SPOTLIGHT: ‘Pretty Feisty’ River Christian Church Embraces Big Growth

By Chris Moon 

The brief history of River Christian Church in Fleming Island, Fla., might be summed up like this: God can do anything at any place and any time—and through anyone. 

The leaders of the 8-year-old congregation in suburban Jacksonville say that’s exactly what’s happened. 

“It was the first time in my life where I really knew what was happening was what God wanted,” said Tim Collins, an elder and founding member at River Christian Church. “It really was God.”  

River Christian Church has seen God work in some interesting places—including the three years the congregation met at a local funeral home and cemetery. 

The church also has seen God work at some interesting times—like during the past three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The church has grown from a weekend attendance of 950 to nearly 1,500. 

And the church has had an interesting leader—a former a cappella church of Christ pastor. Nathan Freeman has led the church for the past five years. 

It’s an unusual story, but it is one the church hopes will continue long into the future. 

River Christian Church today is meeting in a traditional church campus. And because of its growth, the church now is looking either to expand its facility or to plant a whole new congregation. 

God has endowed the church with boldness, Freeman said. 

“We’re pretty feisty here,” he said. “We don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Whatever happens, we’re going to fight through it. That’s kind of our DNA.” 

AN UNLIKELY PLACE 

River Christian Church was founded in March 2015 by about 10 families who met at a local community center. The church grew to 40 people and began looking for a larger space.  

It found—of all places—a funeral home. Not many funerals are held on Sunday mornings. And the church got a good deal on rent. It was free.  

The church embraced it for the next three years, Collins said. 

“That was kind of our badge of being different, more than anything else,” he said. 

The funeral home was a quality facility, and one would almost take it to be a church building—except for the hearse parked outside.  

That’s not to say it was an easy three years. The church grew to about 80 attendees and plateaued.  

Collins said River Christian Church continued to grow in faith, however. He said he leaned on the idea the church should grow where God planted it. 

“We felt like this was what God called us to do because he did, in fact, give us the funeral home,” he said. “Who gets to meet for free for three years? . . . It would have been easy to give up. But again, because God had given us this facility to be able to use, we felt like God [was] blessing us.” 

Collins said the church was careful to save their money as they waited for the next step. 

AN UNLIKELY PASTOR 

Freeman became the church’s pastor in early 2018. 

He was a longtime a cappella church of Christ pastor who was transitioning his ministry to the independent Christian church world. He felt independent Christian churches—with their musical instrumentation—were better suited to share the gospel with the wider culture. 

“The Christian church has a passion to grow the kingdom no matter what it takes,” Freeman said. 

Still, he had a hard time finding a church to lead. Some churches, he said, were worried he would come in and “trash” their music.  

Through connections with The Solomon Foundation, Freeman met up with the leaders of River Christian Church. He saw the funeral home, too. The church’s kids ministry met in a little building down by the cemetery while the main church service was held in the funeral home. 

“It’s awesome to think you’re dropping your kids off in the cemetery,” Freeman joked. 

So, the unlikely pastor joined the unlikely church. 

A few months after Freeman arrived, the church purchased and renovated a former dance studio.  

“We were at 100 people immediately,” he said.  

The church’s goal was to have 300 people attend its Easter services that year in its new location. Four hundred people showed up.  

AN UNLIKELY TIME 

The growth hasn’t stopped yet—despite serious headwinds. 

By the fall of 2018, the church realized the dance studio wasn’t big enough. So, it lined up the purchase of the former Fleming Island campus of Christ’s Church, a Jacksonville megachurch. The building consists of 40,000 square feet on 10 acres of land.  

It was a big financial commitment—and a big risk. But the church always has met its financial needs. 

“God’s hand was all over it,” Freeman said. 

The church moved to its new campus in July 2019. Attendance shot to 750 that fall and then to 950 by January 2020—the year of the pandemic.  

