Since moving our church to a downtown storefront in April, we’ve been paying attention to the rhythms of Oneonta’s culture happening right outside our door, and adjusting our strategy accordingly to meet its needs and better connect with its people. One success comes from an idea so simple it’s a wonder why more churches don’t try it--powering on an open sign!
What an Open Sign Communicates
Traditionally used exclusively by businesses, opens signs, as it turns out, communicate a message that’s exactly what churches are working oh-so hard to communicate to the public, “You’re welcome here. Come on in!” Without such a sign displayed for all to see, it’s easy for a skeptical public to pass by a house of worship and perhaps see a bustle of activity, or even read an explicit welcoming message spelled out on its marquee, and then respond with a shrug and general disinterest. Or, maybe feel like they can’t come inside because the worship service has already started and they don’t want to be disruptive. This was the experience we had while ministering out of a River Street storefront for five years.
It Took a Sign to Befriend a Skateboarder
Then one Thursday evening in April while our church family was working together on various building and outreach projects for the new space, Patrick went to the store and purchased a light-up open sign. He found a generic, LED sign and as he was hanging it in the window something remarkable happened. Patrick turned on the sign and I stepped outside to eyeball the best spot to place it. It was then that a man on a skateboard, Wayne, stopped and began to chat with me. I had seen him skateboarding nearby for the previous hour or so, and I even made eye contact and said hi a few times. For whatever reason, none of those friendly interactions persuaded Wayne to stop skateboarding and engage me in conversation. Instead, it took something extra to achieve this feat; something brighter than my smile and more trusting than my persona, like a light-up open sign. Wayne and I then spent the next 10-15 minutes standing outside, talking to each other, getting to know one another. It turns out that he’s heard of the work we do with the designated driving program, and, as a local bartender, he appreciates it. We also discussed several other topics with each other and I found myself really liking the guy. Therefore, I invited him to join me inside the building so I could show him around and introduce him to our church family. He agreed to this and followed me inside. Once he entered our space he was warmly greeted and he spent the next 15-20 minutes chatting with everyone. On the surface, this doesn’t seem like much of a story worth telling, or even celebrating for that matter. However, considering the countless times I tried connecting with someone passing by on River Street during a church gathering, only to be ignored, why, I was both stunned and encouraged by Wayne’s willingness to just come inside and “check us out.”
How an Open Sign is Changing the Way We Do Ministry
From then on out, we continued to turn on the new open sign for church gatherings and community outreaches at the Water Street building, and we continued to see new faces come through our door. In fact, this simple, just-flip-on-the-open-sign approach has even led to successful outreaches on Saturday nights where we saw groups of people come in off the street all throughout the night--without us having to go through the great expense and work of setting up the Kindness Station tent and hospitality table! This sets a precedent of making it possible to utilize the space for outreach much more often (but rest assured that the Kindness Station certainly still has a role). Another way of how we’ve seen the open sign affect ministry is that it actually changes the tone and posture of a worship gathering. This is seen by the fact that, once the open sign is powered on, there’s now a good chance that a random stranger will walk through the doors in the middle of what you’re doing, whether it be singing worship songs or teaching a Bible study.
Personally, I prefer this dynamic because of what it means.
As the preacher, it means that as I prepare a message, I must keep this possibility in mind and have a contingent plan in place to address any questions from someone walking in mid-lesson.
It means thinking less about writing a well-constructed, lengthy sermon where each point builds off previous points, and more about proclaiming Gospel truths that don’t require a whole lot of explanation, yet are still impactful enough to challenge worldviews and set captives free. This is actually the teaching method we see Jesus utilize while preaching in public spaces, with parables being a tool that Jesus seemed to favor the most.
Then there’s the intriguing possibility that, with the open sign on, someone can walk into the worship gathering at any time--someone who may not believe like I do. Keeping this possibility in mind means doing more work to explain a truth claim than what it takes to “preach to the choir” by simply stating, “This is true because the Bible says it is.” This also means taking the time to address doubts and common objections to a truth claim.
Yet, it’s Not About the Sign...
At the end of the day, it’s not about an LED open sign or even having a downtown storefront. These are just tools that we’re able to leverage for the sake of achieving our true mission: to be a people that’s with the neighborhood we’re called to, connecting those around us with the love and hope found in Jesus Christ. To that end, we’ll continually try new ways to be on mission and reach new people. Buildings, signage, tents, designated driving, free snacks, acts of kindness, and more, all of these are nothing more than tools that God gives us so we can be his hands and feet to reach people for His glory.
The Redemption Movement’s ability to continue ministering to people with a great resource like a downtown storefront is totally dependent upon donations from the community. To assist with paying for rent so we can stay in our space, you can give online at: donate.theredemptionmovement.org/movedowntown
Fundraising progress at the time this blog was published.
Or, to learn about additional ways that you can help, reach out to Kaler @ (607) 434-2564.
