A Psalm of David.

¹ The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
² He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
³ He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell^[a] in the house of the LORD
Forever.

In our continuing discussion this week of learning who God is we looked closer at the reality that He is our Shepherd.  As we read through the familiar psalm of David, we gained a clearer understanding of what we can experience when we live as a sheep cared for by the Good Shepherd.  But all of the realities that David unfolds in this psalm: the green pastures, the still waters, the table in the presence of our enemies, none of these are able to truly be experienced by us, if we don’t allow the Shepherd to shepherd us.  In other words we must let Him lead.

Still, so often we are tempted to go our own path, find our own pastures for rest, even lead ourselves, but the end result is seldom for our good.  When we truly embrace the truth that God is our Shepherd, then we can live a life that is secured by the care of the Good Shepherd.

Ours is to simply look to Him, and say, “Lead On!”

Join us this week as we study Judges 6, and discover that God is our Peace!

This past Sunday we looked closely at the truth that God is the God Who Sees.  We spent a great deal of time looking at the passage in Genesis 16, where Hagar literally calls God the God who sees ME!  Its a powerful story, that brings powerful revelation when you fully grasp the truth that God knows where we’ve been and where we are going.  God sees the pain and hurt we have experienced in our lives or that which we may be experiencing now.  He sees when we’ve been mistreated, and in the middle of all of that He has a plan for our lives. A plan to bring us out, and a plan to ultimately open our eyes so we can see a new direction for our lives, even if the past doesn’t make sense.

God also sees what’s in our hearts, those things that we tried to hide, that we think no one else can see.  Things that He wants us to let Him see, so He can heal us, change us, turn our attention from in an effort to change our lives permanently for the better.

If you missed this past week, be encouraged with the simple truth today, that God is the God Who sees YOU!

If you’d like to follow along with us, this week we are discovering the truth that God is the God who Provides.  Read along with us ahead of time in Genesis 22, and take time to be with us this Sunday to learn just a little bit more about who. . .

God Is

Well, we’ve decided to not let that be the case at RiverChurch.  This Friday we’re starting 20//20 a monthly gathering for folks in their 20’s.  We’ve even opened the age to some of the folks that are on the brink of their 20’s.  What is it?  Its an informal time to gather, fellowship, and spend some time growing together, building community, and receiving back just a little portion of what they give here at RiverChurch every week.

Each months gathering will look a little different, but this month we’re kicking it off with a beach volleyball night and we can’t wait for this Friday night to get here.   Friday, 8.20 @ 6:20 we’ll be playing volleyball at the Marina Pointe Court – just before you head up Big Ridge from HWY 153.

If you’d like more information, or you plan to attend, drop an RSVP email to info@riverchurch.me

See you there.

I know its out of the box, its even taboo to think that you should talk in some church’s but at RiverChurch we have found that we grow stronger as a community and individually as we discover truth together and share that truth, right here in church.  In the middle of the sermon.

What does that look like?  Well on any given week we will look at a passage of Scripture, or several passages and we engage in dialogue as to what the text is saying, and then we talk about how that applies to our lives.  Our pastor guides the discussion with key questions, and ultimately the discussion leads to a time of soul searching application.

Here’s the deal.  We’ve all heard enough sermons to last us until eternity.  We’ve had intelligent folks stand in front of us tell us everything they know, and we walk out the doors, barely remembering what we’ve just heard.  But in an environment where we hash it out, we talk it out, and apply it together, somehow what we’ve talked about sticks.  Its how the early church did it.  They didn’t have their own personal scroll, their copy of the torah.  Jesus teachings hadn’t even been written down yet.  So they talked about what He taught them, they applied it to their lives together in community.

So yeah, talking in church is encouraged here at RiverChurch.  Its not for everybody, but its just what we do.

Come join the discussion.  Discover truth with us.!

Do you know who God Is?  Sure you know He’s a divine being up there, out there somewhere.  You probably know that He’s called Father, Jehova, Creator, and you can probably list all kinds of Sunday School answers about His character; love, merciful, gracious, forgiving, just.  But do YOU know who God is?  Do YOU know for yourself?

At RiverChurch we are looking into the pages of Scripture to discover truth for ourself, about who God is.  As a community of faith, we’ve grown tired of having someone else tell us who God is, and we’re on a journey to find out for ourself.

We began the series by looking at the importance of understanding the name of God.  As we understand the importance of His name, we understand His character and the power that is demonstrated with that character.

We’d love for you to join us this week as we walk through Genesis 16 as we discover that God is Jehovah Roi . . .

The God Who Sees

Why don’t you join us this Sunday @ 10a @ RiverChurch.

Hey RiverChurch family

Can you believe it’s almost time for us to celebrate our first Easter together?

We hope you’ll invite all your friends to come celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ with us on Sunday, April 4th at 10am.

More information to follow about the weekend’s events

I don’t know much about sailing.  I know the conditions certainly have to be perfect, and I know that there is a great deal of preparation in making sure the sails are set just right before launching out to sea.  I think I would enjoy the preparation part, but the part I would enjoy most, which is what I presume most “sailors” would say is their favorite part is when the wind hits those sails and the boat truly launches.  I imagine there is no more breathtaking feeling to stand below massive cloth panels with wind and to glide across the water.

