Description:It's often hard to admit that we need help, but in life we are all dependent upon something... or someone. We tend to think that our path in life depends on our own understanding, so we seek out the best information in order to make the best decision possible. But what about when our understanding comes up short?We'll never have enough information to prepare for every situation in life, but God promises to faithfully lead us as we stay close to Him. Submitting to God's direction for our life allows Him to make our path clear and protect us from dangers that we can't see. Even though we may never have all of the answers to life’s questions, we can trust God to care for us as we learn to humbly & freely lean on Him.

Description:As we go through life, the path we take will eventually lead us to encounter both joys & challenges along our journey. Depending on the path we choose, certain dangers could have a destructive impact on our life. - Is there a way for us to avoid that danger and head towards something better for our lives?Choosing a better future might require sacrifices from us, but it will also give us a life built on freedom. As we stay close to God, obey His leading in our lives, and ask for His insight, He will teach us His wisdom so that we might walk confidently as we face the road ahead.

Description:Life is a journey, and we all want to arrive at a place we truly want to be. The path we take will always determine our destination, no matter what our dreams, hopes, and intentions are.How can we be assured that we stay on the path that leads us to the right destination? God wants to speak to us on our journey and guide us on that path He has for us. We will reap the benefits of staying on the correct path, as it leads us to our destination.

Description:Our faith is based upon our confession of who Jesus is - who we say He is.What kind of impact does our belief in Jesus make on our lives? How does that change the way we live in connection to others around us?Jesus calls us to follow Him & join Him in the mission that He started here on earth: the mission called the Church.

Description:On our journey in life, one of the most significant characters we can develop is Self-Control. It leads us to become more dedicated, focused, and grounded in life.Self-control is so much more than avoiding bad things, it's an active choice to choose GOOD things and continuously chase them down as our primary goal. As we grow closer to God, His Spirit develops Self-control in us. He empowers us to live faithful, committed lives that honor Him.

Description:Celebrate this miracle along with us!We're so excited by this big step towards the future, both for Riverway Church and for our entire community. God keeps showing us that He is faithful as we stay committed to reaching out and serving those around us. We're believing for the great things that are yet to come!

Description:As we grow in life, God intends for us to be healthily connected to others. We have an influence on each other, and the way we treat others shows the value we place on them. Nothing demonstrates this better than the character of Gentleness.Gentleness is a powerful character which reflects the way that Jesus reaches out to us. And as we become closer to Christ, His life in us changes the way we reach out to each other. Through gentleness we have the potential to comfort those who are hurting and heal those who are broken.

Description:We all want to place our trust in something or SOMEONE reliable, someone we can depend on. How can we become that person who models Faithfulness, and be the one that others can trust?Life & the culture around us pressure us to freely run after whatever makes us most happy, and fear tries to cripple us into believing that we have no future.God wants to show us His Faithfulness. We can trustingly open our lives up to His guidance and trust Him with our darkest fears. God's life & His love will change our lives, as we faithfully keep growing our relationship with Him.

Description:Just as fruit develops on a tree, developing healthy and positive traits in our lives requires our dedication to continue growing. As we stay connected to God, He causes good things to grow in us. Kindness & Goodness are characters that require our intentionality to grow. We become good through actively choosing to do so, and we become kind by stretching ourselves to extend kindness to someone else.

Description:We grow & develop out of what we are connected to, just as fruit grows from a tree. As we follow Jesus, our connection to Him develops spiritual fruit in our lives. It’s proof of the life that is growing inside of us.Patience grows like a fruit. It can be developed and grow to become something sweet & delicious. Even though choosing patience can feel like fighting a daily battle, Jesus invites us to stay close to Him so that He can help us win the battle for patience.

Description:Peace develops from an internal place, not from the circumstances around us. God sees every situation in our lives. He wants us to learn & grow through our life experiences, and to fully trust in His faithfulness. God's peace comes to us as we trust Him to work for our good in the middle of our circumstances. He promises to surround us and protect us, and we receive His peace by resting in that promise.