“In two years, we went from 80 to 950 people,” Freeman said. 

The pandemic “wreaked havoc on all of us,” he said, but the church reopened as quickly as it could, helped by Florida’s relatively lenient pandemic restrictions.  

The church bounced back to 950 in in-person attendance by 2021. The momentum continued. The church in February 2022 began breaking 1,000 at its services. More than 2,000 came to Easter services that year.  

Today, the church is nearing 1,500 each week.  

What caused the quick bounce-back in attendance during the pandemic? Many churches have struggled to regain their footing. 

Freeman credits the church for restarting its ministries as quickly as possible. Among other things, the River Christian Church campus hosts a preschool, Celebrate Recovery, GriefShare, divorce care, a Thursday night worship service, and a weekly meal for people in need. 

The church also stores food on its campus for a food-delivery ministry.  

The church also has three Sunday services.  

“Momentum is the biggest factor you have, not money,” Freeman said. He added, “Our church is on fire to reach the lost and reach our community.” 

The church has seen numerous young families enter the fold. During the pandemic, parents were starved for events and places where they could send their kids. River Christian Church met that need as it restarted its ministry programs.  

“It’s kind of a perfect storm here. I think you can see that,” Freeman said. 

GOD AT WORK 

The steady growth has left the church with some good stories to tell.  

Collins, the church elder, recalled a time when the congregation was looking for a permanent facility while still meeting in the funeral home. The church tried to buy an old Presbyterian church that was closing. The deal never got done—and it was frustrating, Collins said. 

But later, as River Christian Church was preparing to move from the old dance studio to its current campus, the dance studio was flooded when a fire sprinkler accidentally went off. The building couldn’t be used.  

As it turned out, River Christian Church was able to meet temporarily in that old Presbyterian church that it had wanted to buy. The space was a little small. 

“In looking back, it was God specifically showing us, ‘This is why I didn’t want you to have it.’ It wasn’t big enough,” Collins said. “Those kinds of things constantly happened.” 

He also remains grateful for the church’s time in the funeral home.  

Collins said a woman in the church once met a couple in the Lowe’s garden department and told them about the church in the funeral home. The couple came and became regulars. 

Collins later asked the couple why they came. After all, a church in a funeral home doesn’t sound that appealing. 

The answer: “If somebody meets in a funeral home and they are willing to invite us to come, we’re going to come see what that’s all about,” Collins said. 

That couple became a blessing to the church, which long had wanted to start a Celebrate Recovery group. The couple started one.  

“That’s just one of the many” God-soaked stories in River Christian Church’s history, Collins said. 

COMMITTED LEADERSHIP AND THE FUTURE 

Ken Idleman, vice president of leadership development at The Solomon Foundation, has watched River Christian Church grow for years now. TSF has helped finance the church’s building projects.  

“The key to their growth has been that the elders in the church are really invested in terms of stewardship and volunteerism,” he said. “I think having that core of really committed lay leaders was in the DNA of the church from the beginning.” 

He said Freeman has brought a collaborative leadership style that is important to new churches that have moved beyond the initial planting stage. 

“He has that humble confidence which I think is the ‘it’ factor for a lead pastor . . . that enables a church to raise up leaders and grow,” Idleman said. 

In addition to all of that, the church didn’t shy away from its circumstances—especially in the funeral home.  

“I think they capitalized on the novelty of how they were starting,” Idleman said. “I think that added to the mystique and uniqueness of the church.” 

Today, River Christian Church is looking toward its future.  

Freeman said the next big step is figuring out what to do with its campus, which already is getting cramped. The church is looking to expand its building.  

If that can’t be done, River Christian Church will look to plant another independent church in the region.  

“We’re not allowing dollars to deter us from growing the kingdom,” Freeman said.  

Chris Moon is a pastor and writer living in Redstone, Colorado. 

This is the first of several “Spotlight” articles we have planned to coincide with our May/June 2023 Church Report issue.