It’s been five years since The Redemption Movement officially introduced ourselves to Oneonta by launching a weekly, Friday evening ministry out of a renovated storefront on River Street. Today, we’re presented with a cool opportunity to move operations from River Street to downtown. It’s a move that makes sense in a lot of ways. It’s a move that will stretch us by requiring way more resources than what our little church has. But, it’s also a move that’s been marinating in vision and evolving since long before The Redemption Movement was ever, well, The Redemption Movement.
A Move 14 Years in the Making
The vision for ministering to a college nightlife scene out of a downtown location originated from my own college experience in Springfield, Missouri (2001-04). This is when I first became exposed to the vibrant nightlife with its hordes of young people walking the streets, hanging out, and just going from bar-to-bar looking for something (seemingly anything) to do. As I talked with people from these crowds, I was taken aback by how hungry they were for friendship, how open they were to having honest conversations about God, and I was dismayed at how many people were putting themselves at unnecessary risk by being intoxicated (drunk driving, sexual assault, etc.). I also observed how this was a time when churches had their doors closed, and how few Christians were represented in the mix--primarily because they were resting up for the big show on Sunday morning. Emboldened by what I saw, I approached the church I was interning at and proposed the start of a storefront ministry to be operated downtown during these nightlife hours. The catchy name for this ministry endeavor: Night Church. Even though the church leadership all agreed that it was a good idea, for this particular suburban church, such a venture didn’t fit their target market.
Side Note: As I came to later find out, much of the ideas God put on my heart lie outside the box of traditional church activity, which is ultimately why I am a church planter today.
Soon afterwards, I graduated and moved from Springfield (with its active nightlife) to my hometown where I ministered at a small, rural church. Even though I was making plans to settle down and enjoy married life in a small farming community, I couldn’t shake the vision of Night Church. It wasn’t but a couple of years later when this vision resurfaced in the form of church planting, and it took a couple more years for this vision to develop further and lead me to a location that would be suited for such a ministry--Oneonta, New York.
Like my experience in college, I had a difficult time convincing traditional church planting organizations that an idea like starting a new church in Oneonta was worth investing in (much less starting a night church). Therefore, upon arriving to Oneonta in 2009, Laura and I could only afford a building located a couple of miles from downtown. But no matter. We viewed our River Street headquarters as nice starter building, believing that it would only be a matter of time before the church plant would outgrow the space and support would one day allow for a move downtown. In the meantime, we poured our hearts into Oneonta’s downtown scene, serving the crowds with thousands of free rides home and giving away thousands of dollar’s worth of snacks at the Kindness Station. All the while, we were building trust, networking, forming relationships with like-minded individuals, and connecting with other organizations that cared about Oneonta. Granted, I originally anticipated that such a move from River Street to downtown would take place sooner than this. But, as I’ve come to learn, God’s timing is perfect.
When this opportunity first opened up, myself, the Kindness Team volunteers, and our church members started dreaming:
What if, instead of showing Kindness outside of this location every weekend, we also showed kindness INSIDE?
What if the Kindness Station had a home--a home that wouldn’t require lugging two carloads of gear back and forth every single outing?
And, to make this home happen, what if we didn’t have to move from the very spot that we’re known for--a spot that people KNOW they can go to and find us if they’ve had too much to drink and need a free ride home?
And what if, instead of just giving out free snacks and rides, we’re able to take advantage of a building that would allow us to do much more for the community? Like, what if “Mission Oneonta” was more than a catchy title for a blog and it became the name of an actual downtown mission that served the community’s needs in a variety of helpful ways; such as, being a space for additional community groups, churches, and nonprofits looking to better Oneonta?
What if the Night Church vision God put on my heart back in 2004, actually became a thing?
It’s important to keep in mind that making the move downtown is just the first step toward making this vision a reality. It’s going to take a couple more steps to get such a downtown space where it’s a thriving mission that’s making a positive impact on the community. Step 1: The Kindness Station, Indoors
Upon taking over a downtown space, the first thing we would do is to use the indoor space in conjunction with the already thriving Kindness Station outreach ministry. We’ll still pitch the tent outside and keep a hospitality table stocked with a few goodies and have a heater going, but we’ll also move much of what we do inside. Being indoors will allow us to serve the public with a warmer space, a closet full of clothes instead of just a single rack, public bathrooms that we’ll keep clean (so people will hopefully stop urinating in the parking garage or on the public sidewalks), and a safe and comfortable place to sit, to socialize, to give time for the alcohol to wear off, and to wait for a safe ride home. Plus, having a home indoors will allow us to create and leave up interactive displays designed to educate the public about alcohol consumption. Best of all, NO MORE SHUTTLING GEAR BACK AND FORTH EVERY WEEK! Step 2: Opening Up the Space to Other Community Groups With our small church’s current operations in mind, we’ll likely start off only using the space a few times each week. That makes for a lot of times throughout the rest of the week that other groups can use the space. In addition to a move like this allowing for the building to be used to its maximum potential, it will help us pay the rent if we sublet these rooms to enough groups that may want a regular downtown presence, but not be able to afford renting an entire building. A step like this would be a win for the group subletting the space, a win for us to have help with the rent, and a win for Oneonta to have another community-minded group with a presence downtown. Step 3: Night Church Night Church is the third step because it’s a concept that’s going to take more people to pull off than what our small church currently has available. Therefore, it’s our hope that moving downtown will allow for our church to grow into this and other ministries. At the very least, moving downtown to a place that’s more visible and more accessible will make it easier for visitors to check us out--something that’s historically been a struggle for our church with its out-of-the-way/easy-to-miss location on River Street. In a nutshell, Night Church involves taking several elements of a church worship service, like music, prayer, and teaching, and it stretches these out over the course of a few hours; all within a casual, conversational, coffeehouse-style environment. For example, this could look like taking a typical 3-point sermon and breaking down each point into a short lesson, followed by a time of questions and answers from small groups. It’s actually a model of ministry that we experimented with successfully when we first opened our doors in 2013. We were even able to incorporate additional ideas such as board games, food, and group art projects. However, as much fun as we had doing this night-church style of ministry, it quickly became apparent that such a model is truly designed for a downtown location that lends itself to foot traffic. Keeping with the community-mindedness purpose of the downtown space, it would even be cool if we could have other pastors and other ministries participate in Night Church.
