ABOUT US
Creating Gospel Communities
We are a community of Christians living in Boston, trying to follow Jesus and love this city by caring for foster youth and foster families.
We believe that when Jesus calls us to follow him, he calls us to community – so we are trying to do just that. We live near each other, pray together, serve together, and just generally try to follow Jesus together.
OUR NAME
In Greek, riza means “root.”
As we have thought and dreamed of community, we have returned to the simple imagery of roots and trees, fruit and branches time and again. Perhaps because Jesus so often speaks of the Kingdom of God in botanical terms or urges his disciples to dwell in the Vine that is Himself, this simple image of growth and stability has become important to us.
Riza. Because we want to be a community rooted together in Christ, drawing life from the rich soil of His Word and the traditions of the Church.
Riza. Because the Kingdom of God is small, unassuming, unseen – and we want to be a community that embraces the ordinary as the space for God’s life and work.
Riza. Because it’s only as we are all connected together, committed together, in a particular time and place that God’s vision for the Church can spring to life.
Riza. Because we are committed to the slow, instead of the instant; because we are passionate about local expressions, rather than canned universals; because we are convinced that living in community requires tough, weathered endurance that can only be grown with time and grace.
We love the fruit of Kingdom of God community: kindness, joy, fellowship, peace, love. Everyone loves these things. It’s our usual habit nowadays to try and produce the fruit of kingdom by bypassing all the long, slow growth that precedes it. We want the outcomes of the Gospel, but we don’t want the way of the Gospel. Skipping over the slow and seemingly inefficient messiness of roots and dirt, we seek to manufacture gospel community through programmed ministry and curated relationships. The result is often times a convincing imitation that tastes like the real thing but leaves us oddly unsatisfied.
For us, intentional community is a way of recovering the fundamental roots that produce the fruit of the Kingdom: faithful, enduring commitments to following God together, immersed in the soil of Word and tradition.