“what are you waiting for?”

The question was like a glass of cold water in my face.   I was talking to some family members, laying out MY timeframe for starting up RiverChurch.  I had a date for our next VisionMeeting, a date for our first LaunchTeam meeting, and a tentative date for our official launch.  When my wife’s 85 year old Grandmother asked, “what are you waiting for?”  Well I fuddled around with an answer, as best as I could, and moved on to another subject, but her words kept echoing over and over and over in my head:

“What are you waiting for?”

So we went about our business, got up this morning to go to church, and in the back of my head I could still hear that annoying question on repeat over and over and over and over and. . . .you get the point.

As I listened to that question, I began to realize that I’ve been moving forward with this whole church planting thing with a very scientific, calculated, human efforts approach.  I’ve been trying to plan meetings, events, and strategy planning sessions, mean while the clock keeps ticking, the sun rises and sets, wrapping up another day.  And today, someone else needs Jesus.  Today, someone needs hope.  Today someone needs to find a group of people who can provide a safe place where they can be encouraged and strengthened in their faith.

Now the calendar for RiverChurch has a weekly prayer time starting tomorrow (Monday) night, then the following Monday a VisionMeeting, then in August our first official LaunchTeam meeting and all of those dates are still on, but I think its time to pull the trigger.  Its time to move forward, without delay.

So, tomorrow, Monday June 1, 2009 at 7p will mark the first official WEEKLY meeting of RiverChurch Chattanooga.  We’re going to devote our first couple of months to prayer.  Praying for the City of Chattanooga, RiverChurch and the planting process.  More importantly we’re  going to pray for one another.  We’re going to pray for miracles, for healing, for salvation, for deliverance, for God to work wonders in the lives of the people who are gathered, and that’s what we’re going to do consistently for the next couple of months.  After that, we’ll see what God says next, but for now, this is where we are beginning.

So let me be the first to invite you to the first weekly meeting of RiverChurch tomorrow night.  We’ll be at 1934 Bay Pointe Drive, Hixson, TN 37343.  Email us at riverchurchchatt@gmail.com if you need directions or more information.

Next Monday (June 8 ) will still be our VisionMeeting at the Tennessee Riverpark Pavillion at 7p, and our regular weekly meetings will pick right up again on June 15.

“What are YOU waiting for?”

Vision Meeting – Date Change

Well, only after moving here did we realize that Riverbend is the week of our next Vision Meeting, more importantly that Faith & Family Night is the same night we scheduled our next Vision Meeting.  So we moved the meeting back one night to Monday, June 8 at 7p at the Tennessee Riverpark on Amnicola Highway.  Make sure you make the changes to your calendar, and we’ll look forward to seeing you there.

Almost There!!!

We’re in the final stages of packing and will soon be heading to Chattanooga.  We can hardly wait.

We are so excited about being back in Chattanooga, and kicking RiverChurch off as well.  It’ll take us a couple of days to get settled and then we’re looking forward to another opportunity to share our vision with more people who are interested in joining us.

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Tuesday, June 9 at 7p, at the Tennessee Riverpark Pavilion.  Make sure to bring a lawn chair, and your favorite snack.  If you need more information or directions, email riverchurchchatt@gmail.com.

The ideal church

Okay this is a group project:

In one sentence describe your idea of the ideal church

I’ll go first:  The ideal church would be a church where people came together who liked one another, laughed with each other, and cried together.

Your turn:

Prayer

We believe prayer will be the bedrock upon which RiverChurch will be built.  That’s why we’ve made it a priority early on, and we want others to join us.  Our entire family has taken seriously the need to pray for Chattanooga and RiverChurch, as you’ll see in the video below.

I actually started to post a video message yesterday inviting you to join us at our weekly prayer time, or to sign up to be part of our prayer team, but Makenzie our 8 year old had a better idea.  So here’s what she suggested and here’s what we got for ya:

Directed by:  Makenzie Greer

Filmed by: Shannon Greer (sorry guys for the poor quality)

Critiqued by: Kristia Greer (she’s sweet but honest).

