Stories

First class graduates from Solid Rock School of Discipleship

NWC-News-2015-Solid-Rock-Graduation-600x350On May 16, 2015, Solid Rock School of Discipleship at Lake Beauty Bible Camp celebrated its first ever graduating class. The ceremony took place in the newly refurbished chapel at Lake Beauty and included nine students who shared about their experience of learning and deep spiritual growth over the past year.

Excited family members, friends, Board Members, professors and camp staff joined in as the students led music and spoke of their accomplishments and future plans. Many students shared stories of how their lives had been transformed over the past year, and all in attendance were able to watch a video of the students bestowing their wisdom and thoughts for the upcoming students of next year. Board Member Steve Weihsmann reflected on the celebration saying, “Many had refurbished lives and bore witness during the proceedings to the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts and around their circumstance.”

Keynote speaker Keith Robinson, professor in the program and Senior Pastor of Riverwood Covenant Church, addressed the graduating class with encouraging words and reflections on the “stones” of remembrance, opportunity, cornerstone and the kingdom. His address focused on the recognition of Revelation 2:17, which ended with students receiving white stones with individual names written on the back “which no one knows but the one who receives it.”

Dan Pearson, Pastor and Lake Beauty Board Member, responded to the graduation by saying, “I can’t say enough about how impressed I was with the nine students who graduated. It is plain to see they were handpicked by God to be there and that the Lord has wonderful things in store for each of them.”

Pearson’s grandfather played a key role in the foundation of Covenant Bible College, which closed in 2007.

“This further instills in me the idea that discipleship is not taught as much as caught,” Pearson says, encouraged by the opening of a new program for young leaders that focuses on discipleship and personal relationships.

The ceremony ended with a time of prayer over the students and a celebratory ringing of the chapel bell by the entire class—sounding an end to one phase of life and the beginning of another.

“It is impossible to capture in a few words what was happening and being felt on graduation day,” Weihsmann said. “They are now equipped not completely, but solidly, to go and rock their world!”

Congratulation Solid Rock Class of 2015!