Another item on my “bucket list” was to plant a church.  A life giving church that was committed to truly being the church that Jesus created during his time on earth.  After nearly six months of preparation, last week we finally raised the sails, and launched RiverChurch officially out into the city of Chattanooga.

Now if you’re a church planter reading this, when I say the word “launch” you will certainly have a prescribed set of images that may run through your head.  At least images of what you’ve heard a church plant launch should be like:

An energetic worship service, with lights, smoke machines, a rockin band of 20 somethings in Aerropostle shirts and pointy shoes, nifty giveaways for the guests, all preceded by a huge community wide marketing blitz letting people that your church, a different church from the other 50,000 in your city, is coming and its “gonna be cooler than all the others.”

Well the launch of RiverChurch was probably nothing close to that.  We did the community blitz a week before, just letting people know we were new to the neighborhood and would love to get to know them.  We left them a couple pieces of candy, with the expressed wish that we could find a way to make their lives a little sweeter, (cheesy? Maybe.  Effective? Likely.)

I can tell you more about the specific details of our launch, but let it suffice for me to say that the launch of RiverChurch was certainly not textbook.  In fact, one friend told me sometime ago that I was going about this whole churchplanting thing in a very unconventional way.  That bothered me at first, but I’m cool with it now.

No, our launch Sunday was primarily attended by the 25-30 people that had comprised our launch team and then about twice as many guests and people who were meeting us for the very first time.

Launch Sunday for RiverChurch was more about launching our individual lives into our own worlds, fulfilling the Great Commission.  It was kind of like untying the ropes of multiple sailboats, and launching them out into the spiritual waters of our city, rather than one large mother ship.  That day we focused on the fact that we’ve been called to make disciples and in fulfilling that Commission we will find our purpose.

For those who were new to our gatherings, which had been in existence for several months before, we invited them to become a follower of Christ, if they weren’t one, and challenged them to set sail as well, living a life as a disciple who makes disciples.

It was an exciting day.  It was a cold day.  Two days prior snow and ice fell on our community, forcing nearly every other church in the city to cancel services or meet at an alternative time.   But for us launch Sunday was as much about a community of faith recommitting to be launched back out in a cold world that needs our light, as it was about opening our doors, and flipping on the neon lights that would say,  “Yes, We’re Open”

Unless you follow us on Facebook, or twitter, our launch may have come and gone, and you may have never felt a tremor effect from it.  But that’s okay.  Last Sunday was launch Sunday for RiverChurch, Last Sunday a fleet of disciples were launched into their community for the purpose of making disciples, guided by the principles of loving God & loving others.   And as unconventional as it was, I believe Chattanooga will never be the same again.

Our first official community impact event, City On A Hill, was a hit.

Thanksgiving brought us the opportunity to provide several families with full thanksgiving meals, complete with frozen turkeys, dressing, vegetables and even dessert.

A couple of weeks later we invited some families to join us for a special Birthday Celebration for Jesus, and sent Christmas gifts home with them for their kids to open on Christmas morning.

If 2010 looks anything like the last half of 2009, then its going to be a great year for RiverChurch.  Check out some of our memories here:

• City On A Hill
• Help Hillcrest Day
• First Worship Gathering
• Vision Meeting

That was our goal last night; to Shine!!  And I gotta tell you I think we did.  Please don’t misunderstand that statement.  Last night wasn’t about RiverChurch it was all about letting Jesus shine through us into our community, and man it was amazing.

We only advertised at the school where we held the event, that was scheduled to start at 7pm.  We planned to start when it became dark outside so we could light the hilltop up with tons of lights.  But people started showing up at 5:30 and we held them off as long as we could.  Once all of our cars were in place and the decorating was complete we flipped the switch and the first ever City on A Hill was clear for lift off.

There’s no real way to know how many people came to City on A Hill, but suffice it to say there were a lot of people that came.  We prepared almost 500 hotdogs and before the night was over every last hotdog was gone.  We were even scrounging to find a few pieces of candy for people who were coming  right up until 9pm when we shut it down.

Our team was amazing, they laughed, they dressed up in great costumes, and they smiled and hugged, and oohed and ahhed at every kid that came to their cars to play a game and get some candy.  And these kids loved it.  Some came by themselves and just clung to some of our workers. 

I think the coolest thing about the night was what happened at very beginning.  All day long it had been raining, and although the weather forecast was supposed to clear up there were times throughout the day that it didn’t look very promising.  We started setting up at 3pm under a vey heavy cloud cover, and from a distance we could see what looked like more rain coming.  I walked through the parking lot of ths school praying that God would blow the rain over.  Then somewhere around 5:30 or 6 the sun came out just as it was setting behind the school, and directly over our hill appeared the most beautiful full rainbow.  It was absolutely breathtaking.

The custodian for the school walked up to me, and said “I think somebody’s happy with you tonight!”

I’d sure like to think so.  I’d like to think that we shined for him last night, and it made him happy!”