Senior High -
Come prepared for a great year of connecting with God and each other! Meet us in the Warehouse.

Starts September 1 - on Wednesdays at 7:30 pm
(doors open at 7:00 )

Junior High -
One Way is a group for junior high students who want to know more about The Way, The Truth and The Life... and get smashed in the face with dodgeballs!

Starts September 12  - on Sundays @ 6:00 pm... be there!!!

The Crossing -
The Crossing is an after school ministry of The River Community Church to current 4 - 6th graders. Our purpose is to provide a community of encouragement to nurture faith and good character.
We are going to have a blast playing games, eating snacks together and generally discussing what we believe our relationship is with God, others and this world.

Starts September 2nd - on Thursdays from 2: 00 - 3:30 pm

Please contact me with questions.
stevengood@rivercommunitychurch.org

This year we only took 4 students to Breakaway in Des Moines, though it was a small group they had a big experience at the event. They got third place in the 3 on 3 basketball tournament ( did I forget to mention that they are all freshmen? ). They are already planning on improving for next year. More important than doing well in the basketball tournament, one of the students, Keivon Williams, made a decision to follow Christ! (You know, for all of the trophies they could have won, nothing could have made me happier than hearing about Keivon accepting Jesus as Lord!)

 

The after school program is in full swing and we are expanding the roster every week. The kids are learning about what truth is and what God has called us to do in this world He created. Thursday afternoons are filled with the sounds of laughing and screaming, I should probably apologize to Gail and the office workers for all of the racquet.

 

New Beginnings is our outreach to young mothers in the Iowa City Community and the surrounding area. We have partnered with the Choices Women's Clinic (Iowa City's only pro life women's clinic). New Beginnings is an outreach discipleship ministry that teaches young mothers about pre and post natal care for their children and offering encouragement through loving Christian female mentoring. This ministry happens at the church every Wednesday morning.

 

I ask for continued prayers for all of these ministries and also ask for you to consider and pray about how you could become more involved in these ministries as well.

We are constantly being lied to, and I think many of us in the world have become too lazy to discern what is true and what is false. Example #1, I recently heard of a pastor in Iowa telling his congregation that you get H1N1 (swine flu) from eating pork, that is not true. People are being lied to in the church. Example #2, I read an article about the current Health Care debates, the writer interviewed someone about the Health Care situation and the person said that President Obama was putting together Death Panels to decide if people were allowed to live or die. When the reporter asked the person if that was true, the person said, "That's what Rush Limbaugh said." Now I don't want to make this into a political debate, I want to make us aware of our current lackadaisical approach to what we take as truth. The next logical question should have been, "where did Rush get his information?" Too often we just take peoples word over doing the research ourselves. This is one of the major reasons of Martin Luther's reformation movement; we need to be more active in seeking what is true. We are letting other people feed us information without taking the time to look at the facts for ourselves.  Teens and young adults are being exposed to lies even more now than at any other time in history, whether it is on the internet, schools, radio, television, government and even from parents. We need to defend the truth, and help our youth understand that there is absolute truth and it is worth pursuing. The pursuit will not be easy; it requires time, energy, prayer, study and discernment. This is our goal for this school year in all of our youth ministry outreach programs. We are pointing students to the ultimate truth, Jesus Christ. We are encouraging them to seek the truth and to learn how to discern what God's good and perfect will is. This will be an exciting and very difficult school year for the student ministry outreach of The River Community Church. Join me in praying for these neighborhood students, and their families, that they will come to know Jesus as the way, the TRUTH and the life.

 

The end of the school year always brings a mixture of emotions to my life. A sense of relief that my Wednesday nights are a little less hectic is primary. A sense of loss for the seniors who will be leaving for school, military or vocation closely follows. Then a feeling of nostalgia hits me that reminds me of where we started the school year and how we got to where we are now. And the last emotion that hits is the excitement for August when we start all over again.

