The River Church Community

On this sunny and hot Sunday, we joined the worship at The River Church Community located on the campus of San Jose State University.

They had relocated their church from Sunnyvale to this campus with a vision of reaching out to the City of San Jose. From what I hear, they had taken the risk for reaching the people of San Jose (from all walks of life) despite the chance of the church dynamics changing drastically and even impacting the congregation mix as well as the number of attendees. In some sense they are going through some transition period at the moment but strongly clinging on to God's leadership. About a year ago, their Senior Pastor had left to continue his studies and that had allowed the rest of the staff members to take more ownership.

The main celebration service is held in a redecorated Student Union Building's Barret Ballroom. Every Sunday, the setup/tear-down crew redocates this ballroom into a warm place of worship.From the outside hallways, you would never imagine such a sanctuary exists behind the entry doors.


Signing in our kids was quite simple. We wrote their names (no address, phone numbers, etc. were required) on the appropriate color-coded clipboard and pick up a pair of number tags. One tag goes on the child with the provided safty pin, and parents keep the other number which should be presented at the time of pick up. (We found out, though, that when we picked up our kids, we just had to sign them out on the same clipboard and leave the numbers on top of the table. There was no one really signing the kids out, per se. But the atmosphere was quite cozy and so the teachers probably could keep their eyes on the children.) We brought our kids down a flight of stairs into the cafeteria section where the kids are first gathered and have some snacks first before going to their own classrooms. The kids program was in the sequence of: snacks, praise songs, lessons, and crafts activities. This Sunday, they kids were preparing to collect some coins in a baby bottle and bring it back next Sunday in order to send the funds to needy babies. Signing in our kids took some time and as got there without much buffer time, we entered the adult worship a bit late.

The moment walking into the worship service in progress, we felt like we were entering a theater production where the house light was dimmed and the stage was lighted with very warm and focused lights. The praise team led the worship songs in a quiet tone with two vocals (a Sister leading and a Brother background harmony), keyboard, drums, piano, and an acoustic guitar.

Immediately following was the sermon on the topic of "Resurrection Spiritually" (subtitled: Living out the Resurrection Every Day); and today's topic was specifically on the Resurrection Power: Receiving the Gift of the Spirit.

The main passage was on 2 Peter 1:3 describing how we must tap into the immense power of the Spirit just waiting for us. Nicodemus was an example of someone who had everything but the power of the Spirit. Question: What motivates me these days? Power vs. Love for God? We need the Spirit to make the right decisions every day. In Acts 2, we see the same atmosphere from Genesis 1's creation because it was done as a personal and intimate life-giving way as he started the holy community of church. This is the same "wind" or Spirit at work. He ended the message with 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 reminding us that it is man's wisdom but God's power that will mature our faith.

The praise team led us into a couple more songs as invitation was made for people in need of prayers to come forward onto the red carpet area. The pastor led into a time of prayer and encouraged more to come up and pray either to minister to others or to be ministered by others. During this time, the congregation was encouraged to spend the "free" time to worship God in any way desired -- some continued to pray in front, some went to the back of the sanctuary to have communion (there was a self-serve communion tables), and some were using this time as time of offering. There were two offering boxes placed on top of round tables located in the back of the sanctuary where people could kneel down and pray following their offerings. It was quite a meaningful time for some of the worshippers.

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On our way out, we noticed the large area called the Connecting Table where people could walk up to see and talk with some of the representatives about various programs and ministries.

Website: www.the-river.org
Servie Time: 10am