Kirk Bowman's blog

We had another great weekend at The Rock Church.

Team Church Night on Friday was a blast. Worship, praying, vision casting, racing through the tunnel, ice cream, honoring our awesome volunteers. It was all so good!


Sunday was another amazing day. Really enjoying this Parables series. Only 1 more to go! 24 people raised their hands to commit or recommit to Christ!

Then we had Volunteer Fair after church on Sunday. Always great to meet new people and see them get plugged in to the life of the house. Almost 50 new people signed up to fill 86 areas of involvement. How cool is that?!

Wow! Church feels so good right now.

Tonight is our Team Church Night.

Once a quarter we get all our volunteers together for a great night of big picture, vision casting, worship, praying, playing and honoring.

This is one of my favorite events in the life of our church. I love the atmosphere that happens when you get all the people who “make it happen” together.

It’s good to come together and see big picture. Sometimes when your Connect Group only has 5 people show up or you are caring for ten 2 year olds in a class you can lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Suzette and I are so excited about where God is taking our church. The vibe is so good. From Sundays, to our staff, to all the salvations, to the response from our church on the 99 Days of Serving to all the great things on our fall calendar - Everything is lining up for an amazing season ahead of us.

It takes a team to fulfill a dream!

For all of you who are part of our church - Don't miss this.

Saturday night Suzette and I were captivated by Rick Warren’s Civil Forum with John McCain and Barack Obama. I Tivo’d it, thinking I would watch it later but I was completely captured by the dialogue that took place and watched the whole thing.

I have always avoided the political process. I do vote, but the name calling, the demonizing of anyone with a different viewpoint, the pandering to interest groups to get elected (or re-elected) just doesn’t appeal to me. In any area of life.

Hats off to Rick Warren for introducing a civil conversation approach. I felt like I got to hear from each candidate on where they really stood on issues.

In the past, the church has taken too much of an adversarial role in politics. Believe just like or else! We will boycott you or something.

I do have my own beliefs and I hold to them strongly. What I love about America is our freedom to hold to different beliefs and still support each other’s humanity. Room to breathe is a beautiful thing.

Go Rick Warren for leading the way in a new way for Christians to engage in the political process.

I am so blessed by our church’s response to our 99 Days of Serving campaign. It has been so cool to watch so many people step up, get involved and make a difference. This is only the beginning of our church rising up to make Asheville a better place.


This past Saturday was an amazing day as we descended on our church facilities to clean, paint, mulch, fix stuff and otherwise make our facilities shine. We had about a hundred sign up and over 140 show up. We had a blast working together, laughing together and getting to know each other better.


There is something special about doing things together.


What a great summer – helping so many people in so many ways. Fixing rooms at ABCCM, building houses with Habitat, helping and contributing food at Manna Food Bank, cleaning rivers and the list goes on.


BTW – great day in church yesterday. Packed house. Prayed for our kids going back to school – can you believe how many kids we had up front? 18 people responding to Christ at the end of the meeting. Café was buzzing with energy with tons of new people.

So, every year on the first day of school we make our girls march out on our front porch and let us take their picture. It’s a family tradition. We’ve done it every year of their school life.

Today was the last picture I will get to take of the first day of school for my girls (Outside of college). Tori has graduated and now my youngest daughter, Elizabeth, is marching into her senior year in high school.

Elizabeth is an amazing person. She is smart, fun and almost always in a good mood. I know God has great things in store for her. How can my baby girl be in her last year of high school? Sigh.

The day after our conference in Tacoma a group of us went out to play a round of golf on Chambers Bay. Chambers Bay is an amazing new golf course that has been selected to host the US Open in 2015. We had a blast!

I got to play with one of my great new friends, Troy Maxwell. Troy and his wife Penny are building a great church in Charlotte - Freedom House Church. I like Troy. He's a good guy and good golfer. We both shot 80 that day. And mildly trashed talked each other. My kind of friend!

As most of you know, Seattle is the birthplace of Starbucks coffee. When Suzette and I read Howard Schultz’s book on Starbucks “One Cup at a Time”, I literally almost cried a few times as I felt a parallel in his passion to “plant” Starbucks coffee shops and our passion for the church.

Starbucks does a lot of things right that we could learn from in the church. Great atmosphere, friendly people, excellence, a totally cool vibe, being a “third place” and so on.

Plus, I love Starbucks coffee!

Here are a few pics of us at the very first Starbucks in front of Pikes Market in Seattle. A very unassuming place to begin a worldwide movement.

Last week I took some of our staff to the Team Church 08 conference in Tacoma, Washington. We had a blast together. Great speakers, unbelievable worship, fantastic connections, reuniting with some old friends. Altogether a great time was had by all.

One of the highlights for me had to be the night of worship with the Hillsong London worship team. I am always blown away by the worship and music and serving culture that comes out of Hillsong Church. There is an amazing amount of willingness to work with and cooperate with their leadership by exceedingly talented and gifted musicians.

A whole night of music, worship and unbeatable atmosphere. I absolutely loved it. Wish you all could have been with me.

I have taken Fridays off for almost 25 years. It’s true that sometimes my day “off” can get taken up with some kind of church activity. But over the long haul, Friday has been my day to unstring the bow. My Sabbath, if you will.

Saturdays don’t really count for a full day off for me because my brain and heart are all taken up with being ready for Sunday. From Saturday afternoon on, no matter what else I am involved in, I’m thinking, praying, gearing up for the biggest day of my week. If you haven’t had the pressure of having to deliver the goods every Sunday you wouldn’t understand. Every pastor knows what I’m talking about, though.

Some pastors take Mondays off. I’ve taken Fridays because it occasionally gives me the feel like I have something like an actual two day weekend. Plus, I probably would’ve quit on many Mondays if I had too much time on my hands so it’s better to get my brain engaged.

I love the feel of my Friday mornings. No pressure to get up at any time; easy, slow moving in the morning; reading my Bible with no place to have to go; just relaxed. A cup of coffee on my front porch. Ahhh, the chance to move slow.

My personality makes me want to start working on Friday mornings – but, at least today, on this Friday – I’m choosing to be “off”.

I think it makes my “on” better