Sean C. Morgan
As a toddler, Colton Emmert began attending the newly formed River of Life Fellowship with his family in 1993.
On April 16, Easter Sunday, he preached his first sermon as the church’s new pastor.
The River of Life Fellowship met in the Sweet Home Seventh-Day Adventist Church when his family joined the church. Then the church moved into the Community Chapel’s old building, 1658 Long St., in the mid-1990s. Following an extended period with an interim pastor, Emmert succeeds Pastor Gary Hooley.
Emmert, 26, is the son of Scott and Julie Emmert. His brother, Drew Emmert, is a health and PE teacher and varsity boys basketball coach at Sweet Home High School.
Emmert graduated from SHHS in 2008. He attended Linn-Benton Community College and then Central Oregon Community College in Bend, where he met and married his wife, Marissa Emmert.
He entered the ministry while living in Bend.
“I was working for a grocery store in Bend for a little while,” Emmert said. When he started his college education, “I was going to do business. I decided I wanted to do counseling after that.”
But that didn’t work out. Instead, he interned for two years at the Journey Church in Bend.
“It took me to Uganda for a couple of weeks,” Emmert said. Not long after that, he and Marissa returned on their own to Uganda to serve a three-month mission.
The church mission centered on outreach through a basketball program, a sport Emmert was heavily involved in during his school years.
During the second trip, “we taught at a school, Christian religious education, and we also taught English.”
They also worked at an orphanage.
“I love Jesus, and I wanted to spread the Word,” Emmert said. “I had a connection with Uganda the first time we went. We just felt like that’s where God wanted us to go. I came back and started applying for jobs. I knew I wanted to do youth ministry.”
He applied for a youth pastor position in Portland and an office position at River of Life. He ended up with a part-time youth ministry position at Cottage Grove Faith Center.
He intended to and thought he would be a youth pastor forever at the time, he said.
“I just love working with kids.”
But God had other ideas for him.
The pastor at Cottage Grove went to a different church, Emmert said.
“In the interim, I took on a full-time role to fill in some gaps.”
That lasted about six months, he said. “Then they hired a pastor. That pastor kept me on as a full-time youth pastor. Then I got the call to come back here.”
That call came in the physical world and the spiritual world when the church leaders contacted him, he said. He rejected their request.
He didn’t think he was ready to be a pastor, he said, but he started praying for River of Life and its search for a pastor.
The leadership team called him again six months later and he agreed to come to the church and preach. The church voted to make him its new pastor. He felt more confident by that point after his time filling in at Cottage Grove.
While he had other plans, Emmert’s journey into the ministry began abruptly and unexpectedly.
“As a 19-year-old, I fell away from my faith,” he said. It’s a testimony that today he hears often, and largely that’s what drove him toward the youth ministry.
He wasn’t living in the best environment at the time, but he still went to church every Sunday.
“It took kind of a meeting with Jesus to change my mind,” Emmert said. On the way to church every Sunday, he would drive through another church parking lot.
One day driving through that parking lot, “I said something’s got to change,” said Emmert, who was 21 at the time. He stopped right there, got out of his truck and went inside. He instantly got involved and began turning around his life and entered the ministry, a journey that five years later has returned him to his roots.
“I’m stoked to be here,” Emmert said. “I’m just thrilled to be here. I really think this church was meant to be an outlet to our community. I’m excited to be part of it. I’m totally confident this is where we’re supposed to be.”
It’s much different than being called elsewhere, he said. Half of the town knows his story, his mistakes. That’s a kind of negative, but it also shows God’s grace.
“I want this church to read the community,” Emmert said. “I want this to be known as a church where people can come as you are. There’s not a standard to walk through our door – You are good enough.
“I want to see a revival in the community. I want to see people coming to Christ. I want to see the Church grow. We want to be a light for our community.
“God’s value and God’s love for everyone is immeasurable, and His grace is enough for everybody.”
Emmert’s favorite Scripture is Romans chapter 5.
“It’s about perseverance,” he said. “It’s about hope, and it’s about the grace of Jesus.”
As a child, he found in the concept of perseverance and the passage justification for stubbornness and pride, he said, but he eventually learned “that perseverance with Jesus is what gives us hope.”
River of Life has a membership of about 65. Sunday service begins at 10:30 a.m. Sunday school for children and adults begins at 9:45 a.m.
The church holds no additional services, but Emmert said there will be in the future.
For more information about River of Life Fellowship, call (541) 401-4937.