Mission
Riverwind

Leaders, especially in God’s church, where all members are gifted for ministry, must learn how to lead effectively. Leadership in God’s community is a matter of gifts given by the Spirit of God. RiverWind partners with learning organizations such as Development Associates International, using a non- formal Servant Leadership curriculum, as well as Scriptures In Use. We use their training materials to the stories of the Bible chronologically to indigenous cultures which are more typically oral rather than reading. The curriculum incorporates memory and music, dance and drama, art and design to pass along the histories, movements, spiritual beliefs and social values of their cultures transformed by the Gospel.

As members of God’s community, we do not live for ourselves, we live for others. Jesus called us to announce the Kingdom of God to the kingdoms of the world. In doing so he commissioned his followers to care for the poor and the powerless, the weak and the wounded, the dispossessed and the down-trodden, the hungry and the homeless, those who thirst for clean water as well as God’s righteousness. Churches are communities within culturally and globally diverse communities.

Churches are worshiping communities of people. Christian worship – as the Apostle Paul reminded the Roman Christians – is an act of presenting ourselves as holy sacrifices to God (Romans 12:1). We are too prone to failure in the practice of holiness; we need encouragement to grow in becoming what one writer has called “a thriving community.” It is not enough, as an organization engaged in growing community, simply to begin a church then moving on to start more.

Jesus’ public mission began with a threefold ministry of teaching, proclaiming the kingdom, and healing all who were ill from a variety of maladies, both physical and spiritual (Matthew 4:23-25). While in contemporary developed countries we typically enjoy access to medical services, those living in remote and scattered villages have little recourse or resources to medicines and medical services. RiverWind’s mission is to train village health promoters who learn and understand community health, as well as the natural resources – clean water and medicinal plants – available in their environment.

Christians are a people with a Scripture. The Christian Bible is a narrative, a master story beginning with God’s work of Creation (Genesis 1 & 2). The gospel story closes with God’s work in bringing about a New Creation (Revelation 21 & 22). God created human persons, male and female together, to serve and preserve his Creation, his garden called Eden, the meeting place between heaven and earth.