Kindness Act 1

Last Sunday, with toilet brushes in hand, Laura and I kicked off the church's acts of kindness ministry. The idea behind this is to share God's love to our community by having small teams of people go out and serve others by meeting their practical needs. Serving in this capacity has the potential for an almost limitless amount of ministry endeavors based on the amount of needs within a community. The first need Laura and I took on was a glamorous one: cleaning public restrooms.

Showing up at a business with a cleaning bucket in hand and asking permission to clean the bathrooms, “because we want to show you God's love,” takes a bit of boldness and a lot of humility, but the results were surprisingly energizing. We cleaned with no-strings-attached and we got the expected response of, “How much is this going to cost?” We enjoyed seeing their rigidness crumble when we replied, “It's free. We just want to show you God's love.”

In two hours we cleaned a bar, a sports equipment store, a pizza joint, and a gas station. That may seem like slow progress as far as the workload goes, but we were pleasantly surprised to find the recipients of our kind acts were full of questions about us and the church. Herein lies a strength for this ministry: we did not set out to invite people to church or use this as a promotional tactic. Instead, we set out to show people God's love, and in doing so by such a simple and radical way, the grace-filled act naturally invokes questions as to why, setting a stage to tell of the church without all the typical barriers involved.

Not everyone was inquisitive as to why. Some people simply said “thank you” and went on with their work, but the neatest thing I found by doing this was an appreciation shown by everybody involved--nobody was rude. This experience was quite emboldening for a Christian like myself who has become discouraged over the years with the responses I've received with traditional approaches like door-to-door evangelism. I think acts of kindness better suit our reserved culture and makes evangelism easy for Christians who aren't naturally inclined to preach a powerful sermon to a complete stranger (which is like 99% of the flock).

Overall, it was a wonderful and even fun way to spend an afternoon, and I am looking  forward to doing it again and getting more people involved.

The Couch and the Pew

At this early stage in the life of The Redemption Movement, we are meeting in living rooms. This practice is widely known throughout the church world as “home groups,” or “small groups.” Some churches operate exclusively in this manner and call themselves “home churches.” Other churches offer traditional church services in conjunction with small groups in members homes.

We will use both models; our main gatherings will be in homes until we grow to the point where we can add Friday evening gatherings, and eventually Sunday morning church services. We also plan to continue to meet in homes for small groups with the addition of these two gatherings.

Church services and small groups each have their own strengths and weaknesses when compared to each other. Neither model is perfect, and this is the logic behind our future Friday night gatherings as we attempt to marry the two models of ministry—more on this another time. For now, I want to compare small groups and church services.

Fellowship: Strength—Small Groups.

Meeting in a home, sitting on a couch, sharing a meal. A persons house fosters strong relationships as opening up a home to a stranger is symbolic of making available one's own life. Church services on the other hand give off a more corporate feel (unless the church is super intentional to make their services otherwise), and with this impersonal feel comes the possibility to be just a part of a crowd, duck in late and leave early, and even avoid people (which some people like). It is near impossible to avoid people when you are part of a small group sitting in somebody's living room.

Inviting People: Strength—Church Services

Culturally speaking, church services are the norm, they are what people expect out of church. Even though home groups are how the New Testament church was founded, and have been practiced all throughout church history, they are still perceived as something of an oddity to those outside the church. And it is for this reason it is easier to invite somebody to a church service, where they will know what to expect, as opposed to inviting somebody to a small group in a home and trying to convince them it is real and legitimate church.

Teaching: Strength—Small Groups

With the greater relational intimacy small groups provide, comes a higher level of trust for one to engage in the teachings. This means more questions, group discussion, and greater participation in the lesson. This style of learning is more natural, and engages the student in ways that sitting through a sermon cannot. Although, preaching a sermon is still valuable and is prescribed by the Bible and therefore cannot be cast aside, preaching therefore is a strength of the church service.

Worship: Strength—Church Services

Most homes do not have a stage and sound system, nor can they accommodate large crowds. And it is for this reason church services provide better worship settings. Using the metaphor as the church as the body of Christ, the bigger the body, the bigger the worship bang, and with the American culture entrenched with a performance-concert mindset, most people prefer the worship music of church services. Although, small groups can provide very intimate and simple worship that can also be attractive on it's own merits.

