One Body, Many…Buildings?

[intro]This weekend, Riv opens its fourth venue. The Westside Venue is entering into a slice of Lansing’s history—a church on the corner of St. Joe and Canal for 150 years—and it’s helping us in our goal of reaching the 500,000 Lansing area residents with the Gospel.[/intro]

But why four separate venues? Why not just focus on the three venues we already have, or treat it as a unique church planting opportunity, as we’ve done in Clio, or St. Petersburg, or even overseas?

There are many reasons, of course—not the least of which being that the opportunity presented itself, and we saw it as a chance to spread the Gospel to more people. Most of the reasons we’ve decided to use a multisite approach can be categorized into two big reasons: it gives us a greater opportunity to act in unison on our mission, and it allows us a greater opportunity to speak a unified message.

A unified mission

No matter which venue you choose to attend, we all have the same mission:

Riverview exists to proclaim the liberating power of the Gospel as we grow, serve, and go.

Let’s start with the end of that: serving and going for the Gospel. Think, for a moment, about Paul’s description of the church as one body with many members in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31. Now, of course Paul is talking about the Church as a whole there—he’s referring to the entire body of believers, calling all Christ-followers to use our gifts, no matter what they are, for the sake of the Gospel. But we can easily extend Paul’s metaphor to say that a body functions better not just when each part is doing what it’s called to do, but when the body as a whole is moving forward in the same direction. There is beauty in the diversity of churches across Lansing, and we even partner with several of them, but by growing as a unified church in multiple locations, we can also grow in our own areas of service.

United through multiple venues, we are able to send more people to Mexico. United, we will feed more families at Thanksgiving. United, we will help more people in difficult times through Stephen Ministry. As we continue to grow, there will be even more opportunities to unite and reach Lansing area residents.

A unified message

Of course, this work is subservient to our big mission: to preach the liberating power of the Gospel. We want Lansing to know that Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins—but He didn’t stay dead; He rose up and is one day coming back to rule in righteousness.

Practically speaking, this means we want to do what we can to remove barriers to the Gospel, and geography is a huge one. Lansing covers a fairly large swath of land, and we don’t have a particularly good public transportation infrastructure. When we opened our MSU Venue several years ago, we removed the barrier of forcing college students to leave campus to hear God’s word. When we opened up the REO Town Venue a little over a year ago, we made it much easier for people in downtown Lansing, especially those who rely on the CATA bus system, to hear the Gospel. The Westside Venue now allows us to reach more people in Eagle, Grand Ledge, and Dewitt.

We’ve also alleviated some of the burdens of church leadership. Preparing a weekly message is hard work; by putting that burden on Noel’s shoulders a majority of the time, we’re giving our nine other pastor/elders more room to work in their own areas of gifting and calling. Fred Choi, our newest pastor, is able to focus on organizational systems across venues. Paul DenHerder’s focus is working with our care ministries. James Granger is able to focus on Life Group organization.

That’s ten pastors, and dozens of staff, and hundreds of volunteers, all working together according to our gifts to proclaim, as one, the liberating power of the Gospel as we grow, serve, and go—throughout Lansing and across the rest of Michigan—and the world.