What’s All of This Going to Take?
Truth be told. Taking advantage of this opportunity will only be possible if our friends, church members, other churches, community groups, student groups, etc., all catch this vision too. At the time of this writing, The Redemption Movement has saved up, at most, perhaps enough to cover one month’s rent. This is primarily due to the fact that our church’s approach to finances has always been to give back and bless others with as much as we take in, as exemplified in the free ride service and the Kindness Station. We are now asking for the community’s help to make this move possible. To make this happen, we’ll need to have enough monthly commitments to total at least $1,700 per month. Considering all of the friends we’ve made over the years, this goal actually seems obtainable.
In all of our time here in Oneonta, it’s been rare for our church to ever directly ask people or groups in the community for donations. It’s just not been our style. But now, we’ve got an opportunity before us that I feel is compelling enough to play this fundraising card. If you agree that this is a good thing for Oneonta and that it needs to happen, then a gift of any amount will go a long way. We first and foremost are asking for monthly donations so we can plan our rent expenses accordingly, but one-time gifts will certainly help too and will either go toward moving expenses or be budgeted to help pay the rent. You can give to this cause online, or mail a check to 148 River Street. You can also contact Pastor Kaler at 607-434-2564 to learn about additional ways to give, or to schedule Kaler to come and speak to your church or community group about this need. Thank you friends for dreaming with me, and to see for yourself what such a move could look like, stop by 80 Water Street on Good Friday and join us as we celebrate 5-years of serving Oneonta!
This upcoming Spring, The Redemption Movement will celebrate our 5-year anniversary of the public launch of our church, as well as the #OneontaRides ministry. The growth of these two ministries actually parallel each other in such a unique way that it’s impossible to tell the story of one without telling the story of the other. In fact, when I’m out giving rides on Friday nights and I’m asked, “How did this free ride service get started?” This is what I tell people:
When my wife Laura and I started the church in 2013, we were looking for a way that our new church could serve the community. In particular, we wanted to meet a need that wasn’t already being met, as well as have it be something that our small church with its limited resources could actually do. During this time, we took an assessment of the community’s needs and prayed about ways we could help.
We came up with a list of 30 different outreach activities we could do. Giving free rides home from the bar was one of them. We then organized the different activities into a community service campaign called “30 Days of Kindness.”
Out of all 30 service projects performed, the night of designated driving was the biggest hit. Giving the public free rides home made the biggest impact as far making a difference and connecting with people. Therefore, a few months later we scheduled a second designated driving outing, and then a few more outings a month or so after that. It didn’t take long before we found ourselves downtown offering free rides every weekend, thus making it a full-blown service.
#OneontaRides continued to grow in some exciting ways, like the addition of multiple vehicles, and adding a Kindness Station in 2015. Today, it’s a ministry that’s credited with providing more than 6,000 safe rides home to the local community, and it’s super exciting to see new people volunteer and more community groups get involved.
It all makes for an exciting story that we’ve documented extensively with our Ride Reports blog articles. All the while, The Redemption Movement continues to host weekly worship gatherings. It’s here where a community of servants gather and where the vision, co-mission, and passion for the free ride outreach comes from. Five years in and #OneontaRides is such a big part of The Redemption Movement that it’s what our little church is known for. Subsequently, it’s grown into such a major activity that it literally takes more resources to operate than what our little church can come up with, requiring us to regularly seek out help and funding from outside of our congregation. But no worries, the impact of this exciting outreach continues to be worth the work, and we’ll continue to expand it in ways that the Lord allows for. As we think about the next five years of The Redemption Movement, the continuation of #OneontaRides is a given. That said, the vision for the future is for us to be a church that does much, much more than just take people home from the bars, especially when it comes to discipleship. What other ministries and services will come out of The Redemption Movement in the next 5 years? Why, that depends on the gifts and talents of the people that grace our doors!
