May Weather Rock Show!

We would like to thank the rock band May Weather for stopping by The Redemption Movement and playing their hearts out in the summer heat for over 1.5 hours!

June 21 Free Rock Show!

The Redemption Movement is pleased to welcome, for the first time to Oneonta NY, May Weather! May Weather will be playing a free show on Thursday, June 21 at 6pm. The band is from Hagersville MD, and is including Oneonta on the first leg of their summer tour.
May Weather is a 7 piece rock/ska/swing/swag band, they bring lots of energy and variety to their shows, and it is almost impossible not to dance along to their catchy tunes. They have released two EP's, and most importantly, they are just some of the nicest young men you will meet.
This is the second show hosted by The Redemption Movement, and we look forward to more shows as we develop a heart for the arts (God is an artist) as well as using our space as a community center that brings people together for good times and good music.

June 17 Meet & Greet!

Sunday, June 17, 6pm, we will be hosting the last information meeting of the season. This will be held at the Pastor's apartment at 148 River St, or downstairs in the storefront if more space is needed. A free meal will be provided, followed by a presentation on the church. Please RSVP by either calling Kaler @ (607) 434-2564, or emailing: kalerandlaura@yahoo.com

If you are checking out The Redemption Movement for the first time because of a newspaper advertisement then welcome! We are a new church in Oneonta and we are in the early stages of doing the work it takes to open our doors for services, and because we currently lack public church services, we prefer to introduce ourselves with information meetings-where we fellowship around a meal and lay out the vision and needs of the church with a multimedia presentation.
We are currently trying to build a team of helpers to assist in the work of the church. Our current plan is to prepare people with regular discipleship and ministry for the next year so we can publicly launch as a church on Easter 2013.
If you have any interest or curiosity about our church and how you might fit in, then I highly encourage you to attend the information meeting where all of your questions can be answered, you can also meet the Pastors, and at the very least you will get a free meal out of the deal!

We Know How to Party!

The block party for the 6th Ward neighborhood in Oneonta NY was a success!

A big thank you goes out to everyone who volunteered their time to help set up and those who donated money, supplies, and food. We also want to thank the two rock bands, Atlas Arrows and Lightning Killed My Parents, for breakin' in the old storefront with some quality rock-n-roll. And let us not forget Laura Carpenter who made her musical debut as a solo artist.

All-in-all, there were over 70 people in attendance, and everybody seemed to really enjoy themselves. People in the community now know more about our little church and what we are about, whereas previously we might have only been known as, "I think somebody  is turning that old building into a church."  It was also nice to see neighbors coming together and building friendships, in this way the block party truly is a classic picture of community.

Prayer also played a big part with the success of the party. The power of prayer was most obviously seen with the weather. It was forecasted  to rain all day, and it did. It was also raining the previous day as well--when we went door-to-door to pass out invitations. And sure enough, 2 hours before the party was scheduled to start the storm passed and the weather cleared, just in time to set up a dry bounce house, and it remained
dry and even sunny throughout the entire party.

The party is also encouraging for us in that it forced us to work hard on certain projects needed to be done in order to host such an event, i.e., install a sink and toilet, lights, outlets, and a bathroom door. We are by no means done with our building project, but we are excited to finally be at a point were we can host more events like this for the community. With that said I encourage you to keep checking the blog for more updates on what we have planned next for The Redemption Movement, and please feel free to contact us if you want to be a part of our next event!

1st Church of the Funnel Cake

If you are visiting our blog because you happened across a friendly face next to a truck giving away delicious funnel cakes while going about your business in Oneonta NY, then welcome! Mmmmm, funnel cake...

...mmm, that was a good one. So, yes, this April and May we are packing the truck, firing up the fryer, and canvassing the town to give away funnel cakes! We have a twofold purpose to this: One, we love going out into our community and showing people the love of God in practical ways, such as serving needs and giving away goodies. We call this our Acts of Kindness Ministry. It is a fun way to serve, and we have been doing a variety of AOK projects ever since 2010. The funnel cake outreach has been particularly fun, watching people walk by our "Free Funnel Cake" sign, do a double take, and say "Seriously!" ...mmm, everybody seems to enjoy biting into a crisp, sugary...

...oh, sorry. Where was I? Right. The second purpose with our funnel cake outreach is to meet people and tell them about God and our church. This outreach works out especially well for this purpose because it takes a few minutes to fry up a funnel cake; time we use to engage in conversation. Nine times out of ten we get the opportunity to talk about God's love and the church because people are always a bit skeptical as to, "What's the catch?" We've found the conversational route to be non-intrusive, and if someone doesn't feel like talking about religion, they don't have to.

This simple funnel cake outreach is important to us in regards to launching the church. Before we launch the church, we want to develop a launch team. Hopefully, this team will come from people that we'll meet while doing outreach activities, like giving away funnel cakes. The plan is to "funnel" interested people to information meetings where they can learn more about the vision and the plan of the church. When it comes down to it, using our God-entrusted resources to give away funnel cakes and talk to people face-to-face seems like a smarter, healthier, and more enjoyable way to meet people, spread God's love, and promote the church than traditional marketing techniques.