Description:We all desire to live a life of happiness, to be able to enjoy what makes us feel alive and fulfilled in life. What is the difference between our feelings of happiness and an expression of deep, genuine Joy? Can we choose to live with Joy, even during times that we lack happiness?There are intentional steps we can take to move towards a life of Joy and freedom, and those steps draw us closer to God's desires for us. The closer we are to God, the more we look like Him, the more we live like Him, and the more we experience the Joy that He genuinely desires to give us.

Description:At times we are all in search of proof. We seek evidence of whether something is true or not. In life, our behavior and the way we choose to live is proof of our beliefs and character. This shows more about who we are than we can even begin to communicate in words.As we follow Jesus, our lives change and show evidence of that. Jesus Himself said that others would see the proof that we are His followers. How might we live in a way that shows the proof that His life & His love are filling us up, from the inside out?

Description:Evil really exists in our world, and God wants us to be properly equipped to stand firm when it attacks us. Not only does God provide us His protection against the attacks of evil, but He gives us weapons to actively fight back at it.His word & His promises cut through the lies that come at us, and keep our mind protected by His truth. As we equip ourselves with that truth, we are strengthened to defeat evil when it comes at us.

Description:God sees every part of our lives. He knows what we have lived through, what we are experiencing, and what we will go through in our future.He invites us to hold on to the promise that He will always be faithful to care for us in every area of our lives. God is the one who can truly give us the peace that we are desperately seeking, as we trust in His example of faithfulness towards us.

Description:Daily choices have great power in determining our life's direction - Our relationship with God is something that becomes stronger through our daily, intentional choice to follow Him.When we remember all that Jesus has done for us and make Him the foundation of our life, His truth and His power begin to change our everyday lives. As we choose to live in a way that honors God, we guard ourselves against attacks of evil.

Description:We can’t escape the brokenness in our world. Pain, suffering, and sorrow are all around us, and we question why they continue to exist.Do suffering + evil have a source? Can we begin to understand the battle that we are fighting, against an enemy that wants to see us broken & defeated? Let us stand firm with our faith in God, whose power is great enough to overcome evil.

Description:Jesus' ministry of serving others was the foundation of the church. As Jesus sent His followers across the earth, they carried His mission + His example of servanthood out to new people & into new situations.As we follow His example, what will we be known for? Will we, as a Church, carry on Jesus' mission of reaching out to those around us?

Description:God wants to speak directly to our hearts, to counsel us in the ways we are living and the choices we are making.His guidance & instruction are there to help us, bless us, and protect us. He desires to lead us into the best life that He has for us!

Description:Our daily lives are busy, and the pressures + stresses we experience become difficult to handle. Adding in uncertainty about our future creates worry + anxiety inside of us.How can we live free from that worry? God is calling us into a trusting relationship with Him. We have a choice between fear or faith. As we look to Jesus, He lifts us above anxiety to live in His freedom.

Description:How can we make a positive difference in our world? We are each uniquely created by God with purposes, talents, abilities, and passions that are part of who He has made us to be.God's dream is that we use those gifts to connect with others around us. To use all that we are in order to bless someone else. He has prepared us for a mission, and He wants us to step up and make ourselves available to fulfill that mission!

Description:Forgiveness is an active step towards our personal freedom. Have you ever carried a grudge from a past experience that caused you pain or disappointment? Holding on to the hurts and scars of our past can cause damage to who we're meant to become, because God wants us to live our lives in freedom.As we pray for the strength to forgive, God starts a work of healing inside of us. And as we forgive, we allow God to enter into our situation and begin changing our lives.

Description:The message of Jesus' death and resurrection holds hope for every one of us. Yet it's a great challenge to try and understand it all; how could someone actually die and then be raised from the dead? Jesus' own followers were devastated and never anticipated that He would come back.After the resurrection, as Jesus returned to greet his friends, they became eye witnesses to the truth that He was alive! Their testimony holds true as evidence for all of us that Jesus is risen and that we have hope of new life in Him. No matter what fear, brokenness, addiction, or pain we have gone through in life, He desires to fill us with a true and living hope.

