Dear Riverside Family,
I wanted to provide an update for you on the Mission Statement Refresh process and where we are in that process. We recently completed a series of 5 “Backyard Conversations”. These conversations were designed to ascertain how people’s experience of Riverside aligned with Riverside’s current mission statement. The themes that emerged in these conversations confirmed that people’s experience of Riverside and Riverside’s stated mission align. These themes were that Riverside is a people who value space to wrestle with difficult questions of life and faith, a people that value relationship with one another in the midst of those questions, and a people who desire to serve their wider community and world through service.
The second step in this process was to gather a team of people from Riverside to engage in a refresh of the Mission Statement. This team is representative of the different demographics that make up Riverside and sought to include long time and newer members of the Riverside community. The members of this team are made up of staff, leadership team, search team, and lay members. The team members are: Kelly Blanchard, Linda Bogan, Karen Hickman, Melanie Lang, Nicole McClurg, Fizz Olsen, Yucel Parsak, Kevin Riggenbach, Mike Tetrault, Kurt Watt, and Dan Ritchie. This team has already begun their work and our goal is to have a new iteration of the mission statement released to the congregation by the end of the year. Please feel free to direct any thoughts or questions you might have about this process to me.
This process and the clarity that it will bring to Riverside is an important step in the transition process. I encourage you to uphold Riverside in your prayers as we continue this transition journey. I remain optimistic about Riverside’s future potential and the Kingdom impact it could have in the greater Lafayette region.
Be God’s
Rev. Dr. Corey W. Johnsrud
cjohnsrud@rcovenant.org