Mission, Vision, and Values
The River exists to reach the least, the lost, and the lonely with the transformational gospel of Jesus. A place where people can sit under the waterfall of grace.
- Belong: A place of community where you can simply be, with no expectation to perform or behave a certain way.
- Believe: in Jesus as the Son of God, who rescues us from our mistakes and makes a way for an abundant life full of grace and freedom.
- Become: all He intended you to be. Following Christ doesn’t make you someone else, it makes you more free and more fully who you already are.
The River began to reach far-from-Christ and hurting people. The conviction that runs through everything – brokenness is not a barrier to belonging. As the church often puts it, if you’ve got a pulse, you’ve got issues, and the goal is to walk through that together rather than around it.
The River exists so people have a community to belong to: people to celebrate with, people to cry with, and people to grow alongside.
Staff Culture
- High authenticity, high vulnerability: This is not a performance culture. Staff share openly, process failure collectively, and treat grace as the default posture.
- Direct and honest: Disagreements get worked through face to face, with no political navigation and no passive conflict.
- Iterative by design: Ideas get tried, honestly assessed, and dropped without drama, so comfort with ambiguity is essential.
- Downtown and missional: Rooted in the heart of Kalamazoo, The River draws people who intentionally drive past other churches, and proximity to homelessness, recovery, and economic diversity is normal community life rather than a ministry program.
- Casual and relational: No dress code, coffee in the lobby, music that gets a little loud, and teaching delivered conversationally.
- Non-attractional: Excellence matters, but depth of discipleship and community integration are valued over production value and attendance.
- Theologically generous: Convictions are held firmly on the essentials and with open hands on secondary matters, so staff and elders can land differently on non-essentials without those becoming primary.
Key Responsibilities
- Cast vision and provide leadership for all Next Gen ministries, including RiverKids (birth–5th grade) and River Students (6th–12th grade).
- Design and implement a clear, scalable discipleship pathway from the nursery through high school graduation.
- Oversee Sunday morning environments for children, ensuring safe, engaging, and spiritually rich experiences.
- Assess and develop a sustainable student ministry model that integrates teens into the broader life of the church.
- Recruit, train, and develop volunteers across all Next Gen ministries, building a healthy leadership pipeline.
- Partner with parents through resources, events, and communication strategies that strengthen family discipleship at home.
- Supervise a part time staff member and collaborate closely with church staff and elders.
- Plan and execute ministry events that foster connection and spiritual growth among families and students.
Key Qualifications
- A growing follower of Jesus with genuine pastoral instincts toward kids and families: Real delight in being with children, students, and parents. Seeing families as the mission, not the audience.
- A proven builder of volunteer teams: A track record of recruiting, training, and retaining volunteers and fostering a culture of ownership.
- A systems thinker who brings vision and structure: Able to see the whole arc from nursery to graduation, spot the gaps and handoffs, and build a discipleship pathway that runs well even when the leader isn’t in the room.
- A relational connector with real capacity for parents: Builds trust with parents as readily as with their kids, so families feel genuinely seen and known.
- Ministry experience that speaks for itself, with alignment to The River’s convictions: Meaningful experience in children’s, student, or family ministry matters more than credentials; a ministry or theology degree is welcomed, not required. Alignment with the values of The River and Kingdom Network is essential, including holding secondary matters with open hands.