Rolling Hills Community Church

Gary Olsen - Lead Pastor, Rolling Hills Community Church

Pastor Gary is a devout believer that “a great church seeks to live out the Great Commandments and the Great Commission.” Thus Jesus’ charges to “love God with all your heart,” “love your neighbor as yourself,” and “go and make disciples of all peoples” form the foundation for his pastoral ministry.

Ways that he has equipped as a disciple to carry those orders out include:

+ completing the Certificate Course for Marriage Mentoring through Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott’s Marriage Mentoring Academy in 2014;

+ attending the annual family ministry conference “D6” since 2012, and thus implementing family-life ministries such as “HomePointe” and FaithPath;”

+ becoming a certified online workshop provider in 2008 through BeADisciple.com at Southwestern College in Kansas, and leading online courses in subjects from C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles to Local Lay Speaker Servant training,

+ earning his Doctor of Ministry degree in 2007 at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky via his dissertation entitled “Disciple-Making Boards: The Impact of Training a Church’s Governing Board in Small-Group Spiritual Formation Leadership;”

+ leading Rolling Hills in pilot programs for Stephen Ministry and Purpose-Driven Churches, including Celebrate Recovery’s “Life’s Healing Choices” and ChristCare’s “Training Small-Group Leaders Using a Small-Group Format;”

+ receiving the Certificate of Advanced Church Leadership from the Beeson Institute, along with his wife Joyce, in 2002, participating in a three-year seminary program to take pastors and church leaders to cutting-edge, teaching churches across the United States;

+ training in St. Louis in 2000 with Stephen Ministry to be a trainer for the ChristCare small-group ministry system;

+ attaining a Masters of Divinity in 1982 from Nashotah House Episcopal Seminary, near Milwaukee, WI;

+ collecting Clinical Pastoral Education units in 1979 at Pawtucket Memorial Hospital, Pawtucket, RI through Interfaith Healthcare Ministries.

When asked about interests and hobbies, Gary lists his wife, their two children and their families, including three grand-children! He also enjoys researching family history, as well as digitizing the results in order to share it with extended family.

Pastor Matt graduated Cum Laude from Hope International University in Fullerton, CA with a B.S. in Christian Ministry.  He is an exceedingly committed and driven servant leader with over twenty years of ministry experience, seeking to equip, motivate, and lead God’s people to live a lifestyle of worship. With a heart for helping people overcome, learn, laugh, grow, and succeed, Matt has invested in many lives by serving as an Associate as well as Worship Pastor for three churches in California. 

Matt is the new guy around, joining RHCC in November of 2017. Together with his wife Lisa, they have three beautiful girls Abby, Emma, and Ayva. He is a lover of all things outdoors like camping, fishing, hunting, and golf, and loves to cook, whether it be on the grill or on the stove. He is also very rooted in music, raised in a very musical family of piano players, guitarists, and vocalists. You can always find him either listening to, singing, or playing music somewhere! 

"I believe we have a unique and exciting opportunity, starting right now, to build strong, well-equipped, and powerful families here who will make a lasting and eternal impact in our communities and in our schools. I am very excited and looking forward to seeing lives being changed and people making decisions to follow Christ. There are absolutely no limits to how great and how effective Rolling Hills Community Church can be!"

Jim and his wife Julie moved to Lago Vista in 2016 and have been active in the church and choir since then. Jim retired from 30+ years in the computer software business having lived in California and Australia. Prior to the computer business, Jim was an officer in the US Army and was involved both in airborne and Army Ranger Units.

Jim majored in both Chemistry and Public School Music at Southwestern College in Winfield KS and obtained a PhD in Chemistry from Kansas State University and later, an MBA from Pepperdine University.

Jim grew up in a musical family as his grandfather was a Professor of Music at Southwestern College for over thirty years and several members of his family were or are professional musicians. During his working career, Jim was almost always involved in church music and civic music and theater organizations. He directed several church choirs and was involved in a number of civic music and theater productions.

Here in Lago Vista, Jim is actively involved as President of Hill Country Singers, Vice President of Lake Travis Music Theater and is active with Lago Vista Players and Lakeside Singers.

Dave Hart spent most of his youth growing up in Northern California. He became interested in music at a young age and began by taking up the drums while studying percussion with well known instructor, Todd Fleming. His senior year of high school saw him expanding his skill sets to guitar and vocals upon joining a popular local band.

Dave was a music major at Santa Rosa Junior College while gigging in a well-known San Francisco Bay area band named Steele. The band passed on a record contract offer choosing instead to open for some of the biggest bands in the country when they hit the Bay Area thus broadening Steele's base dramatically. Dave went on to form other bands in the latter part of the eighties and eventually transitioned into writing, producing, and recording his own music as well as other artists. He continues on that path today, although now, almost all of it is in the Christian genre.

Dave’s “day-job” is in the software industry where he has built a very successful career over the last twenty years. He was a senior manager at a Bay Area firm when he and his young family moved to Lago Vista in 2003 where he joined Highland Lakes Software. He currently holds a senior management position overseeing the software support and quality assurance department of the company’s enterprise for telecommunications billing and accounting programs.

2018 will be the 30th anniversary of his marriage to wife, Jamie, and his daughter Sabrina will be 22 this year. All have been active members of Rolling Hills Church since arriving in 2003. Dave joined the contemporary praise band as a bassist/vocalist that year and later transitioned into the lead guitar position. He assumed directorship of the band on January 1, 2010, and his professional music history has helped form the North Shore’s most compelling, hard-charging praise band, “Soul Objective”.

A career administrator, Mrs. White has previously served with Texas State Health Services, Austin Community College, and The Junior League of Austin.  Currently living in Jonestown, Lisa hales from Temple, Texas, is an active member of a Leander church, and has a passion for missions.  We pray she helps us to be a better missionary outpost for Jesus Christ!