RCC's Global Mission: "To Faithfully proclaim the sufficiency of Jesus Christ among unreached peoples by planting reproducing churches who teach His Word, so that together, we may present every man complete in Christ." PROCLAIMING...PLANTING...PRESENTING
At Riverside, we believe God has called us to share His truth not only locally but also around the world. When we look at Matthew 28, in the great commission, we see; "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations." One of the key interpretive questions here is defining what does the word "nation" mean? The word can be interpreted in more than one way. We often view "nation" as nothing more than a geo-political boundary. The word "nation" in Scripture, however, carries with it the idea of people or tribal groups. Understanding this meaning affects the way we look at missions. In the last 2000 years the Church has taken the gospel to almost every geo-political boundary in the world. The problem, however, is there are over two billion people yet to hear the truth of Jesus Christ. The harsh reality is there are over 6000 unreached people groups or tribal groups in the world that have never heard about Jesus.
In the winter of 2009, we began praying that God would give us a vision for world missions. Shortly after we began this deliberate prayer effort, God lead us to establish a mission’s team that committed to faithfully pray for several months, seeking how God desired us to proceed. We firmly believed that there had to be, within our missions program, an emphasis on the unreached of the world. As a result of this process, we believe God has led us to an unreached part of the world that we, as a Church, can seek to reach with the Gospel. The area we believe God has led us to is in Myanmar working with the Palaung people. We have partnered with eight other churches in the United States who are actively seeking to reach this people group and, representatives from Riverside attended the first ever Palaung Summit in Dallas, Texas in July of 2012. The Palaung people are among the 6000 unreached people groups worldwide. It is estimated there are less than 300 Christians among the one million Palaung. In December of 2012 members of Riverside embarked on a vision trip to Myanmar. We were overwhelmed at what God is doing among the Palaung and are humbled that God is leading us to be a part of His work there. In December 2015 Sarah Rhodes was commissioned and sent to minister among the Palaung in SE Asia. In the last few years we believe God has raised up opportunities with other like-minded ministries at home and abroad. These include ministries in the Bahamas, India, Romania, and the Balkans. As we move forward as a Church, we are excited to seek and find how God will use Riverside to carry out The Great Commission not only in SE Asia but around the Globe as He directs.