCA Ladies Ministry team is looking forward to an eventful year in 2022. We plan to continue some of our traditional events as well as organize groups to go to the Brilliance Conference in West Covina, a comedy night fundraiser, featuring Jason Love, with proceeds going to our local Pregnancy Care Center, hiking, zip lining, and even a retreat to Pinecrest in the fall. We would like to encourage you to get connected with RCA Ladies Ministry. 

    Presented by Rich Merati

    RCA Men’s Ministry

    2021 was a great year for our men and we look forward to another great year building stronger relationships with each individual man at RCA. The Men of RCA held several events throughout 2021. Here is a look back at the events we had.

    Annual Chili of Champions: We had over 40 men attend this event, a new Chili Champion was crowned (Mike Sherpa), we ate great chili, and had round table meetings discussing questions regarding our mens walks with God!

    Annual Skeet Shoot: 35 men took part in this event. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast and then the shooting began, it was a blast. Literally! It was a great time for our men to come together and  blow off some steam, and build community. Great news – all men left the event safe! No emergency services needed.

    Bring the Family Fishing: this year we brought our families fishing with us. Our first ministry is to our family so we thought we would spend the time with our families and build those relationships as well. What a great time and man the fish were biting!

    Annual Golf Tournament: this annual event was a tremendous success. 48 golfers participated and we raised nearly $15,000 after expenses. We were able give our beneficiaries a total of $10,000 combined.

    Mens Sunday Morning Prayer: Our men meet every Sunday morning for prayer at 7AM. This has been going on for 2 years now and I am excited to see it continue. God has answered many requests the guys bring forward in this time and we are excited to see what he has planned as we continue to seek him.

     

    Presented by Paul & Bev Pippen

    RCA Celebrate Recovery 

    Greetings from Recovery! We have enjoyed being able to get back to regular in person meetings this year. A huge part of our ministry deals with accountability and taking off our masks, so running meetings on video was not optimal for our group. With the entire world being shut off from each other for parts of the year it has continued to push people to their limits and has put a lot of strain on sobriety for people in recovery.

    Our leadership team has had a large turn over this year and we are welcoming a new face to the TEAM. In the summer we participated in an online presentation of the annual CR Summit. Bev and Paul had attended Summit numerous times in the past, but it was the first experience for several who attended with us. We were blessed by Rodeway Heritage Inn who donated a meeting room for us. It was a great bonding and growing experience for us all.

    Beyond the training we got from Summit, we were also able to add a licensed pastor to our ranks as Paul got licensed for prison and recovery ministry this fall. While the prisons have been closed to us for the entirety of 2021, we are looking forward to working with Celebrate Recovery Inside and Prison Fellowship Ministries in 2022.

    We have re-introduced our CRBQ meals before meetings and we have brought back our childcare as well. Our goals for 2022 include continuing our annual July 4th and New Years Eve parties. We hope that these outreach events will help to bring the message of recovery to the masses and to get people to understand that recovery is for everyone; you are either in recovery or you are in denial! We pray that everyone at RCA will come check us out on a Friday night or join a weekly Step Study to see what CR can do for their lives! – Our RCA Celebrate Recovery Leadership TEAM

    Presented by Pastors Greg & Cheri Rickets

    Lone Pine Campus

    2021 has been a great yet challenging year for Lone Pine campus, and we have seen growth in spiritual maturity, outreach and faithful stewardship. We are honored to be pastoring this great church and community.

    The strength and impact of this church is only possible with the strong partnership and leadership of RCA  Church Ridgecrest and the dedication and faithfulness of the Lone Pine congregation. Cheri and I, as well as Lone Pine and the surrounding communities look forward to great things in 2022 for the glory of God.

    Lone Pine Highlights 2021
    • This has been another challenging year trying to navigate the post Covid church.
    • Covid-19 and California’s response has created challenges in attendance as well as the ability and safety to go deep into community outreach.
    • Our average weekly attendance has been around 18 – 23 over this past year.
    • God has been faithful in sending new resident guests to help offset some of those who are still staying home.
    • Our children’s program is approaching a rebuilding opportunity when we can freely do so.
    • We had an average of 13 people committed to serving on a regular or semi-regular basis, which is about 68% of our average weekly attendance.
    • We had 1 baptism and 2 new salvations this year.
    • We continue to live stream our messages on our Facebook page with good response, not just locally but throughout California and the U.S. 
    • More security cameras were installed 
    • As per our financial report, the generosity of our congregation and partners has greatly exceeded our total expenses. For the fourth consecutive year Lone Pine has operated in the black.
    • We held our first Men’s Breakfast with favorable response.
    Lone Pine Community Outreach

    We continue to reach out to the community of Lone Pine in ways outside of our regular Sunday service:

    • We hold memberships with the High School Booster, Western Film History Museum, and the Lone Pine Chamber of  Commerce.
    • We have participated in feeding our community through City Serve food boxes and other food items provided by Inyo County.
    • We conducted Cowboy Church for the community.
    • We participated in the community Trick or Treat
    • We facilitated a Community Prayer Walk
    Lone Pine Goals for 2022
    • Leadership Development
    • Team Building
    • Sermon planning & classes
    • Online small groups and devotions.
    • Replace sidewalk and pave behind the church, parsonage back steps and fence.
    • Install 25 pallets on the stage walls
    • Looking at the church mission differently to have more impact in the new vision for the church by conducting remote church services.
    • Creating a pantry for food storage to grow our local food distribution. God is showing himself in a huge way in this area.
    • Rethinking some alternative membership categories to allow our online supporters opportunities to be more involved through partnership, newsletters and recurring giving opportunities.
    • Enlarge stage
    • Repair roof leaks
    • Increase church lighting
    • Update software to enhance our church service experience and improve the quality of our streaming look and capabilities.
    • Replace four exterior doors
    • New flooring and carpet in parsonage
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