There’s now more variety to be had on Thursday evenings at The Redemption Movement. The 6pm meetings at RM’s River Street storefront will take place on a rotating schedule--one that provides a different kind of gathering each week. The schedule is as follows:
Worship Service: Communion
These gatherings will most closely resemble what one would expect from a traditional, church worship service. The congregation will sing worship songs led by a team of musicians, followed by a time of teaching and communion.
Fellowship Meal: Community
These gatherings will be characterized by food and fellowship. A potluck-style meal will be provided, and time will be dedicated to sharing about each person’s lives--ranging from struggles to celebrations. The goal of these meals is to strengthen relationships, build community, and help people find the support and encouragement they need within the church.
Celebrating a birthday with friends at RM's storefront church.
Community Outreach: Co-Mission
Putting words into practice by showing the love of God to others in our city is a big part of what it means to be the church. On Outreach Thursdays, this will either be done by actually going out as a church to bless the community in a practical way. Or, we’ll combine our efforts to strengthen and build up RM’s existing outreach ministries, like the Kindness Station and the free ride service.
Why Not Just Do the Same Thing Every Week?
The idea behind this new, rotating schedule is to provide a rhythm that gives worshippers a more holistic approach to weekly church gatherings, one that includes communion, community, and co-mission. Since moving our church’s weekly gathering to Thursdays, we’ve discovered that it’s difficult to accomplish all three of these purposes within a two-hour, once-a-week gathering. It’s our hope that, by dedicating an entire evening to each of these three purposes, we’ll be a church that’s balanced when it comes to communion, community, and co-mission. We also hope that being intentional like this will produce a kind of spiritually-holistic growth in people that wouldn’t otherwise happen if we focused on just one or two aspects of church life (at the expense of neglecting another aspect). Bonus: for all of these meetings, childcare will be provided. To find out where the upcoming Thursday fits into this rotating schedule, you can email Pastor Kaler at rm.gigs@gmail.com, or call 607.434.2564, or check the church schedule on the front page of this blog.
We’re excited to announce that, beginning August 3rd, The Redemption Movement will have weekly gatherings every Thursday that are open to the public.
What Will Thursdays at The Redemption Movement Look Like?
In keeping with our values, we want to keep things simple and relational. Here’s the breakdown of what this weekly rhythm will look like:
We’ll meet at our storefront at 148 River Street at 6pm.
We’ll have a meal together, followed by a study/group discussion.
The meal will be coordinated by those who regularly attend and those who tell us ahead time that they’ll be there (first-time visitors shouldn’t feel obligated to bring anything).
Childcare will be provided. Children will join us for the meal and then be dismissed with a babysitter to a separate part of the building or property. Depending on the ages of the children and who’s watching them, we may have a Bible lesson prepared for the kids.
Worship: Each gathering will offer some way to worship the Lord together, like music, prayer, communion, etc.
We Finally Feel Like a Family When We Come Together!
For the upcoming Fall season, we plan on starting up new Movement Meal groups, as well as to continue providing Thursday evening gatherings that are open to the public.
After taking all of this time to invest in each other, it’s my hope that, when you visit The Redemption Movement, it won’t feel like just another social event. Instead, may you sense how committed we are to each other, and how we love one another like a family--this despite our church being made up of a rather diverse bunch. And, may this witness of community, togetherness, and unity speak louder than any sermon that’s preached, be more insightful than any Bible study that’s taught, and be more impactful than any performance by a worship band (which are all great things BTW). Realistically, we’re expecting to start off small with just those who’ve been built up in our recent discipleship meals, along with their friends. Should Thursday evenings at RM grow into something more than what our dining room table or storefront can accommodate, well, I guess we’ll just have to come up with an entirely new plan!
After 2 years of The Redemption Movement hosting worship services on Sunday mornings at our River Street storefront and at various city parks for Mobile Church, we've made the hard decision to take a break from Sunday morning worship services so that we can better focus on discipleship. Rest assured, we hope to one day host worship services again, but before we do, it's our goal to first grow by way of discipleship so that we can better support the demands of a public gathering.
Though this feels like a setback in what has been a very trying church planting journey, we're excited about this season of change because it allows us to focus on a completely different model of church that is both Biblical and better suited to the culture of Oneonta: multiplication.
Attractional vs. Movemental
For the attractional model of church, having a worship service as the centerpiece is the way to grow: you attract people to a big activity and hope they come back. One big lesson we've learned from trying this is that the attractional model demands a lot of time and resources in order to maintain it.
For our small church, the wisdom of relying on an attractional worship service has come into question because the effort spent maintaining it takes away from seeing to the true work of the church, discipleship. Plus, we're church planting in a postmodern community where people aren't necessarily looking for an attractive church to attend, andless than 4% of the population is connected to a group that studies the Bible. In fact, one reality that we as missionaries recognize is that we're "starting a new church in a community that doesn't want a new church." Translation: the attractional model simply won't work in our city.
Instead, multiplication is a mustard seed-like approach that prioritizes in making disciples that can make disciples.