So keep your eyes peeled Oneonta, and be on the look out for our 1977 two-tone blue "Mobile Ministry Machine" and fryer. Or, simply follow your nose! Mmm....

We Are Having Ourselves a Block Party!

Event: 6th Ward Block Party
Date: Tues., May 15
Address: The Redemption Movement, 148 River St., Oneonta, NY
Time: 3-7pm, (bands begin at 5pm)
Admission: Free, all ages.
Description: The Redemption Movement would like to introduce ourselves to our Oneonta neighborhood, the 6th ward, by hosting a family-friendly block party!
Parking: Gilbert Street (walking and carpooling is highly encouraged), After 5:15pm additional parking will also be available at Oneonta Christian Community School.
Activities: Live music, chili cook off, more food, bounce house, games and more! (Bring your own chair is you want to sit)
Live Bands:

Lightning Killed My Parents

The Redemption Movement is pleased to welcome Lightning Killed My Parents for their first show in Oneonta! LKMP is "a 9 piece ska/rock band from Fredonia, NY. Formed in late 2010, this band is based on three concepts: having fun, playing music, and producing enough energy to make the crowd pass out from sheer excitement."

Atlas Arrows

Also showing up for the party is the indie rock/alternative band Atlas Arrows! Hailing from the booming suburbs of Binghamton NY, Atlas Arrows began in the Fall of 2011 and includes former members of local indie band Where's Ulysses. In January of 2012 they released two songs now available for free download, and they are looking forward to touring and sharing their music with you.

Purpose: We want to be a blessing to Oneonta! Our heart is to be a church for the community, this means we value using our resources to bring people together, thus making our community stronger. A block party is intended to be a fun event where neighbors can come together and fellowship with each other. And in today's digital age, where it is easy to have hundreds of facebook "friends" without even knowing one's physical neighbors, we are excited to provide an event that creates an opportunity for neighbors to be introduced to each other for maybe even the first time. And in this spirit of friendly introductions, we at The Redemption Movement would like to introduce ourselves to our neighbors! We have been making plans and improving this old storefront of ours since 2009, and we now feel that we are finally in a position to open the doors to our work-in-progress and introduce ourselves to the community we love. This party is by no means our official launch (we are planning to launch Easter 2013); in fact, our facilities are still under construction--so please look past our mess, but the desire to host an event that blesses our community is so strong that we simply cannot wait until 2013! So construction messes and sound system glitches be darned, we are throwing ourselves a block party!

Update: The party was a success!

Great Church Values

Valuing the 8 Values of The Redemption Movement

In 2009-2010 we put into words a church mission statement, a ministry approach, and long term plan. In 2012, we realized that we were missing a key element to our church identity: Values. Now, with a newly-minted official set of values, we hope to strengthen all of our ministry visions and plans.

Any random group of people can be given a singular task, and everybody can start off energized to see the task completed; but, unless every person equally values the same truths, conflicts will naturally arise, and the task (and even the group itself) will fall apart.

Moreover, having every group member share the same values still isn't good enough. Churches provide us with a clear example of this. It's painfully obvious that there are too many different church groups to keep track of, yet they all share the same Christian doctrines, and even values to a lesser extent. Despite this, people of shared faith are able to find significant enough differences to justify division. I suggest that church divisions aren't for a lack of believing in good doctrine, or even holding similar values; instead, churches divide because they value certain values more than others. A valuing your values, if you will.

Therefore, it's important for a faith community to prioritize their values. As recommend in Philippians 1:27 and 2:2: "stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel." "...then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. (NIV)" Considering how important strong church values are, here are the 8 values of The Redemption Movement, ranked from 1-8:


1. We are centered on the truth of the Gospel.
Mark 8:34-35, Acts 20:24, Romans 1:16-17, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

2. We are striving to grow in Christ-like character.
Romans 13:14, Colossians 3:9-15, Philippians 2:3-5

3. We are authentic in our worship.
John 4:23-24, Romans 15:17, 1 Corinthians 10:31

4. We are committed to healthy relationships.
Leviticus 19:18, John 13:34, 1 Thessalonians 4:9, 1 Peter 1:22

5. We are empowered and gifted to be servants.
Acts 1:8, 1 Corinthians 12,13, 2 Corinthians 13:4, Galatians 5:13

6. We are creatively influencing culture for good.
Genesis 1:25-29, 31, Romans 2:6-7, 12:2

7. We are compassionate towards our community.
Matthew 25:35-36, Luke 14:15-24, James 1:27

8. We are simple in both lifestyle and methods.
Matthew 6:19-34, Mark 10:17-31, 12:41-44, Luke 16:1-15

The interesting thing about values is that, whether they're written down or not, they exist in a person's heart. Making a clearly defined list serves to strengthen a person's values. Even though we waited until 2012 to make our official list, these values were actually surfacing in our hearts back in 2009. Defining and ranking our church values has been a valuable and revealing experience and I'm sure it will make us a stronger church.

I encourage individuals to soul-search and create their own value list, and if your values happen to line up with the values of The Redemption Movement, then I invite you to join us and "contend as one man for the faith of the gospel."