Description:God sees the world differently than we tend to see it. There are times when He challenges us to change our perspective and look at the world around us through His viewpoint.As humans we often want to take something from this world. God, however, is always looking to bless us with His generosity. When He blesses our life, He watches to see how we will then treat the others around us. Will we choose to see our world through His perspective and to live lives that model His generosity?

Description:Jesus' example of compassion challenges us to reach out to others. He reaches us in our most broken moments, and teaches us to help others around us so that they too might be healed and restored. God's generous blessings and compassionate love never fail us. What will we do to follow His example?

Description:Failures have a tendency to stick to us. Mistake, regrets, and negative circumstances can leave a residue in our life that causes us to feel defeated and even fearful of the future.As we choose to trust Jesus with all of our life (past, future, & present), His new life in us defines who we are and begins to set us free from our past experiences. It transforms us so that we now live with a new definition and a new purpose.

Description:When we experience failure, feelings of defeat will also flood into our emotions. We might feel embarrassed by what happened, disappointed in ourselves, and deflated by not being to attain our own expectations. It can paralyze us.In that moment, the challenge we must take up is to persevere beyond our shortcomings and keep moving towards the future that God has for us. God continually calls us forward towards Him, and defeat only happens if we stop responding to His call.

Description:It's no fun to talk about failure... it can leave us feeling embarrassed and defeated. While failure is an inevitable part of our lives, we actually have a choice in how we respond to failure. Jesus' closest followers failed Him, and He in turn showed them the grace and forgiveness to move forward in their relationship with Him.Will we accept God's love, grace, and forgiveness as the starting point of us moving forward in the aftermath of our failure? Will we respond to failure not by pulling away from Jesus but by coming closer to Him?

Description:Watch as we close our series "Marriage Hacks" // God designed humans to be unique yet complementary to each other. Men & Women are different mentally, physically, and emotionally for very important reasons. Learning how to communicate respect, honor, validation, and understanding is a fundamental part of a healthy relationship. It's a give-and-take from both sides, leading us to a more unified marriage.

Description:Watch along with week 3 of our series "Marriage Hacks" // Marriage brings us up close with another person, allowing us to see both the best parts and the most flawed parts in them. It's not a competition to prove who is better or worse, rather a challenge for us to develop humility to embrace the other person in the middle of their pain, wounds, and brokenness. Reconciliation & forgiveness are possible when we follow Christ's example of humility. We can offer perfect forgiveness even though we feel cheated or disappointed because forgiveness sets us free so that we can graciously extend that freedom to others.

Description:Watch as Ryan takes us through week 2 of "Marriage Hacks" // Communication is a fundamental part of any healthy relationship, but it's not always easy since Men & Women have unique ways of communicating. Healthy communication starts with US and the way that we choose to communicate with our significant other. Taking notice of the words we choose and the way we show love & respect in our communication helps us avoid conflict and misunderstanding.

Description:Watch as we begin our series "Marriage Hacks" // Marriage is a model of unity, where two people commit to becoming unified as ONE within their relationship. Drift is one of the most damaging things to a marriage, where the two individuals start to flow away from each other instead of flowing together in unity. When we intentionally invest to staying unified as one, our relationship is protected against drift and our connection to each other remains open, strong, and healthy.

Description:The first followers of Jesus didn't come to follow Him by reading about Him in a newspaper, or seeing Him on TV, or by following Him on social media. Instead their closest family and friends invited them to come and see the Jesus that they had met, so that they too could become followers of Jesus. We have the same opportunity today to invite others to come and see Jesus. So, who can you invite?

Description:Watch as Ryan concludes our series "I'm Becoming". // Who are you wanting to become as a person? Is there a gap between where you are now and where you want to get to? No matter what area of life we desire to grow in, one thing remains certain: God knows what's best for us! As we humbly surrender our goals and desires to Him, we receive His guidance in the journey of becoming exactly who we are meant to be.

