Riverwood Church Community

No offense, but…” Too late! We’re offended. We live in a time where we get offended pretty easily, and often it is those small offenses that ruin relationships. But it is possible that we can add some relationship hacks into our lives and become unoffendable?

Theory is great! Concepts, methods, and teachings are helpful, but it all falls apart if you don’t have the right tools for effecting change! In this message, we get ridiculously practical and teach out 10 tools for battling, dealing with, and silencing the broken soundtracks that spin around in our heads!

Medical and scientific researchers have been on a quest to discover the source of the voice in our heads. They have a conclusion: all that self-talk has one source – our own brains! However, the Word of God seems to indicate it might be a little more complicated and varied than that! In this study we will explore the four different sources for the thoughts we think, the soundtracks we spin and the...

We’ve worked hard over the last couple of weekends to (1) identify broken soundtracks in our minds and (2) explore where soundtracks come from. Last weekend we discovered there are four voices that are part of the conversations in our heads and we named three of them. This weekend we name and study the fourth and we witness His ability to flip broken soundtracks on their heads!

Have you ever heard a song that had the power to transport you back in time? A song that awakened not only your memories, but your smell and sensations? In many ways, these songs form the soundtrack of our life. However, there are other soundtracks that play in our minds! This series will examine the broken soundtracks that drive us to action and the tendency we all have to overthink!

Who knew that a wildly-popular Christmas song performed by some of the world’s greatest rockers in 1984 would collide with Riverwood’s trip to Eswatini, Africa last week, producing some powerful and profound lessons about Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and the season can be very busy with many different stresses. So today, we want to explore a biblical story that challenges this season's status quo and gives us a fresh obsession with Christmas!

It’s safe to say that our world is pretty much ‘Christmas-obsessed’! While enjoying the whimsical and fanciful elements of this ‘most wonderful time of the year', this message challenges us to consider the real story: the one full of chaos and stress! In that story is found true hope!

We would pretty quickly acknowledge that plagiarism is terrible and when it comes to art, the person who created the art should get the credit. Yet when it comes to God, we hesitate to give him credit, almost as if we’re scared it will go to His head. As we dig up this last piece of lost treasure, we might just find some surprises when it comes to God’s glory and how we’re called to give credit to...

Read through the Book of Romans and your metal detector is going to buzz and chime no less than 55 times as it passes over this week’s Lost Treasure: Righteousness! What is it? Why is it important? And what kind of practical difference can righteousness make in your life? Join us on our quest in search of lost treasure!

As we continue our search for lost treasures in the book of Romans, this week our journey leads us on a quest to recover the 1st-century idea of faith. Along the way we look at the shortcomings of our English language in capturing the concept of Pistis and take a walk through the Reformation to see if maybe our modern, 21st-century church reflects what Paul was leading the church of Rome towards i...

Welcome to week two of our new series, ‘Lost Treasure’! So far, we’ve examined the lost treasures of ‘God’s wrath’ and ‘Justification’ and in this message we examine a treasure that wasn’t so lost as it was stolen: ‘sin’. Now, before you scroll away, you need to know that sin isn’t a list of ‘don’ts’! It’s way bigger, deeper and more impactful than just a list of abstract rules! In fact, as a resu...

Welcome to the first week of our new series, ‘Lost Treasure’! Over the next 5 weeks, we will be mining for 10 lost treasures buried in the Book of Romans! Five of the treasures we’ll examine in our weekend messages and the other five will be rolled out in our new ‘Life Group Teaching Experience’ on YouTube! Now, this first one is going to be a bit of a bear to wrestle down: the wrath of God! But d...

When you hear the word “prayer” what stirs in you? Anxiety? Boredom? Intimidation? This message takes a look at 4 reasons why someone may choose not to pray regularly, and what Followers of Jesus can experience when they are devoted to prayer like the 1st start-up church.

Have you ever wondered what the doctor is listening for when they put the stethoscope to your chest? Are they just listening to hear if you have a heart that is still beating, or is it something more? Well, in this message, we explore the 'heartbeat of the church'! What is the heart of the church? Is there a particular rhythm to the church's heartbeat? ...and how do we ensure we are living in that...

If we had to name that part of us that acts a bit stingy, begrudging and obsessed with money and things, we might as well just call it ‘Gollum’! This message dives into the powerful spirit of generosity found in the first-church. It also tracks the history of the ‘tithe’ and the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament in regards to giving and tithing.

In this second week of our series, Pastor Todd tells you what happened at 5 am on his Monday day off after the intensity of last week! It had everything to do with a barrage of questions, you and…popcorn! This message digs deeper into Acts 2:42-47 and the question of how to bring Start Up energy and momentum to a 27 year old church!...(and popcorn).

There is nothing quite like a startup! The excitement. The risk. The tossing between euphoric emotions and raw desperation. In this message we delve into the story of the world’s greatest startup found in Acts 2:42-47, make some observations and ask some really hard questions. Questions like: what happens when your church is 27 years old? Is it possible to recapture startup energy and momentum? An...

We’re wrapping up our series on belief and the Book of John with this question: What does it mean to believe and hasn’t secularism (or atheism or humanism and science) made belief outdated and obsolete? If you’re unsure of how to answer that question, this message is for you!

It’s not uncommon to hear or see the phrase “the truth will set you free!” as a motivational speech or protesters sign. People use it all the time to try to communicate a deep-rooted belief they have and want to convince others of. But is it possible that truth and freedom have really just been reduced to feeling? Are our feelings accurate to determine truth, or do we need something more?

Reading the Gospel of John would lead a person to conclude there is no understanding of the Bible without having a firm grasp on what it means to ‘believe’! The word ‘believe’ is used 98 times in this Gospel alone! This message joins Jesus as he takes Nicodemus on a tour of the ‘7 Wonders’ found in John 3:16!

What can we learn about Jesus' disciples? They have the best teacher right in front of them, spending all of His time with them, guiding and sharing with them, yet they often seem to miss what’s being said, lose the point, and head in the wrong direction. How does Jesus respond to them and how is it a good example of how we should respond to Him and those around us?

Two individuals in Luke 18 & 19 appear to have everything, but are actually missing something! In desperation, they both seek out Jesus. His response to them is the same, but they end up walking away with different emotions, and heart postures. This message examines the lives of these two people, and asks what our own response to Jesus will be?