The River City Elders

In terms of church leadership structure, we use the phrase at River City that we are “staff led and elder governed.”  The Elder Board of River City Community Church is a group of men and women that are unpaid (with the exception of the Senior Pastor) and given the task of overseeing the life and health of our church body.  Specifically, the Elder board is assigned with:

 

·          Ultimate responsibility and authority to see that the church remains on a true course biblically, that its members are being appropriately shepherded, that the body is being fed through insightful and accurate biblical teaching and that the life of the church is being well managed with the assistance of other competent and Godly leaders.

 

·          Guarding the body against harmful influences, confronting those who are contradicting biblical truth and/or continuing in a pattern of destructive or harmful behavior.

 

·          Shepherding the church by being an example or role model. To encourage, evaluate and consult with key staff and members within their particular ministries.

 

·          Caring about the spiritual and physical well being of members, including regularly praying for the sick.


Daniel Hill


Daniel Hill is the Founding and Senior Pastor of River City Community Church, located in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. The vision of River City is centered around the core values of worship, reconciliation, and neighborhood development. Formed in 2003, River City longs to see increased social and economic justice in the Humboldt Park neighborhood as well as the entire city, demonstrating compassion and alleviating poverty as tangible expressions of the Kingdom of God.

 

Prior to starting River City, Daniel launched a dot.com in the 90’s before serving 5 years on the staff of Willow Creek Community Church in the suburbs of Chicago. Daniel has his B.S. in Business from Purdue University, his M.A. in Theology from Moody Bible Institute, and his certificate in Church-based Community and Economic Development from Harvard Divinity School. Daniel is married to his wife Elizabeth, who is a professor of Psychology at Chicago State University.



Grace Priya Piercy

 

Priya is a CPA who works at Sidley Austin, LLP as the Director of Internal Controls Assurance.  She acquired her B.S. in Accounting from NIU and her MBA in Finance from DePaul.  Priya moved to the U.S. at the age of 9, after her family left their birthplace of Madras, India, resided in London for 6 years, moved to Kuwait for a year and finally rooted themselves in Illinois.  Currently, Priya resides in West Humboldt Park with her husband John and their son, Timothy Naveen.  As a US citizen of East Indian decent, Priya was introduced to cultural and racial tensions early on, as well as, the overt and covert disparities between the rich and poor.  She strove to learn how these realities could be addressed through the ministry and blood of Jesus Christ.  While accepting Jesus as her Savior at a young age, it was a life shattered from personal trials and consequences of sin that allowed her to experience God’s forgiveness, mercy, power and restoration first hand.  Jesus’ pursuit of reconciliation with Priya in her darkest state, ignited her love for Him and fueled her passion for reconciliation with others.  This quest naturally drew Priya to the vision/mission of River City in its conceptual stages in 2003.  She is currently serving on her third term as an Elder at River City, prior to which she was on River City’s Operations Board and its Spiritual Life Board.  Priya is driven by the words of Jesus Christ to have ‘Thy kingdom come and Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” within herself, her family, her church, her community and the world at large. 


Tracy Turner

 

Tracy, a native Chicagoan, is a working, single mother of two Teens, residing for the last three years in Chicago’s Humboldt Park area. Tracy’s parents married and moved to the 3400 block of Fulton where she was born, in autumn, the second and last child. Tracy lived her first 10 years in this thriving but struggling community in the turbulent 60’s. After the riots that followed Martin Luther Kings’ assassination, the Turner family, along with many others decided to buy homes in neighborhoods previously unavailable via the newly established Housing Rights Act.

 

The move to the far south side was an important permanent change for Tracy, establishing relationships that still thrive today. The ‘Village’ concept in Afro-American community was transferred from previously impoverished areas into this middle class neighborhood. Instilled in Tracy was her family church where she accepted Christ as her savoir and was baptized at 13. Tracy remained faithful until her move to Dallas Texas, took her into a new spiritual direction. In this boomtown atmosphere, she discovered a new ‘family’ unit; however this unit met in a Baptist church which was not smiled upon by her family church. This began a long process of questioning the doctrine that she grew up with; one God, only one church.

 

After years of searching and the death of her Father, Tracy decided to return to Chicago; God put her on His path back to her ‘Village’.  Struggling to create a home for her family, Tracy moved to the northwest side, closer to the promise of a better and safer education for her Children in the DePaul/Lincoln Park area. Constantly seeking affordable housing Tracy found her way to the Humboldt park area where she found answers, a calling and a home at River City Community Church.


Bill Curry 

 

Bill Curry has been married to Marcie since 1996.  Together they have three elementary age children.  Bill serves as the Senior Program Director at Breakthrough Urban Ministries.  He oversees programs for homeless guests as well as the youth and family in the neighborhood of East Garfield Park.  In 2000, Bill and his wife, Marcie, moved to the neighborhood and established the Youth and Family Services Program.  Bill is a “die-hard Sox fan” and is a regular attendee of the White Sox’s annual spring training camp with his wife.  He is currently pursuing a graduate degree at North Park University’s School of Business and Non-Profit Management.


Jennifer Ikoma-Motzko (aka Jenn I-M)

 

Jennifer is a fourth generation Japanese-Okinawan American whose recent move to Humboldt Park put her in the same zip code her father had.   The daughter of parents both born and raised in Chicago, Jennifer went east to study (Cornell University) and later work in New York City with a non-profit engaging the university sector called InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.  InterVarsity is committed to seeing 'Students & Faculty Transformed, Campuses Renewed, & World Changers Developed.'  With almost a decade ministry experience on staff, she currently serves nationally in InterVarsity's Multiethnic Department.  In particular she's been brought on to throw her talents/energies to the Asian American division.  She speaks to college groups around the country, plans conferences, and creates/leads training modules with a particular emphasis for developing ethnic minorities & cross-cultural teams.  She loves God, chocolate, and her husband Michael of one year- not necessarily in that order.