Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Ringo & Brenda Robles

A visitor to Access this weekend marveled at our volunteers and asked how we found such individuals.

"God," is the very serious, not-at-all-trite answer. Ringo and Brenda Robles are just one more example of how God has put together this amazing group of people we call Access Church.

Ringo and Brenda Robles met in the singles’ ministry of First Baptist Atlanta, where Andy Stanley served as the youth pastor and where they first experienced Andy’s teaching. Ringo, with many singles, would sneak in the back to enjoy the upbeat music Andy performed for the high school students as well as Andy’s teaching. Andy led the band by playing the guitar, the piano, and singing. His sermons were engaging, and Ringo could instantly apply Andy’s teaching to his life. Even some of the high school students’ parents stayed to listen to Andy.

Andy and a team of five others started North Point Community Church in 1995. “Andy’s vision was to provide environments to reach to the unchurched using creative ways to make the gospel relevant for real life today,” Ringo said. “We understood his vision and bought into it from the beginning.”

Ringo and Brenda quickly volunteered as part of North Point’s production team. “At first, North Point met only twice a month on Sunday evenings and had only one computer to run the entire service production,” Brenda said. “It’s amazing to see how technology in North Point Ministries has grown since then.”

North Point grew tremendously, making it more difficult for Ringo and Brenda and their four children to attend and serve at the same time. “Every Sunday, as we drove 45 minutes to church, we asked ourselves, ‘Why are we doing this? Why fight the traffic on Sunday morning?’” Brenda said. “Then, after experiencing the service and hearing how the kids loved the children’s environments, we said, ‘this is why.’ What North Point provided for us—the messages, the music, the kids’ environments, and our connection to our community group—were all life-changing.”

In September 2005, Ringo and Brenda left North Point to be a part of the new Watermarke Church, a North Point strategic partnership. Their 45-minute commute became a 10-minute drive, and Sunday mornings became less-stressed for their family. Ringo and Brenda lent their production experience and service to help Watermarke get off the ground. Being part of launching a new church gave them additional insight on how the creative mind of North Point works and how it uses effective strategies for reaching people.

In the summer of 2006, Ringo came across a job opportunity in Jacksonville. It seemed like a great move because they had family here and their kids loved the beach. But they had never considered leaving Atlanta because they were so plugged into Watermarke Church and North Point Ministries. While they were at Watermarke, it was announced that a strategic partnership was starting in Jacksonville. That sealed the deal, and the family moved to Jacksonville in the fall of 2006. They immediately joined the group of people starting Access Church. “Access is a church we can get behind,” Ringo said. “We believe in its mission. We’ve seen it work at North Point and at Watermarke. Now we are excited to see the impact Access Church is having on the Jacksonville community.”

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