Even though doing the work of multiplying a small discipleship group is slow going and time consuming, the payoff is that a community of discipleship groups will be equipped to make more discipleship groups--as modeled by Jesus with his 12 disciples. The community will then be stronger for going through the discipleship process, and the church will be equipped to do great things--whether it be hosting dynamic church services or any other Kingdom initiative requiring a team of committed people.
What's the Future Look Like for RM?
Despite popular opinion, a church isn't defined solely by its worship service. In fact, during this time of transition, there are still plenty of ways for a person to connect with our church and participate in what we're doing. Moving forward, here's what The Redemption Movement will look like:
Movement Meals: These will be small groups that gather regularly to share a meal and go over discipleship curriculum together. These movement meals will essentially be the heart of our church. A high commitment level is required to participate in these small groups, so it's something that can't be casually checked out. Instead, anyone wishing to participate in our Movement Meals should first talk to Pastor Kaler or one of our church members about it in order to learn what they're about and find out when the next round of Movement Meals will start.
Downtown Outreach/Acts of Kindness: We will continue operating the downtown Kindness Station, providing Oneonta with the #OneontaRides free ride service, and performing various acts of kindness. Anybody is welcome to volunteer for this outreach activity. The best way to connect to the outreach efforts of The Redemption Movement is to join the Oneonta Kindness Team Facebook Group, and to tell let Pastor Kaler know of your willingness to help.
Monthly Kindness Team Presentations: Once a month we will gather to encourage one another with stories from serving Oneonta with acts of kindness. These meetings will serve as our social space and they're a great event to attend if you're new to RM and wanting to learn more about what we do and meet our people. These meetings will take place at least once a month on a weekday evening, and they'll be held at various venues. Keep an eye on this blog, the Kindness Team FB Group, and our eNewsletterto find out when and where the next presentation will be held.
Social Events: From time to time we'll offer social events like barbecues and game nights where people can just hang out. At this point, it's not something that's regularly scheduled, but we will announce these social events on social media when they pop up.
Participating Together at Other Local Churches: Even though we won't be hosting Sunday morning worship services, it doesn't mean that we can't visit other local churches together and worship the Lord. In fact, several local churches have extended an open invitation to our church to participate in their worship services and ministry activities. Now that we're taking Sundays off, we plan to connect with these local churches in this way. Contact Pastor Kaler if you'd like to attend church with the RM crew. We're likely to have lunch together afterward, schedules permitting.
Lessons Learned From the Last Worship Service Reset
It's eerie how similar this situation feels to 2 years ago when we stopped hosting worship services on Friday evenings for the very same reasons. In fact, in both instances I made the sad announcement around the time of Advent with the River St. storefront freshly decorated for Christmas. However, unlike 2 years ago (where we also had every good intention of transitioning out of the attractional model and into the multiplication model), for this time around, we approach the small group model with better training on how to multiply, as well as better discipleship resources. On the last go around, we discovered that without a solid plan, it's easy to default back to the attractional model of church that we're all so familiar with.
For The Redemption Movement's upcoming season of intentional discipleship and sharing Movement Meals together, I'm excited about what a move like this means for the future of our church plant. A community where disciples are making disciples--that's the kind of movement I want to be a part of!
The Carpenters celebrate adding +1 to Otsego County's population in 2014.
Otsego County's most recent population numbers are in. We've experienced a 1.76% population loss since the 2010 census (-1,094 people). This trend is consistent with population changes in the surrounding counties, and upstate NY in general.
When Laura and I moved to Oneonta in 2009 to start The Redemption Movement, Otsego County's population change since 2000 was +0.9%, with Oneonta down 0.4%. This statistic is one of a handful that drew us to Oneonta--a move which most modern church planting organizations would have advised against.
You see, when it comes to starting a new church, denominations will almost exclusively invest resources into growing communities. Unfortunately, such a focus comes at the cost of overlooking the dying communities. As commonsense as this strategy appears, there's actually one huge aspect of ministry that it neglects: hope, or to be more specific, the lack thereof. The perspective I bring to this conversation is of someone who grew up in a dying rural community. My experience has taught me that communities struggling with population loss also struggle with hopelessness. And since moving to upstate New York, I can confirm that this attitude of hopelessness is prevalent in the local population.
In fact, I would say that I know WAY more people living here who are only still living here because they can't scrape together enough money to move out of state. Plus, in my almost 7 years here, I've had an unusually high number of New York friends move to states with better economies and job opportunities. By far, these disenfranchised NY citizens far outnumber the people I've encountered who love living here and are committed to making the best of it. Also in my background is time spent living in cities which possessed a growing population and a growing economy. The dichotomy between these two environments is stark, with the growing communities generally being a more positive place to live. Suffice to say, the dynamics of how one would conduct a church ministry in a growing community verses in a dying one are equally drastic. For example, cities that have found economic success are filled with people without want. Sadly, this can turn "going to church" into a consumeristic endeavor where the church with the best (fill in the blank) is sought after by the devout. Whereas people living in a dying community don't much care for the trappings of the mega church model with its light shows, big screens, and programs. Instead, these people are first and foremost, looking for hope. I know that, statistically speaking, it doesn't make sense to start a new church in upstate NY, much less Otsego County. Although, when it comes to understanding that the church has been given a mission to spread hope to people that are lost, hurting, and hungry for hope, that's when starting The Redemption Movement in such an unlikely place begins to actually make sense. Now, I'm not advocating that starting a new church in a dying community is a silver bullet that will turn everything around. However, it's my belief that, if a church movement successfully spreads hope to the hopeless, then good things will begin to happen and positive changes will take place in the surrounding community. Consider the following benefits of how a church can positively influence a community lacking hope, by giving it something to hope for.
