- Pastor Michael & Pastor Ben
As we enter into a fresh Fall season of ministry, we are looking for some key people to step into leadership roles and for everyone who calls Riverfront home to "improve their serve" and volunteer somewhere significant.
In terms of leadership roles, we are beginning to structure our church around six Action Teams: Worship, Family/Fellowship, Spiritual Growth, Community Engagement, Justice, and Children/Youth.
This structure emerged out of the important vision/mission work we did this past Spring. Each of the teams will "steward" that area of ministry -- developing a vision, ideas, plans, and programs. We hope that every member and regular attender at RFC will serve on at lest one Action Team in some role.
Additionally, we are looking for leaders (or co-leaders) for each of these teams. These leaders will help coordinate the individual teams as well as meet monthly with the pastoral staff as an Action Coordination Team (ACTs) to make sure we are coordinating our efforts, stewarding resources well, and thinking about our vision/mission from a 30,000 foot level.
The Board will focus on areas of spiritual leadership, stewardship, policy, and accountability. Each Action Team will have a Board liaison serving on the team (but not necessarily leading the team. One of the pastors will also be a part of each of the teams.
So far, we have leaders in place for two of the teams:
JUSTICE ACTION TEAM - Miela Gruber & Chris Graesser
WORSHIP ACTION TEAM - Michael Minch & Diana Scott
We are still looking for people to take on leadership roles for the following Action Teams:
Family/Fellowship Action Team
Spiritual Growth Action Team
Children & Youth Action Team
Community Engagement Action Team
If you are interested in serving in one of these roles, or have any questions about them or want to discuss more, please email Pastor Ben and Pastor Michael at pastors@riverfront.church.
If you are interested in volunteering and serving in a particular role, you can also check out our VOLUNTEER INFO PAGE.
- Community Engagement
We got a very nice thank you from the folks at Billings Forge Apartments. They were very grateful for our support of their Baclk to School BBQ. We hope to continue to build these relationships and connections with our neighbors!
"Hi Ben - I want to thank you so much with the partnership and the donations you gave to our residents in the BBQ and thanks for the extra mile you put in finding backpack donations from the Hispanic Health Council. We appreciate you!
Thanks to the volunteers that came from your church (Riverfront Family Church) they were awesome with our kids playing all those games.. I think they had more energy than the kids!! Say hi from me and many thanks for coming to the BBQ! 🙏 We really enjoyed having all of you at the BBQ with us!😊
Please let me know if you want to get involved with this community enagagement in the future. We are definitely looking for more opportunities!
- Michael Minch
Friends, you are invited to Healing Conversations.
Our training workshop for conducting Healing Conversations will take place on Saturday, September 10, from 9:00 to 4:00. We will meet in our RFC space at Immanuel. There is no cost for the workshop, and we will have lunch together. You will pay for your own lunch.
There is still space available for participants, please let me know if you would like to join us. Feel free to contact me if you would like to know more about the training event.
Here is a brief description of the day’s work.
The United States is in a precarious situation. The divide and hostility between those on the cultural and political “right” and those who are typically understood as “liberal” or “progressive” has reached a dangerous place. As Christians, we are all given the ministry of peacebuilding and reconciliation (e.g., Matthew 5.9; 38-48; 2 Corinthians 5.14-24). I have become convinced that it is now time to implement peacebuilding and conflict transformation methodologies that are used in conflict zones around the world (e.g., Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Columbia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The first set of training events were conducted in Utah in March of this year. I am now at work to disseminate them across the country.
The day will include information about the importance of our stories, trauma, values, identity, fears, needs, and more. We will discuss the meaning of violence, peace, democracy, conflict, systems, truth, justice, compassion, reconciliation, humility, courage, and moral imagination. I will do some teaching, but mostly the workshop will be a matter of discussion and participation in practices of conflict transformation. Techniques necessary to overcome toxic polarization will be learned and practiced. The training event will have a double, overlapping purpose: to train participants in the facilitation of such an encounter group, and to model the organization and process of such an event.
The skills learned and information gained will be useful for engagement in conflict of various kinds (at work, in the family, etc.) even though my purpose and focus is located in the political danger of our moment.
You are welcome to invite others to participate in this training session and persons need not identify as Christian to be involved. The workshop will not rely on theological language.
I hope to see you on the 10th! Please let me know if you are interested.
Grace and peace,
Michael
Michael Minch
Education for Global Peace
801.651.5659
