If You've Just Moved to the Poughkeepsie Area

If you're new to the Hudson Valley or Poughkeepsie area, and are already a Christian, we warmly welcome you and sincerely hope that your heart is to be faithful in bringing the good news through your life to your new home. Finding a church home suitable for you and your family can be a daunting process. On this page, we'll try to give you an overview of the heart and vision of The River Church in order to help you decide whether you'll pay us a visit or even consider becoming a part of our congregation.

Even a cursory reading of Scripture will tell you that the church is not a place, but a people. It's a family, an organism. Therefore, though almost all of us are inclined to say things like, "We're going to church this morning," we know that this something of a misnomer, since we usually think of entering a particular building as we say it. Biblically, however, the model is more like this: The building is not the church; rather, the building contains the church for a few hours every week. The building is not a temple; rather, each Christian is a temple--so for a few hours each week, the temple gathers in a particular space before spreading out again to cover the entire Poughkeepsie area. This is the model we follow.



Our goal for the structure of the church is to follow as closely as possible the model portrayed in Acts 2:

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. . . . All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.