When people have hope, drug abuse and addiction loses its grip on lives, and drug epidemics are curtailed (drugs being a well-known problem for Otsego County).
When people have hope, they believe enough in their future to invest in it.
When people have hope, they believe enough in their future to fix their past mistakes.
When people have hope, they long to participate in a spiritual community with those who share their hope (instead of believing the church to be irrelevant).
When people have hope, instead of looking for the first opportunity to escape the problems in their community by moving away, they become intentional about sticking around and looking for ways to remedy them.
When people have hope, instead of looking for the first opportunity to escape a tough family situation by divorcing or leaving, they stick to their wedding vows and do the work it takes to repair a broken marriage.
When people have hope, people have babies and they stick around to raise families. This in turn ensures that a community will have a future.
At The Redemption Movement, Jesus is our hope and we're on a mission to proclaim this Good News to all who are lost, hurting, and in need of hope.
*Update 3-29-16: We've since moved the Kindness Station to 80 Water Street.
The Redemption Movement finally has a prime downtown location to call its own! It’s not so much a permanent location, or even a place that’s indoors, but we’ll take it all the same. What makes me so excited is the fact that, so far, in the 4 times we’ve utilized this new space, we’ve seen it expand on all the work we’ve done for the community--and in big ways!
What I’m referring to is RM’s new “Kindness Station,” located atMuller Plaza on Fridays from 10pm-3am (and Saturdays too if we can swing it). What's a Kindness Station you ask? Think of it like an outpost of sorts, designed to serve the community in a variety of ways, and have the ability to expand by meeting new needs and opportunities as they're presented. At first glance, it may look like a rather humble operation (a tent, tables and chairs, and some signs), but looks can be deceiving. There’s actually a lot going on at this little station.
Front and center is a hospitality table that we keep stocked full of goodies meant to bless Oneonta’s downtown patrons. A passerbyer is welcome to grab/use any of these items, ALL FREE!:
A cup of coffee
Candy
Granola bars
Bottled water
Capri Sun juice packets
Breath freshening gum
Hand sanitizer
Kleenexes
Phone charger
This laundry list of goodies is an absolute hit. In fact, we’ve already reached a point where most of this stuff is cleared out by the end of the night. This means a major trip to the grocery store is required before we can do it all again the next week. It also means that we end up reaching well over a hundred people per night in giveaways alone.
Restocking AoK Supplies
I find it interesting how there’s enough variety of stuff offered here to literally have something for everyone. For example, I put out a bottle of hand sanitizer one night as an afterthought. To my surprise, many folks would stop just to sanitize their hands, then thank us and move on. It's a major effort on our part to offer so much free stuff (and it drains our budget), but the upside to offering all of these goodies is that it allows us to connect with many more people than if we just offered one item, like candy.
How this expands what we do: Since RM's inception, we’ve performed dozens of different acts of kindness on hundreds of occasions, giving away dozens of different goodies to thousands of local residents. Now, for one night each week, it’s like all of our previous AoK giveaways are concentrated into one table. Past outreach efforts like ourSunday Act of Kindness would take up half a day and allow us to meet 10-25+ people per outing. With the downtown Kindness Station, we're able to bless around 10x that amount of people (or more), every week!
Safe Rides Home
You can now easily find us at the plaza for a safe ride home. If available, we’ll have one of our vehicles parked on Main Street for easy access. It kind of feels like we’ve got our very own bus stop (unofficially). And we still take calls if you need us to come to you (607.434.2564).
So far, we’re seeing the number of rides we give to be about the same as before we had the station (25-40+ riders taken home per car, per night). What I’ve discovered is that, whether we use the station or not, there’s just a limit to how many trips one vehicle can make in a 5-hour time span (the max being about 50 riders per 5-6 passenger car).
However, despite the limitations of how many trips we can make, we’ve discovered that, at the station, there’s no shortage of rides to give. Demand far outweighs supply. Here's a recent example of this:
I was responding to a call to pick up a group of 8 at Sal’s Pizza. As I was trying to call car #2 (which was out giving rides) in order to coordinate taking home this large group (I can only fit 4 people in my Kia), another large group at Sal’s asked me to pick them up after I was done taking the group in front of them home. That’s when I got a text message from Will at the station, letting me know that there were 10 people at Muller Plaza waiting for a ride… Clearly we need to trade in our cars for some vans.
