The side-BY-side network collaborates by coaching, mentoring, resourcing, and developing leaders designed to equip, empower, and encourage pastors and churches. Freely we have received, freely we will give – with open hearts, minds, and hands.

There are four primary areas in which we can potentially add value to others seeking to do the work of the ministry. While you and your church don’t have to use these exact words or phrases, we have found that our overall style of serving the Lord and helping to build His kingdom works best when there is alignment around philosophy and approach. We rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us in these endeavors and believe He will assist us in contextualizing the principles and practices for your specific context. 

If what you see here resonates with you and you would like to explore more about being a part of the network, please fill out the form at the bottom of this page or contact us at sidebyside@riversideconnect.org for more information.

Culture speaks to our ongoing commitment to help people find and follow Jesus. Our focus informs everything we do on evangelism and discipleship (our approach to discipleship is centered around groups and one-on-one coaching using the book Learning To Follow Jesus. We can provide group resources and a comprehensive strategy and training to help you build a disciple-making culture.). 

We believe that followers of Jesus live at the intersection of our three core values: revere, connect, and contribute. The sandbox metaphor describes our purpose, core values, culture, and team. You can learn more about our "We At RCC" approach here.

Our desire to provide a "well-balanced diet" of Scriptural preaching and teaching has led us to a yearly theme that begins in September and runs through August of the following year. This allows us to intentionally unpack critical concepts from the Bible and systematically study books of the Bible year after year. We can provide these theme ideas along with timelines, study materials, graphics, videos, and YouVersion Bible Reading Plans to help supplement the sermon preparation process. 

Our approach to leadership is collaborative at every level. We believe in the priesthood of all believers and that everyone is called to be a minister. We seek to develop and empower leaders who own our purpose and core values. We can provide coaching on identifying, recruiting, and training potential leaders who will become vision carriers. 

Our team-teaching approach currently incorporates ten different communicators between our two campuses. We host yearly communicator retreats and periodic cohorts designed to grow our skills as communicators. We can provide you with all of the content we have covered over the years so that you can begin to develop a teaching team to help you shoulder the load in your context. It would be our honor to help fill in for you when you are on vacation or need a break from the weekly preaching responsibility. We value the voice of many and intentionally empower both men and women to speak into the RCC family. In addition to providing preaching respite for pastors, we also desire to help provide worship leaders with coverage so they can rest. We have a wide range of worship leaders who could come and lead for a weekend.

Many years ago, we began an intentional environment we call Deep, where we invest in younger leaders to help them prepare for the work of the ministry - in whatever marketplace or church context the Lord would lead them into. It's a nine-month leadership development group that explores the leadership intangibles needed to thrive as a spiritual leader, no matter the context. We can provide you with a comprehensive approach to developing a leadership pipeline that has been effective for over ten years. It will help you answer the question, "Where is the next generation of deep people going to come from?" You will invest in them and build them yourself - and we would love to help you! You can see where your future staff, board, key leaders, etc. will come from. It will take time, but the investment is well worth it. 

Riverside has been through a Lead Pastor succession plan. For those who would benefit from that knowledge and experience, we can provide wisdom and coaching to assist you in making those plans and executing a healthy transition in your senior leadership. 

Long-term stability and strengths-based staffing are keys to fostering a healthy church culture. Building a great team in an ever-changing world requires an intentional process of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding. We can provide a method (including ten assessments we use) and our Seven-C's Grid for evaluating new potential leaders. We can share our staff values to help you shape your own, and we can help you develop a biannual staff experience to help you keep everyone on the same page so that you don't fall prey to mission drift. 

We seek to build a robust and connected approach to helping kids, students, young adults, and adults to find and follow Jesus. We work hard to foster cohesion as transitions are made through the years. We intend that at each age level, those in our ministries hear the same purpose, core values, and attributes of followers of Jesus at their developmental level. Our team can help coach you around our best practices for accomplishing these goals. 

We express our Connect and Contribute core values through C-Groups. You can find our online catalog here. We can provide our "free market" strategy for recruiting, orienting, training, and celebrating group leaders. 

Missions and Outreach are the lifeblood of any thriving church. Our focus must always be outward for the benefit of others, both near and far. We have a global, regional, and local strategy we call FOR The World. We are FOR the Big Four: Praying, Serving, Giving, and Going. We can provide a Missions/Outreach Grid to help with decision-making regarding who, where, and how you will actively engage in the great commandment and commission. 

We can share the processes, software, tools, and technology we utilize "behind the scenes" to move your church forward in these areas effectively. We'll share our best practices to help grow and maintain excellence, accountability, and transparency that will help build trust. We can share an Employee Handbook, Church Policy Manual, Reports for Yearly Members Nights, and more. 

We look forward to assisting you in any way we can. And we know we'll learn from you, too! We haven't arrived and are still in process, but we are honored to add value to your life and ministry if possible. We encourage you to begin HERE if you'd like to pursue any of the areas listed above.

“Because we love you so much, we are delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God but our lives as well.”

1 Thessalonians 2:8 (NIV)