All the other aspects of church, like prayer and communion for example, work nicely in both small groups and church services. Overall, neither model is better than the other, but the strengths and weaknesses do cater to different purposes.

And so it is with this distinction that I announce that we are meeting for small groups every Sunday night at 6pm in the second story apartment. We start with a meal or snacks, followed by Bible teaching with group discussion, and sing a song or two with a guitar. It is a simple time of strong fellowship, very casual, and provides a great opportunity to make new friends. Laura and I both welcome you into our home and into our lives.

2010: The Building of a Movement

(click to enlarge)

2010 looks to be the year the Redemption Movement will begin, and like the word "movement" indicates, it will start with something small, like Bible studies and acts of kindness, that will move forward into a full blown church with several life-giving ministries. Our approach will be less focused on a time table and more geared toward a one-step-at-a-time strategy. This ties in better with the idea of movement, and allows us to grow at a healthy and authentic pace.
To better communicate this movement, we have created a step-by-step illustration that captures the vision of growing us from a small group of believers meeting in homes, into a public church with weekly ministries and local outreaches, and finally, into a church that has worship services, provides aide internationally, and plants new churches.

Information Meetings Step one: build a group of committed people who are passionate about Jesus and His church. Information meetings act as a great way to introduce new people to the Redemption Movement by laying everything out about our purpose, doctrine, vision, etc. This way, an informed and prayerful decision can be made on whether or not one would feel this is the right time to join the movement. People who sign up at this stage will make up the founding core group of the church. They will be challenged with the founding work of the church and enjoy the spiritual growth of watching the fruits of their labor blossom into a church that blesses others.

Small Groups
Small to medium-sized groups will weekly meet in each others homes and enjoy meals, Bible studies, worship, and good old fashioned hanging out. This will be key to building a strong faith community. Small groups will provide a believer with several important ministries of the church including discipleship, worship, prayer, fellowship, and giving.

Acts of Kindness
This is a simple idea that can make a huge impact: teams of people regularly going out into the community to show others the love of Jesus by serving them in practical ways. Passing out food, raking leaves, washing cars, the possibilities to make a difference in peoples lives is enormous. Not only will the acts of kindness teams help others, but this outreach ministry will be even more rewarding for the people who serve.

Weeknight Gatherings
Think of this like a hybrid of a church service/coffee house/family living room. This will be an experimental and casual model of public ministry that can be enjoyed by both the super spiritual Christian and the open minded skeptic. The gatherings will operate with an open-to-close format, have short teaching and worship sessions throughout, allow time for prayer and discussion, as well as provide an area for games and snacks. It is a rather new way of doing ministry, and a more detailed blog post will be made before it premiers.

Partnering with Local Charities
We want to be a church that helps the poor, one the most effective ways of doing this is to partner with an existing local charity that is already doing a great job.

Establish Church Ministries
In this stage we will start several different ministries and programs that churches typically have. Ministries for kids and teenagers, men's and women's groups, worship teams, all of these groups and more will be added as we go along and have need, instead of having every one in place before we start.

Public Launch Event
Everything until now has been invitation-only or semi-public. When we finally enter into the public arena we want to go big with a an event called a "launch." It would be ideal if we could coincide the public launch event with the grand opening of a new location that can accommodate more people, preferably something in the downtown of Oneonta. This event will be very celebratory and heavily promoted, it will also be set apart from the weekly routine.

Weeknight Gatherings (New Location)
The format of these meetings will be unchanged, and they will continue to be the churches main gatherings, but by moving to a new location that is closer to the downtown, we are hoping to add the dynamic of picking up more casual passer-byers and being more in the public eye. This will mean beefing up the coffee house element of the meetings and include more introductory aspects to the teachings.

Start a Church Charity
At this stage, we hope to have the numbers and resources to start our own charity for the community, while continuing support of other charities and the work of our acts of kindness teams.

Public Launch Event
Another heavily promoted launch event will be used, this time to promote the next phase, which is the addition of church services.

Church Services
For us, the church service will not be the foundation of everything we do; but rather, the gooey celebration-flavored icing on the moist and delicious cake of who we are. I think it will be a healthy approach to not put all of our energy from the beginning, into trying to put on a perfect church service every week, for a culture that may be tired of simply "going to church." But by adding the church service element after years of strong ministry and healthy relationship building, I think the services will be more meaningful for everybody who is participating.

