If our head is on straight (sometimes a tall task in itself), is there anything more important to us than our kids? We bring children into this world with love and we hope that they will send us out of this world in the same way. Between these passages of life and death, we do our best to raise them, support them, and share what we have learned in our own life journey.

As a community of faith, there is nothing more important than passing faith on from generation to generation. Our hope at River of Joy, is that our children would learn to have faith in community.

1 Our desire is that our kids would have a community where their personal faith is nourished, developed, and tended by the whole of the community. We treat each other’s children like they are our own. As a community, we love them. We teach them. We learn from them. We feel responsible for them. We make every effort to keep them in the middle of our community life; be it while we serve together or while we gather to worship. We do not break them out in age appropriate classes that are separated from the rest of the community. We believe that the oldest among us can learn from the youngest and we strive to be a learning community. Together.

2 We strive to teach our children the fundamental truth that people must have healthy community in order to have a healthy world. We want our kids to have faith in community itself. Our desire is that our children see in us a group of people who are informed and enlivened by Christ to live a deeper life with one another. We strive to model this depth of life in order that our children carry it into the world that they will someday be charged with leading and shaping.

God’s Fridge

God has gifted children the ability to learn and assimilate thoughts, idea, and concepts in an amazing way. We encourage our children to draw a picture or two during worship and often marvel at the wonder of their insight. We then post the pictures on God’s fridge. View God’s Fridge gallery.

Perkins, Pancakes, and Prayers

We get together once a month during the summer for a father and son prayer breakfast at Perkins in Savage. We share some good food, some time together, and a heart for those around us and our world.

Kiva Kids

At a River of Joy worship service, the kids took some time to consider lending money to help develop two businesses in the Dominican Republic through Kiva and one of their partners, Esperanza of Hope International. In six months the loans will be repaid and our kids will use the repaid money to fund another gift of hope in the world.