Risks and Rewards of River Valley Community Church

~ From Eli Suddarth - Director of Worship & Discipleship

Though the moving process is in full swing around River Valley (finishing the zoning changes, trying to get occupancy and building permits, renovation work, meetings with architects, designers, and engineers, etc.), we as a staff managed to sit together for our weekly meeting and take some time to reflect on the season from where we’ve just come while discussing the book we’ve been reading together for the past couple of months.

The book, called Leadership as an Art, was written by corporate leadership innovator and Christ-follower Max DePree, and is generally considered one of the best books on, not just Christian leadership, but leadership in any context. Because the text is written with the wider world in mind, it can be difficult to glean helpful insights for what goes on inside of the church, and the chapter we set out to discuss this week was one of the more challenging.

The chapter in question looks at the necessary sharing of risks and rewards that must take place in any organization with the thesis that unless everyone involved, whether CEO, department manager, or line worker is on-board with the mission and vision of the company, to the point that they all share equal amounts of risk and reward, that company will inevitably look and feel like a top-down hierarchy rather than an organic body of equally important individuals, without whom the whole would not survive. As River Valley Community Church has in its sights the end of this long and winding road, it becomes easier to see how an idea like risk and reward sharing applies to a church as unique as ours.

If RVCC is anything, it is so first because God made it that way, but second, it is because you who are reading this have assumed personal risk to fight for the church’s mission and vision. While many church structures depend on the strength of their leaders, River Valley depends on every single person who attends a service, serves in a ministry, witnesses in their workplaces and neighborhoods, and contributes their time, talent, and financial resources.

It has been a blessing to reflect this week with the staff on all the ways the people who make up this church enjoy sharing risks with us. You have risked your identity attending services in various temporary locations throughout this year while a plethora of established church buildings exist within walking distance; you have risked, most recently, your physical comfort as our present temporary facility lacks air conditioning; you have risked financially by contributing to an organization that is committed to giving a substantial percentage of whatever it has to work going on outside of the organization itself, even while this move has been going on; you have risked your reputation by continuing to invite others to share our times of praise, though we look quite different from the conventional picture of “church.” The list of risks goes on, but here’s the reward: Not only has God blessed us with a permanent location in Aurora out of which to continue our ministry efforts, but He has also used this refining fire of trial and risk to forge River Valley into a more effective tool for His kingdom mission here, and we are already seeing the fruit.

This does not mean that we will now only experience reward and no longer take risks together, but it is an exciting prospect to enter into this new season as a church linked arm-in-arm with fellow risk-takers who are eager to do whatever is necessary to see God’s kingdom come to our city.

Thank you to all of you brothers and sisters who take risks with us.

Blessings.