- Justice Action Team
Draft statement developed by our Racial Justice Activation Team
Below is the vision statement written by our Racial Justice Activation Team, to capture what we mean when we say that we are anti-racist.
Riverfront Family Church is fully committed to the liberation of each person from the bonds of oppression and injustice, acknowledging that we too need to be liberated. This is our sacred work. We believe in a God who loves us all, without exception, and that God’s love is both just and merciful.
We believe that it is our responsibility to work to heal the wounds caused when the Christian church has been used as a weapon of intersectional harm and exploitation. This is our spiritual responsibility.
We actively seek to expose and dismantle our complicity with beliefs and systems--including white supremacy--that perpetuate injustice and oppression.
We reject the violence and spiritual falsehood of relationships based on coercion or hierarchy. We embrace “power-with” relationships, elevate the value of communal responsibility over the value of individualism, and seek the ongoing creation of cooperative egalitarian community. This is the lived expression of our beliefs.
We value deep listening, humility, joy, relational power, transformation, restoration, and equity.
We commit to following pro-Black BIPOC civil rights leaders & community leaders of all genders, sexualities, faith traditions, and generations--past, present, and future--in solidarity and with deep respect. We commit to supporting justice work as it takes shape in our congregation and beyond.
We believe justice and liberation of all of us is necessary for real love, joyful relationship, and the wholeness that the Creator intended for all of creation.
- Board
RFC Strategic Plan: RFC 3.0
Riverfront held Vision nights during the Fall, Winter and Early Spring of 2019-20. From those meetings these are the six major themes that we feel will shape us as a church over the next 10 years...
6 MAJOR THEMES from STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS:
1. RACIAL JUSTICE
We are called to be ANTI-RACIST and pursue RACIAL JUSTICE
2. PLACE
We are called to the city (Hartford), to be in the marketplace (third space), to be an incarnational church in a specific context, to engage the neighborhood through partnerships and PEACE initiatives: promoting reconciliation, equipping leaders, assisting the poor (economic development, GHIAA, etc), caring for the sick (compassion, recovery, GHIAA advocacy), educating the next generation (focus on next gen ministries, homework clubs, etc etc)
3. FORMATION
We are called to help people encounter Jesus and become more like Him. Embrace the ancient pathways of spiritual formation and practices, integrate into huddles, provide space for seekers and finders, tools for deconstruction-reconstruction.
4. NEXT GENERATION
We are called to prioritize the NEXT GENERATION by being the church kids want to be at and providing all the same things as we are called to provide adults -- a place of reconciliation, place, spiritual formation, healing, etc.
5. HEALING
We are called to be a place of healing from wounds inflicted by the world and even within the church. We have seen this manifest through ministry by and with the LGBTQ community; we see this continuing and growing to embrace a gospel of radical inclusivity for all by providing safe spaces and places for healing, intercession & prayer, development and affirmation of individual gifts and callings, etc.
6. REPRODUCTION
We are called to reproduce ourselves through the planting and development of new ministries and churches, locally, regionally and globally.
Here are the 7 sermons from that series: click here
