Dear Riverbend Family,
As we complete another year of ministry (congrats on becoming a teenager, Riverbend!), we are celebrating God’s continued favor and provision for our Church and for the part that each of you have played in this journey. Thank you for the ways you have invested in our church through your financial giving, using your gifts, and serving and leading in a variety of ways.
As we look ahead to a new ministry season we pray for God to work as only He can do. We ask that you join us as we “BEG” Him for His favor in this new season as we seek to Belong to a community focused on lifting up His name, Equip our community to make Him known, and Go to live for Jesus and love the Valley and the World in specific and actionable ways.
Belong… Come and Belong to a community of Christ followers!
We had a lot to celebrate in 2021 and 2022! We were excited to return to regular in-person gatherings this year and want to express appreciation for all those who invested their time to enable us to resume our family ministries as we seek to point our children to Jesus! We also enjoyed thinking creatively about what it looks like to get together, whether in continued online viewing options or through several “Parties at the Park” as we celebrated the Creator in the beauty of His Creation. More importantly, we celebrate life change in this season whether in big ways (5 baptisms in this ministry year!) or the incremental work of the Spirit in making us into His image (Colossians 3:10).
On a practical level, we are thankful for the support of several partner churches in this year who helped us transform our office and children’s ministry spaces into safer and more welcoming environments for our church.
As we look ahead to the coming year, we continue to look at opportunities to further improve our facility to make it as effective as it can be for our shared mission. We have several teams evaluating potential improvements and will bring these specific opportunities before the church in the coming year as we have better visibility and clarity around our needs and costs. To avoid confusion with the church’s operating budget, any out-of-pocket costs associated with a significant space improvement would be raised separately to ensure funding was available before the work was performed.
Recognizing the changes we have seen in our church family, we also look forward to finding ways to reaffirm our shared identity as a church while continuing to seek to find opportunities for those joining our community to Belong through community and opportunities to serve together.
Equip… Equip and Encourage each other to pursue Jesus together in Community
A key part of the mission of Riverbend is to equip our church body for the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:12). Here again, we have plenty to celebrate over the past year. From watching leaders step up to invest in our children as we restarted Family Ministries to providing Pastor Chris an opportunity to step back and seek God’s face in his sabbatical (after 10 years of faithful ministry) we believe in the importance of Equipping our church for the good works God has planned for us (Ephesians 2:10). Beyond our four walls, we celebrate the good work God is doing through our campus ministry through our partner CRU and were excited to welcome many students from local universities to our weekly gathering during the school year. It is a good reminder to each of us that we are called to be a part of a Jesus movement that is much bigger than the small part we get to witness from within our local community and an opportunity to celebrate those impacts that we may never even see firsthand!
The season was not without challenges. In the summer of 2022 we learned that Travis Ross, our Pastor of Ministry and Mobilization, will be moving out of the area as he seeks to care for his family well through his wife Grace’s continued recovery. While his departure is bittersweet, we want to take the opportunity to say a huge Thank You to Travis and Grace for their investment in our community over the past five years. Our prayers go with them as they take the next step in the journey they have been called to.
Looking ahead, we look forward to God’s provision in the coming season. As Travis transitions out of the leadership team in September, we are excited share that Sam Schwarze will be expanding her role at Riverbend as our Director of Operations and Ministries. In this capacity, Sam will provide leadership around many of the administrative functions that Travis was responsible for while playing a role in inviting others to join in the ministry teams at Riverbend. Also, Katie Casamassa will be transitioning out of her role in September and Alyssa Schlener will become the Director of Communications starting in October. This role will include overseeing and growing a communications/media team and working to optimize our SEO in order to reach the most people as possible through social media.
As we look forward, we are also exploring new ideas to equip disciple-makers and community within our church. We are excited to hear from Chris Dean as he returns from his Sabbatical in early September and recently took on the responsibility for our community groups in addition to his leadership role over our technology and creative arts teams.
Go … Commit to making much of Jesus in the Lehigh Valley and the World
We celebrate the continued opportunities that Riverbend has had in the last year to go beyond our “four walls” to make Jesus known. Whether through sharing the love of Jesus with the special needs community at the annual Night to Shine through our partnership with Faith Church, serving the homeless community through Ripple, partnership with the local CRU campus ministries, or simply blessing our neighbors through the Easter Egg Hunt and practically serving at Dieruff High School, we desire to make much of Jesus in our community. We were also excited in this year to celebrate a successful first Riverbend VBS!
Looking ahead, we are excited to partner across ethnic and language barriers, through our Church Planting Resident Wilson Tuero. We are excited to share our space with Wilson as he seeks to reach the growing Latino community around us with the love of Jesus. We continue to partner with other local church plants and will continue to engage our community to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the Lehigh Valley.
While we celebrate what God has done through Riverbend Church, we are also reminded that each of us as followers of Jesus are sent individually to reach people and make disciples who will reach people and make disciples. This “Great Commission” is also a shared commission and a good reminder that the biggest impact for His kingdom will not be through any church ministry or partnership, but through the individual impact of each of us in our local communities and places of employment as we obediently follow His calling for our lives.
Elder Team Transitions
We would like to express our gratitude for the elders who have led us well in an unprecedented season of nearly constant change. We have been blessed by what you and your families have given. In this next year Pastor Travis Ross, Matt Reeves, and Jason McDaniel will be rolling off this leadership team.
We will bring before the members Drew Dolan, Ed Hanna, John Velarde to continue to serve as elders. These men will lead along Pastor Joe and Pastor Chris to provide oversight to what God has entrusted us with. This member affirmation of the non-pastoral leadership is something that is done every two years in accordance with our Church bylaws.
Financial Update
As always, we celebrate God’s continued faithfulness in this past year. Financially, these have been years with a lot of uncertainty as “church” looked at times different than what we’ve grown accustomed to. Thank you for the many who have given faithfully of their resources during this season!
We came into this ministry year with a budget that contemplated a $17K shortfall. This acknowledged the uncertainty of the season and recognized that God had already provided in advance for this uncertainty with money received through the PPP loan in 2020. At year end, however, it looks like the shortfall for this year will be closer to $40K as giving remains flat while costs continue to escalate with inflation. It is important to note that the church remains in a fairly healthy place with regard to savings, but we should seek to not draw them down further.
As we look ahead, we believe it is important to bring forward a balanced budget in the coming ministry year. We are not looking to immediately replace Travis’s pastoral role, but rather envision staffing more gradually through expanding Sam Schwarze’s part-time role, and setting aside some funding for additional needs as they arise through the year. We were able to generate some health insurance savings that more than offset necessary cost of living adjustments for our pastors. As we look ahead, we want to be clear to our church family that the costs of inflation that we have all seen do have impacts on our church as well. Accordingly, we are prayerfully bringing forward a balanced budget that includes a 6% increase in giving from our members/attenders. We are excited to see how God shows up in this coming year!
We are so thankful that together we have and will continue to be living for Jesus and loving the Valley,
Riverbend Leadership Team