Hope

I heard a story one time about a Jewish man, barely surviving in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.  The old man had saved enough rationed  portions of margarine to create a candle that he could light during the Jewish festival of Hannukah.  On the first night of the festival the old man gathered some of the younger men around him and invited them to join him as he lit the candle. The younger men couldn’t believe the older man would waste such precious food to make a meager little candle.  The wise old man looked at the younger men and said, “We’ve lived nearly three weeks without food, and three days without water, but we cannot live one day without hope.”

We’re all looking for hope.  We need hope, because without it, we truly cease to live.  That’s why the mission of RiverChurch is to bring Hope for life through Jesus Christ.

We want to find the person who’s lost hope with Christianity, or the Church.  They’ve been burned before, or felt rejected by the Church.  We want to find the person who’s always thought they were just never good enough to go to Church or the person who’s been in Church all of their life but finds no fulfillment in their faith experience.  We want to bring hope for life through Jesus Christ to these people.  We want to heal the wounds of their past rejection, we want to show them that through Christ  can be made brand new, and we want to give them an opportunity to put feet on their faith.  Not just go to church every weekend and sit with the “faithful”, but challenged to get up, to get out, and to live their faith.

We also want to find the forgotten people of Chattanooga.  The homeless, the poor, the fatherless, the ones that can sometimes be so easily overlooked and left without hope.  We want to gather a group of people just itching to share Christ’s love with someone else, and we want to GO where these forgotten people are and give that love to them.   Whether its a warm meal, a new coat, a roof over their head, or just the hug of a child, we want to give these people the hope for life through Jesus Christ.

This call to bring hope doesn’t just stop in Chattanooga, we’re going to do this in our surrounding cities as well.  Partnering with churches in Nashville, Knoxville, Atlanta, and Birmingham and all points in between.  Hope is contagious and we want to be highly infected carriers.  Beyond these places we will go to the nations of the world, to  a Jewish Immigrant in Israel, an orphan in Honduras, or a village needing clean drinking water in Africa, and we will bring Hope for life through Jesus Christ.

Why? Because we simply cannot live without hope!

If you want to be part of our mission, or simply more information about RiverChurch.  Email us at riverchurchchatt@gmail.com

Chattanooga

We spent the better part of yesterday driving around the city of Chattanooga, and speciically some of the places that will be significant to RiverChurch, capturing some great pics.  Here are just a few of our favorites:

Scroll down to our Flickr account for some more photos

Stay Connected

Thanks to social networking there are countless ways for you to stay connected to what’s happening at RiverChurch.  We will post important information here on a regular basis, and there are a couple of ways you can get that information without having to come back here to this site everytime.

Subscribe in a Reader – If you read blogs, click on the orange icon on the menu bar at the top and you can subscribe to our updates there.

Subscribe by Email – On the Home page there is a link at the bottom of the page to subscribe to RiverChurchChatt.com by email.  Click there or here, and subscribe.

Follow us on Twitter:  If you’re not on Twitter, you should be.  If you are go here to start getting our updates in 140 characters or less.

Those are just a few ways.  So subscribe, signup, follow or whatever, but whatever you do stay connected.

Thanks

We just wanted to say thanks to everyone who came to our Vision Meeting last night at the Tennessee River Park.  It was a little chilly, but the location was pretty sweet.

If you missed it, don’t worry.  We’re planning another Vision Meeting in early June.  We’ll let you know the date and time.  The location will likely be the same place.

For those of you who signed up to be on our Launch Team, our Prayer Team and/or our Vision Team, take this big THANK YOU! What an encouraging way to begin our actual planning with EVERYONE committing in some way to partner with RiverChurch.

More news to come later. . . .

Vision Meeting

If you live in the Chattanooga area. We would like to personally invite you to a Vision Meeting, Tonight, at 7p at the Riverfront Park Pavillion, on Amnicola Highway. This one hour meeting will be  your opportunity to hear about the calling and vision of RiverChurch as well as our ministry philosophy, proposed timeline for startup, and how you can be involved.

This is an open meeting, so feel free to invite any of your friends who may be interested in being part of a new church plant. If you have any questions about the meeting feel free to contact us at riverchurchchatt@gmail.com or click here for directions.

See you at the River!!!