B E H I N D / T H E / B A R

This week our community of faith at RiverChurch is gathering for a season of prayer into the renewed vision that God is unveiling to our church.  He is calling us to thrive as a life giving, Kingdom building congregation.  Each night this week we are praying into a specific piece of the vision.  Here’s what we talked about last night:

To Whom Have We Been Called?  What is our Message?

Psalm 46:4  is a familiar verse to the RiverChurch family.  It simply states, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. . . ”  This verse paints a beautiful picture of how our community of faith should exist in our city.  Each of our individual lives are streams that flow from the river of God, allowing us to take faith, hope, and love wherever we may go.  It seems to make good sense for us to start at the heart of our city, and flow from there, outward to the surrounding areas of our city.  God has opened a place for us to intersect within the heart of the city of Chattanooga, right in the center of the city, and as a corporate body, He’s calling us to start here and flow outwardly.God desires for our congregation to thrive, not simply survive.  For this to be a reality, we must know to whom we’ve been called and what our message is to the people to whom we have been sent.

Jeremiah 29:5-7 is a command to the people of God who are about to be sent to Babylon.  He says, “build houses, and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. . . . Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you.  Pray to the Lord on its behalf, for when it has prosperity, you will prosper.”   God is calling us to “do life” with the nearly 10,000 people that live in the area surrounding our gathering place on Saturday nights.  These are people from every walk of life; wealthy and poor, young and old, people of all color and belief systems.  All of them share the need for a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ.  This is our message; relationship not religion.  We communicate this message as we build relationship with people in our circle of influence.  As this happens within our larger context of a community of faith, we will be better equipped to do the same no matter where we may live in the Tennessee Valley or the North Georgia Area.  As the river of God flows among us here at RiverChurch, each of us will become streams of faith, hope, and love into our own areas of life.

My wife and I believe so strongly that God is calling us to the heart of the city, that we are physically moving our family to the heart of our city, where we will do day to day life with the people to whom God has called us.  We expect to be living downtown Chattanooga within two weeks.

The mission is clear.  The fields are ripe.  There are people we haven’t even met yet who need to hear the message of hope which we have been called to carry.  They are to whom we have been called, and we will go with the message of relationship with Jesus, not religion.

Help us pray for these things:

– Hearts to be softened and open to the message of faith, hope and love found in relationship with Jesus

– More people willing to disciple others who have chosen to follow Christ.

– For more families to move to the heart of the city to help share the love of Christ

-Favor & provision for our families move and resulting financial needs