The Crossing

 I can still taste the cake we ate for the celebration for the end of the school year. We had a group of 10 - 15 students ranging from 4^th grade to 6^th grade attend our after school program this spring. We went through most of the story of God's people and promises from the creation until the creation of the church in Acts in 8 weeks. When asked how they felt about the experience one students said, "... it went too fast!" I agree, we just got comfortable with each other and now the school year is over. We will be spending the summer "re-tooling" this outreach ministry and hopefully make it into something that will make a larger splash in our east side neighborhood.  One of mine and Dave's goals this summer will be to communicate more with Lucas Elementary faculty in hopes to create a stronger relationship between the church and the school.

Junior High

Herding Cats.... Yup, that's what Junior High ministry can seem like. Luke Meyer has done an outstanding job pouring into the lives of five local 8^th grade boys. I can describe Luke's ministry with these marginalized young men as being that of a solid example of positive Christian manhood. His teaching, encouragement and discipline in their lives has helped them become a little more focused on what really matters, Christ. This summer all of these boys will be transitioning into High School. The new challenge for the Junior High will be the roll over from The Crossing. All of the 6^th graders who would be coming to Junior High this fall will be female. We will need more female volunteers in the warehouse this coming fall!

Senior High

This year the Senior High ministry was focused on building relationships within the group. We were working with a remnant of the students who were part of the group before the transition here at The River. Through building trusting relationships with the students we developed a trust and comfort level for teens to invite friends to come and learn more about God and His grace and His love for us. We had a great time this year volunteering at the Big White House in Coralville throughout the year and serving hot cocoa downtown to students and the homeless during the fall. We went to Breakaway in Des Moines with 5 students who all made decisions for Christ at the event and we also tied for third place in the volleyball tournament! We are already prepared with our program curriculum for next school year and are excited for the growth that we see God preparing us for this coming fall.

Pastor Steve

The Warehouse exists as a safe haven for students 7 - 12^th grades to experience God through biblical teaching and encouraging relationships.

Last month the Senior High group began studying biblical covenants beginning with God's covenant with Abram. It has been really exciting to see students make realizations about God's character and His integrity through the covenants. One student made the simple but very profound statement, "When God says He'll do something, He'll do it." I almost stopped the lesson right then and there. What do you say after such a definitive statement?

This month we are discussing the Mosaic covenant and the purpose of the Law. We just finished a lesson this last Wednesday that pointed out Israel's role in God's plan and how it is similar to our role in this world. We are called to be a royal priesthood, or mediators between humans and God. We represent our perfect and just God in a world that is broken and hurting.

Next month the students will be learning about the New Covenant made through Christ. I will be inviting students to make a next step commitment in their relationships with Christ through the act of baptism. These are surely exciting times in the Warehouse.

Luke Meyer is a young man who has been assisting in the ministry for the last three years and has developed a fantastic relationship with the junior high students. The junior high ministry has experienced a whirlwind of activities as of late. They enjoy making dinner for themselves and eating together once a month. The first Wednesday of February they made muffins and took them to the fire station over by P&G. They had a great time meeting the firefighters, climbing on the trucks but were disappointed that the firehouse lacked a pole to slide down.

SOMETHING OLD THAT IS BEING RESTORED

 In an effort to strengthen our ministry to the families in our neighborhood The River Community Church will be bringing back the "Thursday after school kids program for Lucas Elementary" (we are working on a better name).  This program will be for 4-6 grade students at Lucas Elementary. The program will run on Thursday afternoons from 2:15 pm - 3:15 pm. It will consist of a snack time, activities (crafts, games, cooking), music and a bible lesson. That's a lot of stuff to fit in one hour! We know that through this after school program God will reach these elementary students and grow them as disciples of the gospel.

We are planning on kicking off this ministry in March after spring break. If you would like to volunteer please contact Pastor Steve or the church office.

