River Community Church

We need to be reminded periodically of our mission statement. This is what defines how we will do church. We have three general statements which read:

Gather in worship and fellowship:

Grow in faith, love & service:

Go and share the love of Christ:

These are not just sayings we put in the program every week. They are our guiding principles. They help us define what kinds of ministries we will pursue and what we will not. They define what is unique about our congregation. I challenge you to commit this simple statement to memory

Our Vision statement expands on these three basic statements. One sentence in the vision statement reads: “We will have a strong program of evangelism through community service, particularly to those in surrounding neighborhoods, even as they change culturally and economically” We have been challenged this summer. Our food bank has been tested and found to be small.

This week we have had a small team from Wisconsin here doing flood relief. Then have been a great blessing to the New Life Community Church where the men have spent the week working on walls, putting the church and its neighbors back together. On Wednesday the ladies came over to deliver a large batch of clothes to the Christian Culture Center in the Towncrest area. Then the went to the grocery story and bought canned fruit and meat for our food bank. We have been reminded of the body of Christ and how we work together for the glory of God.

I thought about how our church leaves a large footprint, one that is much larger than our feet. At this point we are not a large church, but working with others, we are able to make a big impact on our community. I appreciate all who have a part, using your gifts and interests in many different ways. That is the nature of a church.

So, I want to lay before you another challenge. At Easter I challenged you to bring 500 food items. That was a somewhat random number, none of us knew what it meant. The 325+ items that we brought helped a lot of people, including an injured veteran in Ft. Madison that Jon Kerstetter has been working with, trying to get the VA to do the right thing (which they finally did. Thanks Jon). I would like to renew the challenge to bring in 500 food items. But I want to give you a bigger window. Wouldn’t it be great if we could bring in 500 items to stock our food bank by the time we have our fall kick off on Sept 14. We will count the items that come in each week, then move them to the pantry shelves. I really would like to see an even bigger footprint. Can you help me out?

Pastor Gail