River Church - Chattanooga Tennessee

RiverChurch has been worshiping together now for the last three weeks, and our times together have been so encouraging and meaningful.  We have entered our “pre-launch” phase, which is really just a time of preparation before we “Go Public” at the beginning of 2010.  In addition to getting to know one another, and developing a sense of community with one another, we are discovering what our DNA looks like.

In a teaching series we’re calling Inside/Out, we are taking time to examine the inward conditions of our own lives so we can be better equipped to influence the outside world around us.  We’ve been unpacking the Great Commandment of Matthew 22:37-39:

³⁷Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

In reality our obedience to this Great Commandment will determine our effectiveness in fulfilling the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20:

¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

We believe that the DNA of RiverChurch is to simply love God, and love people.  If we can truly do this then we will do what Jesus calls us to do, to GO and GROW new Christ followers.

If you would like to be part of this part of our growth process, please feel free to join us Saturday nights at 6p at the 58 Commons.  For Directions go here.

The future looks bright for RiverChurch and we want to tell you about it.  Join us for our next Vision Meeting:

Sunday, August 9.2009

6p

Tennessee River Park, Pavilion #2

Directions:
From 153 Take Amnicola Hwy Exit heading West.  Turn right at Chickmauga Dam. Stay to the left.  Follow through parking lot under Railroad Bridge to Shelter #2.

Of all the exciting stuff that seems to be happening with RiverChurch, there is one particular area that we are extremely excited about:  backpacks.   The very first outreach opportunity for RiverChurch will be a partnership with a local organization called the Nehemiah Project, that is working to put literally thousands of backpacks together to be delivered to students in the lower income communities of Chattanooga.  In a couple of weeks we will be assembling the backpacks complete with school supplies and a Bible, and the following week, we’ll be personally handing these backpacks out at a local school.  Our very first offerings, that we have received at our weekly prayer time, have been solely designated to help purchase these backpacks.  We’re making a small dent, but a dent nonetheless.

Let me share with you a portion of an email that was forwarded to me this morning about why this project is so important:

Several Principals shared with me the great things that were going on at their schools, because of the volunteers that had come to know their schools through the partnerships of The Nehemiah Project.  They also shared heartbreaking stories of the poverty of their students, and how one school had gone to all dark blue uniforms because the parents did not wash the clothes of the children.   And another story of how they have set a policy that if a child gets in trouble at school and is in need of being sent home, they are to not send that child home until they have had school breakfast and school lunch, because that will be the only food that child will have that day.  -Beth Trussell, Executive Director, Nehemiah Project.

While this is the sad reality that kids face right here in Chattanooga, it simply reiterates the need for the Church to BE the Church.

If you would like to help provide a backpack for a kid this year, you can send a gift of $10 designated for “backpacks”  and we’ll make sure the Nehemiah Project is able to help one more kid this year.

Send donations marked “backpacks” to:

RiverChurch / PO Box 22054 / Chattanooga, TN 37422