Over the last few months I have had the privilege to talk with some of the folks at Genesis Church about combined community outreach opportunities. We have discussed serving meals at the Shelter House on Gilbert Street and at Ronald McDonald House, being more involved in Reclaiming Roots efforts to serve the community and improve our own food bank effectiveness. Our desire is to effectively minister together as partnering churches to make a greater impact on Iowa City and surrounding communities for the glory of God alone. We invite you to be a part of making this impact.

 Shelter House
Once a month we will have 5-6 families gather to prepare a meal for 70+ individuals to be served at the Shelter House. The preparation typically occurs at some ones home, we have discussed the benefits of preparing the meal in our own kitchen at The River. The benefits include a larger space to fit more people safely and comfortably in one kitchen, more oven and stove top space, commercial dishwasher, etc. Although, due to limited space issues only 4-5 individuals can adequately serve the meal at the shelter house.

What we are looking for are people to sign up to help prepare meals on a monthly rotation. We want to have 2-3 families from each church prepare the meal and send a few over to the shelter house to serve the meal. With the amount of individuals/families we are expecting to sign up for this ministry you may only have to prepare the meals 2-3 times during the year. If you have any questions please contact Pastor Steve.

 Reclaiming Roots
The purpose of {reclaiming roots} is to reclaim and restore what used to be.... to bring beauty and new use to areas of our community that need this help. We know that bringing the community together for these causes, helps create new relationships as old relationships are restored. And life gets better!

The next reclaiming roots project is January 24. They will be doing some restoration work on a space in downtown Iowa City. The place is called Public Space 1 located in the basement of the Jefferson Building. Public Space 1 (PS1) will be used for public art gallery. They are looking for people to paint, clean, remove carpet, scrape floors, and build a stage. For more information, please go to the reclaiming roots website: www.reclaimingroots.org.

 Food Bank
We recently have been receiving donations of bread items from Genesis Church. They have partnered with Panera Bread Co. in collecting the unsold bread items on Saturday evenings. This bread is then taken to Genesis Church to be distributed to their congregation and the left over bread is brought to The River to be put in the food bank. We, right now, have a surplus of bread items in our food bank freezer. If you have neighbors, friends, or family members who would be blessed through receiving free bread from Panera, please take some home with you on Sundays and hand it out.

 God Bless,
Steven Good

A New Year

 

What used to be just a ¾ length basketball court behind the sanctuary that turned into place to store random unwanted furniture and appliances that was given to the youth ministry to use as a student center has experienced another face lift.

Thanks to a generous donation of 120+ chairs from Iowa City Church of Christ, we have more than enough quality seating for the students. A newly installed "all house" fan helps create a steady supply of cooling air flow for the warmer summer days. The latest addition to The Warehouse is the 18'x50' athletic netting dividing the room in to two distinct youth areas. One side of the Warehouse will continue to be dedicated to the recreational purpose that the old gymnasium was intended. The other side of The Warehouse has a stage with portable sound system, a mini lounge area for fellowship, a video game corner, and a small café with snack bar and pop machine.

 

This year the focus of The Warehouse is "Choose to Live." Throughout the year the students will learn about their relationship with God and how the choices they make in life will have an impact on that relationship. Students will be given opportunities to get involved in the community through monthly service projects.

 

The first major event for the students this fall will be See You at the Pole on September 24^th. This is an annual event that encourages students from all over the world to gather around their school's flag pole and pray together for their teachers, classmates, community and government. This is a 100% student led event and has grown in impact in Iowa City over the last 3 years.

Also this fall the students will have the opportunity to attend Breakaway in Des Moines. What was once called sports weekend is now called Breakaway. This is a weekend where students from all over the Iowa Baptist Conference gather together in Des Moines for a weekend of athletic and artistic competition. Along with the competition the students will experience worship and relevant teaching that will encourage the students to grow in Christ likeness. So if you are a student or know a student who loves basketball, volleyball, singing, art or swimming and running, this is the event for you.

 

Pastor Steve

This is a test blog for Pastor Steve's Blog.