Operating the Kindness Station gives us a much clearer picture of just how many people are looking for safe rides home. Now that we have a better understanding of this, we’ve added another feature to our safe ride operation; “Have us call you a cab.” At the station, we have a clipboard listing all the local cab companies, and we offer to call a cab for people who prefer this option. Taxi cab drivers can also park in front of our station if they’d like, we don’t mind. In fact, the way we see it, as long as we can play some part in getting a person home safe, whether it be by us, by cab, or by bus, we feel like we’ve accomplished what we set out to do.
How this expands what we do: Previously, finding one of our cars for a ride was a bit of a crapshoot. As we would park in front of different bars/restaurants throughout the night, we would try our best to live Tweet our location using #OneontaRides, or people would call us, or one could flag us down if they spotted us. Yet, despite these efforts, we were still difficult to find as we drove people home. This actually led to one rider recently telling me, “You’re like a mythical creature! I’ve heard of you, but I wasn’t sure you existed.” Now, people will know exactly where they can go to find us for a ride home, and if our cars are busy, then it won’t be long before we return to our designated spot. In the meantime, there will be plenty of goodies to enjoy while you wait.
Breathalyzer Tests
Another hit of the Kindness Station has been the breathalyzer. It has it’s own table along with a sign meant to educate people on what the different levels of intoxication and DUI penalties are. The purposes of offering these tests are twofold:
To help someone determine whether or not they’re too drunk to drive.
To educate people on what their BAC is so they can associate it with however much they’ve had to drink (we’ve actually seen people commit to stop drinking for the night after finding out that their BAC is higher than what they thought it would be).
When the Kindness Station is up and running, it’s common to have a line of people waiting to get tested, and we’re currently out of breathalyzer tips from doing so many tests.
How this expands what we do: In the past, we would lean the breathalyzer sign against the car and offer tests while waiting outside. This way meant that a lot of people who wanted to get tested didn’t, due to someone approaching us for a ride in the middle of testing a group. Or, at the request of bar management, we simply couldn’t test people while parked in front of some bars, due to strict laws about bars getting penalized for knowingly serving intoxicated people. Now with the station, we can test people’s BAC levels all night long without experiencing any of these limitations.
Heat/Conversation
Near the tent sits an outdoor propane heater. On cold nights people will circle around it and chat with one another, as if they were sitting around a campfire. The heater pumps out plenty of heat, especially for those who aren’t wearing adequate clothing. Plus, we’ve discovered that the warmth of the heater actually creates a safe place where people feel comfortable engaging one another in great conversations.
In fact, many times I would find myself approaching the station/heater after giving a ride, only to feel like I’m walking into a philosophy lecture. Somehow, plopping a heater in the middle of the plaza turns it into a regular Areopagus. One recent example of this came from a young woman who was waiting for a ride at the heater.
While waiting, she talked with everybody, which included members of the Kindness Team and others who were waiting for a ride. Upon approaching, I found myself walking into the middle of a group discussion on abortion, led by this outspoken young woman. People were having passionate conversation, yet nobody seemed visibly upset, which is odd given the divisive nature of such a topic.
Someone then pointed me out as the pastor, to which the girl seemed excited about because now she has someone to grill about my church’s position on abortion. I offered to talk with her about this on the ride home and her and I ended up having a good-long chat about it after dropping off the other riders. At the end of the conversation, I felt like I could call her a friend, which isn’t typical for how these conversations usually turn out.
It’s weird to say, but I feel like the warmth of the heater, along with the loving/open-minded conversations already going at the station before I took home the outspoken young lady, attributed greatly to the success of that conversation.
How this expands what we do: In the past, we would have to cut short great conversations we were having in front of the bars, due to someone asking us to take them home. Now, we have knowledgeable/loving people stationed at one place all night long who are happy to chat with anybody about everything and anything.
All of this paints a picture of the 4 Kindness Station outings we’ve done in 2015, but what about 2016? The beauty of this little station is that it has the potential to serve the community in even bigger ways. Here are just some goals we would like to implement for the Kindness Station in 2016.
First Aid
Having a first aid kit at the station along with someone trained for emergencies would be a major asset to the downtown nightlife, as well as a help for Oneonta’s often-overwhelmed first responders. Just a few weeks ago, we drove a young man to the ER who busted his lip open on the sidewalk, and on that very same night we took a girl home who was assaulted with a beer bottle. Plus, multiple times this semester we’ve encountered and helped people who were bleeding all over the place from various injuries caused by intoxication. If the kindness station doubled as a first aid station, and if it was equipped to care for the overly intoxicated, then we could take care of many of these problems right then and there, instead of taking them to the ER for something simple like an ice pack.
Transporting Addicts to Treatment
More details are forthcoming regarding The Redemption Movement's volunteers participating in OPD’s PAARI program as “angels.” This means being with and transporting someone who wishes to have the local police department make arrangements for them to be placed into recovery. If our Kindness Station team doubles as PAARI angels, we can then inform drug addicts who we meet (and we meet several of them when we go out) about this treatment program, and even offer to give them a ride to the police station and wait with them until treatment has been arranged. Also, it would be nice to include substance abuse literature/tools at the Kindness Station.
