River Community Church

Many of you have commented in personal emails to me (keep 'em coming!) that I haven't done a very good of updating my blog as of late. I just checked it now and sure enough, I haven't posted in over a month; shame on me! The cause for this silence is relatively simple, though: moving. The past few weeks have been highly consumed with moving Katie two times, moving myself once, dealing with waste water from upstairs flooding out my new unit, and getting all this chaos squared away with the management. Saying this, I haven't had much time to think about many other things, much less post the thoughts. Had I realized how long the delay had been, I might have been more on top of things. So, while I work on a few of the ideas I've had in queue, here's a bit out of an email that I sent out a week or so ago that should serve quite well as a full-fledged posting:



Probably the most significant thing that has happened to me lately is my completion of the membership process at church here in Wichita. This is super-important because prior to membership, there really aren't any ways that I can be involved in any kind of ministry. The whole thing is kind of funny in a way. Let me explain.

River Community Church is organized as a cell church, almost. There is a very large emphasis on small-groups with most of what we consider the fundamental functions of a body taking place in the small-group context. They still have services on Sunday morning but there is no Sunday school for anybody older than 10 or so (the youth do meet on Sunday evening for youth group, more on that later). First problem in trying to be involved in ministry at River: there aren't a lot of ministries in which you can participate outside of leading a small group. To my knowledge, the complete list of ministry potentials is as follows: worship band, sound/lights, nursery, small children's Sunday school, youth group, small-group leadership. Outside of these, there is no formal church ministry.

My first inclination was to explore potentials in running the sound system on Sunday morning. Ladies and gentlemen, the church gets even weirder: they have more than enough sound people already. My help, at that time, was totally not needed. The final blow came when I learned that, actually, I wasn't able to be involved in any of these official ministries at all until I became a member of the church. Joining the church is a 4-8 month process (minimum) involving taking new-member classes, consistently attending a small group, and going through a mini-confirmation interview (mostly just paperwork). My church life was, for some time, going to be pretty minimal.

This policy makes a lot of sense but it was pretty discouraging for me to realize that the MOST I could do to be a part of the body was show up on Sunday morning for a service and a small group sometime during the week. I wanted to be involved, to jump in and just get to work, be a part of the body. Just the way this church does things, though, my level of involvement was pretty low and VERY passive in nature. Contrast this with what Bill, the youth pastor at "Number One Baptist" (as my brother and I call it) told me after I was only showing up for a month or so: "We've been praying for God to provide somebody like you and we have great hopes for your involvement."

Truth be told, I can see why River does things the way they do; if I was in charge I would probably do it the same way. These past six months have been a good time of simple learning and understanding as I get used to a new family and they get to know me better. On the other hand, what a blessing it was for Bill, with spiritual discernment, to identify me as somebody ready, willing, and able to be highly involved and give me that opportunity. High-five to Bill for taking that chance with me and allowing me to get plugged right in.

I should also mention another point of ironic frustration: the pastors of this church are VERY relationship-oriented. I mean, imagine that. A pastor who doesn't treat leading the Body of Christ as an institution or organization to be managed but rather as a collection of people and relationships all with individual abilities and needs. In the words of Terry, the lead pastor, River is an "organic body."

(Along with "small groups", "organic" was the answer to almost any question about the structure of River Community Church. I don't think I can tell you how many times the summary answer to my questions was one or both of those words. For example:

Me: "So where does (function of the church) take place?"

Them: "Small groups."

Me: "Ahhhh. Ok. So how exactly does that work? What does that look like?"

Them: "Well, its kind of organic."

No joke, I got to the point where I stopped asking.)

Don't get me wrong, I think its great that Terry, Jim, and Dave, the pastors of River, are so relationally skilled and focused. I, on the other hand, find understanding and meaning through structure; this choice of organization-style was very difficult for me personally to get my head around. This is just the way I am, I've realized. Org-charts, the bane of so many in the business world, are very helpful and meaningful to me. I think in terms of systems, structure, and the big-picture. This church, though not lacking structure, goes to some effort to not make it obvious.

These two factors combined to make a VERY frustrating first few months for me here in Wichita. Now, though, I am past that: I have a good idea how the church is structured and I'm a member. Just one week after officially becoming a member of the body I approached the youth leader, Sherry, and was simply able to volunteer to help out with the youth group. She was very excited to have me on board and we'll be working on how I'll be involved over the next few weeks. In short, I think the hard times in getting used to a new body are past me.