Taking a Break From Friday Evening Gatherings at The Redemption Movement

After 21 months of hosting Friday Evening Church Gatherings out of our old storefront on River Street, we've made the decision to put a stop to our Friday event while we seek the Lord's guidance for a new direction. The Redemption Movement will continue as a church; we just need some time to determine what our next steps will be. In a way, it's like we're hitting the church reset button.    

We've come to the conclusion that the Friday gatherings at our River Street location are not furthering the goals and mission of The Redemption Movement, as evidenced by the low attendance and the disappointing lack of visitors. One purpose of our weekly gatherings is to grow the church, which requires support and participation from people--after all, the church is people.

What's Next for the Church?

Kaler preaching 1 of nearly 80 RM sermons.

While the church plant is blessed to have found favor within our community, this favor has not translated into church attendance on the level we need it to in order to sustain the activities of the church, like public fellowship meetings put on every week. It's our hope that the new direction will be able to contextualize the Gospel in such a way that people in our Oneonta mission field will feel compelled to visit and even support the church.

Fridays Feel Beyond Repair

We don't know what the future looks like for The Redemption Movement, but one thing we do know: Friday Evening Gatherings at 148 River Street aren't working, and to quote Albert Einstein, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results."

To be sure, in the span of 21 months we tried several different things with the Friday Evening Gatherings in the hopes of seeing different results; only to arrive at the conclusion that, "There is absolutely no changes we can make to the meeting format or to the building that will cause a new person to want to visit." As you can image, this is a rather discouraging place to lead from. Therefore, we feel like it's the responsible move to cease hosting Friday Evening Gatherings while we determine what the next step is.

Advent 2014: Laura leading one of the last Friday worship services.

Our Sunday Morning MCG Will Continue

During this transitional time, Sundays will be the only day of the week when our church regularly meets. Since last Spring we've been holding a Missional Community Group every Sunday morning at 10am. Our MCG is like a Sunday School class, but with more of a focus on the specific mission of The Redemption Movement, as well as a time of personal discipleship. Lunch and a group act of kindness done for our community typically follows.

We use our Missional Community Group to develop leadership for the church, which means that the content is very specific in regards to the Christian faith. Therefore, we encourage newcomers to first contact us before coming to our Sunday morning MCG so that we can first talk with you about what to expect. 

Full of Optimism: Launch 2013

As soon as we come up with a new time, format, and perhaps even a different location for our weekly public gatherings (i.e., a weekly event that a non-Christian seeking truth will be comfortable attending), we will post the information to our website, blog, eNewsletter, and Facebook page. Decisions about this next step will prayerfully be made by our Missional Community Group. 

You are welcome to join this group and give input regarding our plans if you would like to commit to the mission of The Redemption Movement, and you're welcome to visit on Sunday mornings if you're interested in learning more about the mission of this church before committing to be a part of it. Feel free to contact Pastor Kaler for more information.