Church is more than a place,
it’s the people.
Who We Are
Rivertree is a church plant in Jackson, Michigan. We started in 2007 with a vision to connect with people who weren’t being reached by more traditional church settings. Rivertree began life in the basement of a local family and since then we’ve grown to our current location at 3113 Lansing Avenue (the old Elks lodge for those of you who know Jackson). Our mission is to Love Recklessly, Live Passionately, and Serve Selflessly. We are a church within the Wesleyan denomination.
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By Loving Recklessly we mean that we are receiving and internalizing the love of God and being expressions of that love to our community and to our world.
Internalizing God’s Love
We believe that God’s love changes things. When we truly understand that the God of the universe loves us, and that there is nothing we can do to either earn or lose that love, it becomes a very powerful driving force. It changes how we see God. It changes how we see ourselves. It changes how we see the people around us.
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, put it this way, “The whole weight of human failure cannot extinguish the creative love of God.”
Recklessly Loving People
So often in our relationships, we are stifled to fully love someone because we are worried about being loved in return. When we experience and live in God’s reckless, creative love, it frees us to love the people around us more freely.
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By Living Passionately we mean that we are identifying and pursuing God given gifts, dreams and abilities.
What would you do with your life if you knew you would not fail? What are those things in your life that you are incredibly passionate about – that make you want to drop everything and pursue them? Often, those are dreams that God has placed in us. We want to pursue those thoughts, help people discover what they are for themselves, and equip them to chase after them.
Lay Back and Get Uncomfortable
When we are living passionately and pursuing God given dreams, it may mean that there are times when we aren’t comfortable. Too often, we put our own personal comfort above the needs of the people around us. Or maybe we put our comfort above pursuing a God-given dream? We need to understand that if we want to experience and live out God’s reckless love, we may have to feel uncomfortable.
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By Serve Selflessly we mean that we don’t live life for ourselves.
Life is about more than our immediate social circles. We deeply desire to be a group of people who serve to meet the needs of our community.
Being Aware
It can be easy to go through life oblivious to the world around us. We go day-to-day, routine after routine and become narrowly focused in our own little world. There are people here in Jackson who lay in bed hungry. People who live with no heat. People who don’t even have a bed. In order to meet needs, we need to expand our vision and make a point to see them.
Meeting Needs
It doesn’t do any good to be aware of needs if you aren’t willing to get your hands dirty fixing them. At Rivertree, this has meant a wide variety of things from replacing a broken water heater to collecting shoes for people without shoes. For ways we are currently involved in the community, and how you can join in see our Community Involvement page.
Connecting Globally
There are many needs, not just here in Jackson, but around the world. We want to be involved in meeting global needs as well through giving, partnering with local ministries, and getting involved ourselves. We are proud to have sent teams to Haiti, Jamaica and Costa Rica. We look forward to a team serving in Belize this summer. For more information about these things, see our World Involvement page.
At Rivertree, we hold serving our community at our core. We partner with many local organizations including the Hot Air Jubilee, the Together We Can Make a Difference House, and the Resale Depot. We also believe in being actively involved in our world, sending mission teams to West Virginia, Haiti, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Belize, and Cuba.
