River Life was established in 1999 as a result of a Bible study that met in a home in East Sacramento. As this Bible study grew, River Life moved from this living room and began holding worship services downtown where we were until 2005. That year, the Lord led us to 4401 A Street; our current worship space. 

River Life is part of the Evangelical Covenant Church and our conference is the Pacific Southwest Conference. If you are not familiar with the ECC, our focus is on growing each person to become lifelong followers of Jesus (discipleship) so that each one of us will become participants in the work God is doing in His world (mission). 

We are an apostolic church. 

We confess Jesus Christ and the faith of the apostles as recorded in the Holy Scriptures. We believe the authority of the Bible is supreme in all matters of faith, doctrine, and conduct, and is to be trusted. “Where is it written?” was and is the Covenant’s touchstone of discussion with regard to faith and practice. 

We are a catholic church. 

The world catholic literally means universal. This means we understand ourselves to be a part of the community of believers that began with Jesus’ first followers, is alive today, and will continue until Christ comes again. 

We are a Reformation church. 

We stand in the mainstream of a church renewal movement of the sixteenth century called the Protestant Reformation. Especially important is the belief that we are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, not by anything that we can do. The Covenant Church is also shaped by Pietism, a renewal movement that originated in seventeenth-century Europe and emphasized the need for a life that is personally connected to Jesus Christ, a reliance on the Holy Spirit, and a call to service in the world. 

We are an evangelical church. 

A series of religious awakenings flowered in Europe and America during the nineteenth century and provided rich soil for the early growth of the Covenant Church with our passion for mission. Evangelicals historically have been characterized by a strong insistence on biblical authority, the absolute necessity of new birth, Christ’s mandate to evangelize the world, the continuing need for education and formation in a Christian context, and a responsibility for benevolence and the advancement of social justice.