More Fun Stuff
Here are just a few fun ideas that I’d like to implement at the Kindness Station:
Games: A great way to bring people together.
Picture Taking: I’ve noticed that people love snapping photos and selfies of each other while hanging out downtown. It would be cool to set up a spot at the station that has backdrop similar to what you see at movie premieres.
Live Music: Hey, why not?
Preventing Fights and Crime
Fight Prevention: On big bar nights, Muller Plaza has a reputation for fights and drug deals. I’m happy to report that, in the 4 nights we’ve done the Kindness Station, not one fight has taken place at the plaza. Although, one drunk guy did attempt to climb the city Christmas tree, but I digress.
Crime Prevention: If we ever happen to have plenty of cars and volunteers to satisfy the amount of rides requested of the Kindness Station, then I’d like to have any extra cars patrol Center City to help make the neighborhood a safer place, as well as find anybody wandering the streets who may be in need.
While spending so much time serving the downtown scene, we want to keep an eye out for additional ways that we can improve the Oneonta nightlife. In fact, we’ve already got two big ideas that we want to see happen.
Unlock the Muller Plaza Gate: As we hang out at the station, we see people all night long hopping the gate separating Main St. from Water St. Eventually, someone is going to hurt themselves doing this. We've already sent out emails and talked to key personnel about changing this gate locking policy. Plus, if the gate was unlocked, then Water Street's bar-goers could more easily access the plaza for a safe ride home.
Bring In Porta-Potties: Downtown bathrooms are very limited, especially when the bars close. For downtown Oneonta at night, public urination is a common sight. In fact, people will brazenly pee on the actual storefronts of Main Street. This is why the stairwells of the parking garage always reek of urine--even after our church takes the time to clean them. Having the Kindness Station include some kind of porta potty trailer (that’s nicer than a regular ol’ porta potty) would really help alleviate this all-too-common problem.
An Opportunity For More Volunteers
In the 4 Kindness Station outings we’ve done, we’ve been able to pull this off with as little as 3 volunteers, and we’ve had as many as 6; all people organized using the “Oneonta Kindness Team” Facebook Group. As you can see from these big plans, this little kindness operation can accommodate a much larger team of volunteers, and the more help we have = the more good we can do. It’s my hope that local organizations will catch this vision and get their people involved, and that, as more people become more experienced in running the station, we would be able to do it both Fridays and Saturdays, and maybe more.
This All Sounds Awesome! How Can I Help?
I’m glad you asked. The Kindness Station is still a new thing. As you can imagine, it’s aggressive approach to serving the community requires a good amount of supplies, volunteers, and funds in order to pull off. Here are just a few of the ways you can help.
Join the Facebook Group “Oneonta Kindness Team” to stay on top of the latest news, and to find out when the next outing will be when you can help. Other needs and kindness opportunities besides volunteering at the station are brought up in this group as well.
Sharing what we do with others. Whether it be word of mouth or social media, only good things will come as a result of more people hearing about what’s going on at Muller Plaza.
Donate to the free ride service. It costs money to pay for gas, car insurance, and repairs, and it would be amazing if we could upgrade to vans so we can take more people home.
Donate to the Kindness Station. All the goodies we give away, propane we burn, and breathalyzer tips we use, it all cost money. These expenses can really add up. In fact, insurance alone for the station is $137/month. Currently, we need more money to pull this off than what our little church can provide.
For more information on how you can help, or to share any ideas that you have on ways we can use this Kindness Station to meet more needs in the community, contact Pastor Kaler. Or, feel free to stop by Muller Plaza on a Friday night and see for yourself what the Kindness Station is all about!
Sunday Morning Worship Service: 10:30am at River Street Baptist Church, 133 River Street, Oneonta, NY
Sunday School, 9:30am
Connect
Contact usto learn about how you can connect with us. You can visit a worship gathering at River Street Baptist Church, check out an upcoming social activity, serve at the downtown Kindness Station, or grab a slice of pizza or cup of coffee and have a chat with Pastor Kaler about faith, life, church, or whatever.
We serve downtown Oneonta with an act of kindness station, which includes providingfree rides home. Open from Midnight-3am and operating on Fridays and special occasions throughout the school year. Contact us if you'd like to help!
Kaler and Laura married in 2006. They spent their lives in Missouri and met while attending Central Bible College, where they both earned bachelor degrees in ministry. In 2009 they moved to Oneonta, NY to church plant The Redemption Movement. The church launched on Good Friday, 2013. Since the launch, Kaler and Laura have become proud parents, welcoming two sons into the world.
Since moving our church to a downtown storefront in April, we’ve been paying attention to the rhythms of Oneonta’s culture happening right outside our door, and adjusting our strategy accordingly to meet its needs and better connect with its people. One success comes from an idea so simple it’s a wonder why more churches don’t try it--powering on an open sign!
Another way of how we’ve seen the open sign affect ministry is that it actually changes the tone and posture of a worship gathering.