Description:Watch as we continue with week 3 of our series "I'm Becoming". // Nothing adds stress to our life like pressure regarding finances, but we don't have to struggle alone in this because God has given us a plan for living in health and stability within our financial situations! Trusting God with our finances allows Him to work for our good and mature us into good managers of what He blesses us with.

Description:Watch along as we continue our series "I'm Becoming". // Spiritual Authenticity is an interior work that Jesus wants to complete in all of us; who we are inside of our hearts is the starting point of who we will eventually become. Jesus wants to lead us in the process of setting aside our attempts to look perfect and take up the commitment of examining ourselves so that we may be transformed on the inside!

Description:Watch as Ryan starts our series "I'm becoming" looking at how we can develop in our spiritual life. // In our goal of becoming more spiritually complete as a follower of Christ we don't have to fulfill a list of empty tasks to make God happy. God is looking to do more than repair our brokenness; He wants to completely renew us! Our commitment to Jesus is to be expressed by faithfully following, rather than trying to impress Him through our own self-perfection.

Description:Watch Ryan continue our "Thrill of Hope" series // Promises are meant to inspire + encourage us, but have you ever felt let down when someone left their promise unfulfilled? God made promises to Abraham, King David, Isaiah, and many other in the Bible, yet those promises weren't fulfilled overnight. There was a waiting period. The promises God makes to us not only apply to our lifetimes but they also extend to the future ahead of us, a future that God is preparing for us and leading us into. Will we be faithful to trust in His Promise?

Description:Watch along as Jeremiah continues our series "Thrill of Hope" // The Christmas season has a way of magnifying the good and bad in our lives, and we're reminded that for all of us there are certain problems we can't solve. Yet the hope of Christmas is really the best news we could receive, because Jesus came for us as our Savior. He came as a light to us, a light that cannot be overcome by darkness and that continues to shine as our Hope.

Description:Watch along with us as we recall the incredible day that was Christmas Miracle Sunday 2018.

Description:Watch the start of our Christmas series "Thrill of Hope" // To God, we were a Joy and a Thrill worth pursuing. God sent His Son that WE might also become sons and daughters of Him, adopted into His family and into a perfect relationship Him.

Description:Watch along as Jeremiah Stark closes our series "My Crazy Family" // Healthy relationships thrive off of a balance of Grace and Truth. When a relationship becomes toxic, there is an imbalance which causes a strain on the relationship. Knowing how to wisely handle boundaries can help guide us to appropriately resolve and restore the relationship.

Description:Watch as Ryan continues our series 'My Crazy Family' // The conflict in our family might have drained us to the point where we lie to ourselves, saying "we don't care". Following Jesus' example, His love compels us past the point of our own defenses to seek reconciliation with those who mean so much to us.

Description:Where there are families, there is conflict! But there is always a solution! - Listen along as Ryan starts our series 'My Crazy Family' by focusing us in on a point that we all tend to overlook: much of our issues and conflict start with a very specific person... ME.

Description:Watch the conclusion to our series "Stranded by Religion". Pastor Andy Stanley takes us through a review of church history, showing how we've come to where we are today, and then invites us to take our next step in our faith journey.

Description:Does following Jesus require Blind Faith? - Watch along as Ryan guides us through a discussion between our beliefs and our FAITH in Jesus.

Description:Ryan continues our series 'Stranded by Religion' discussing God's GRACE over our lives. It's this promise of Grace that shows us what God wants FOR our lives, rather than expecting something from us.

Description:Watch with us as we continue our series 'Stranded by Religion' - Ryan discusses what real forgiveness through Jesus looks like for us.

Description:Watch as Ryan continues our series 'Stranded by Religion' with a discussion of why God has given us rules to live by: because He desires a genuine relationship with us where He is the protector and provider.

Description:Watch as Ryan continues our series "Stranded By Religion" - In week 3 we take a deeper look at the Starting Point of our faith journey and the simple yet intentional step we must take to truly TRUST God.