River City Vineyard, our Community, meets in a house. It is not someone’s residence where a small group meets. It is the house where our Community gathers. Owning this house for our Community is part of the story we want to share with our neighbors.
Our Community has existed in New Braunfels for over twenty years in a variety of locations. Each location has served a unique role in our gathering of a diverse community of ordinary people to follow Jesus. Looking back where we met did not seem to matter until we entered the COVID plus years. Like all churches in our city we faced challenges which we had never encountered in all our years together. These challenges were very disorienting for our Community.
Our disorientation directed us toward a reorientation to what is most important in our Christian expression. Neither the size of a congregation nor the size of a church building are essential to the health of community. We discovered we were smaller and smaller has been good. We also discovered that proximity to neighbors grew more and more important to our community. COVID taught us to think more about the well-being of our neighbors. Our community wanted to do all we could to participate with public health officials to minimize the spread of the pandemic. Now that the threat of the pandemic is past we are left with a longing to love our neighbors better than we have in the past. So, we moved into a neighborhood to be closer to real neighbors. Immediately we expanded the backyard garden and began a fall garden in hopes of sharing vegetables with our new neighbors.
Our story at 2923 Morningside Dr is just beginning, but we continue gathering a diverse community of ordinary people to follow Jesus. We are hoping to grow a healthy community whose roots sink deep into the rich soil of what Jesus intended when church first began.
We gather on Sunday mornings at 10:00 am and all are welcome to come for a visit.
Our community garden is a labor of love that we share together as we seek to relieve a small part of the burden of food insecurity in our city. Volunteers from our church & larger community help us tend to the garden on Saturday mornings, and all are welcome to share in the vegetables and flowers it produces.
Our goal is to have a monthly “take what you want” vegetable stand, as well as pre-made meals available for those who aren’t able to cook. Our home grown vegetables are also used in our Casserole Ministry, which makes frozen meals every few months for us to have on hand when life circumstances leave friends in need of a little TLC — in the form of good cooking.
A small flock of chickens & ducks have added to the health of our Community Meal & Garden Project. They help us keep the garden free of harmful bugs and weeds, and their bedding contributes generously to our compost bins every week. They also provide us with fresh, free-range eggs to eat & give away.