Meeting International Social Concerns
By now, the influence of The Redemption Movement will have gone well past the doors of our church and even the borders of Otsego County, New York. At this stage the church should be able to address big problems that are facing our world. We may not be able to solve every issue, but I believe God intended His church to make a big difference.

Plant a Church
Spreading the movement through replication. We want to be a church that is planting new churches, and then the new churches plant new churches, and so on. As a church plant we believe in church planting, and we would especially like to start new churches in communities in the area that could benefit most from a new church.

Tour the Building

Here is a walk-through of the building. This was filmed in October of 2009, and we have put a lot work into it since then, mainly to the upstairs which you can view at the end of the video.
It was vacant when we bought it, and you can see all the work that still needs to be done. Our plans are to gut out the 1st floor and start with a new floor plan, but we are still a long ways off from starting work on the first floor.
We are essentially done with the upstairs apartment, and plan on using this to start off with and have home group Bible studies and introduction meetings.
I know the building doesn't look like much, but we feel it is a blessing from the Lord, and see the potential it can be.

Our Look and Mission Strategy

A new shiny logo for a new church. I unveil to the world the RM brand. It's simple, it's modern, it's sleek, and it is blue. I think it communicates well the church's mission strategy, this is different from our mission statement--the strategy explains how we live out who we are.
So how will we live then? The idea of movement has a certain flow to it, I would like to be intentional about everything the church does having a purpose to it that naturally flows from one life-giving activity into the next. Connect will flow into discovery, will flow into impact, but it does not stop there, the movement then repeats itself, momentum is gained, and the cycle gives new life.

Connecting People to God.

Moving people from wherever they might be on their spiritual journey, to a relationship with God.

Discovering Purpose in God.
Moving people into an adventure of discovery within a community of believers. Where God's purpose is discovered through participation in discipleship, worship, giving, evangelism and prayer.
Impacting the World for God.
Moving people from a self-centered lifestyle and into a new self-sacrificial life in order to impact a broken world with the Gospel.

Preview

This picture is a preview of the presentation I am putting together for our introduction meetings. I am happy to report that we are very close to having these meetings up and running. This is significant because these meetings will serve as the main entry point for people coming to the church, until we are ready to add public gatherings.
Once we begin, we will be having these introduction meetings monthly at our apartment, they will include a dinner, and I will give a presentation on what The Redemption Movement is all about. This should provide people the opportunity to really get to know my wife and I, and ask specific questions about the church before committing.
This will be a very important step for us. All of our planning will begin to snowball into an actual church with people and ministries! Please keep us and the church in your prayers, thank you.

December and January Progess

After months of Laura and I remodeling the upstairs apartment, I can almost see a light at the end of the tunnel. The place is not perfect; in fact, there is still much to be done, but I think we have achieved our personal goal of making it a comfortable place to live. We have been doing the hard work of moving, shopping, fixing, painting, and installation, and we have all the houses' systems (electricity, water, heating, etc.) up and running. It is finally starting to feel like a home. It feels like we are not coming home to a cold, empty, vacant building, but to a home that we can unwind in and refocus our priorities.
The progress we have made with the house is crucial towards the church plant. This is because Laura and I favor the relational approach to evangelism, and now we can confidently invite people over to our home. The idea here is that sharing a meal together with somebody in their home is one of the most intimate relationship exercises people can do together in order to build a strong community.
We have only been focusing on a few rooms in the apartment for now, the downstairs has not been touched. We plan for the completed apartment to provide us with a nice place to start an invite-only house church. A successful house church model should let us grow into the downstairs storefront when we are ready to go public. Plus, as of now the renovation work has primarily been done by Laura and myself, and it has been hard and consuming for the both of us. The renovation of the first floor should be much more smoother and enjoyable with the help of a committed group of people that have grown close to each other through a house church/small group.




So after months of hiding behind paint brushes, screwdrivers, copper pipes, and hammers we can finally start to turn our attention back towards the people aspect of church planting! This goal has been the drive behind our labor all along. Laura and I are are excited at the chance to flex our hospitality muscles, so be on the lookout for an open house in the near future at good ole 148 River Street, Oneonta New York.