New church focuses on Jesus, not religion

Who says church has to be in a chapel?
There’s a new church in town that worships in the paintball room of a community center with a wildlife biologist-turned pastor.
Brian Moser, lead pastor of Missoula’s Christian non-denominational River City Church, takes text message questions at the end of his Sunday sermons and uses the idea of the TV show “Man vs. Wild” to highlight his weekly sermons on “surviving the jungles of life.
”It’s an untraditional approach in teaching the traditional beliefs of Jesus Christ, he said.

“People are into faith and spirituality, but not religion. They’re not interested in a lot of rules,” Moser said. “The only rule Jesus really had is to love God and to love each other – that’s our focus, to keep it simple.”
Moser said the church focuses especially on grace, community, authenticity, creativity and simplicity.
“We know too many people who have been going to church all of their lives and are bored by it or hurt by it,” Moser said. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
River City Church started up in Missoula in June and has been meeting weekly for Sunday services since September. The Missoula church is the second for River City, which has its main branch in Lewiston, Idaho. The service lasts about an hour and begins with singing along to new-age Christian music with the church’s worship team, followed by Moser’s sermon.
Sam Euker, the 22-year-old drummer on the church’s worship team, said that he hopes this kind of music will help draw people closer to Christ.
“I love hymns and gospel music too,” Euker said, “but for us this works.”
Becca Brainard, a University of Montana junior who recently started going to River City Church, said she likes that the church congregation is composed of many younger people.
“I can better relate to these sermons than other sermons of my old church,” Brainard said. “Not to put a stereotype on older generations, but he (her previous pastor) had a difficult time relating to us younger kids.”
Moser’s sermon this week was “Surviving the rat race of life.”
“If you are struggling with vision, stop and think about – what if you could stop everything and do anything in this life? What would it be?” Moser asked. “If you are looking for a vision in your life, sometimes you just need to get up and get moving.”
He talked about an old truck to make his point. He said when an old truck is turned off, the steering wheel is heavy and hard to move. Only when it starts running does steering become easy and possible.
“God just tells us to head toward the mountains; he doesn’t tell us the whole trip there,” Moser said.
Eric Beeson, worship leader and associate pastor for the church, said that River City Church is not just about a Sunday experience. He said the church also has many “life groups,” such as a college group and Game Night, which meet throughout the week to celebrate life together and support one another.
Moser said his favorite groups are those that get together and eat.
“Jesus didn’t just have a wafer or a cracker and a sip of wine,” Moser said, adding that when Jesus took communion with his disciples, it was over a meal where they got to enjoy being together at one table.
Following the service this past Sunday, Beeson’s six-year-old son ran up to him after Kid’s Way, the church’s version of Sunday school.
Ethan Beeson, wearing red face paint that stretched up past the corners of his mouth in a clown-like smile, ran circles around his dad with a piece of donut clutched happily in one hand.
“What did you learn today?” his father asked.
“We are learning about shining for Jesus,” Ethan said. “Smiling and doing stuff for him.”
carmen.george@umontana.edu