Church planting is quite a popular endeavor these days. In many circles, church planting is even a “cool” thing to do. Whether or not it is “cool” I am really grateful that God has placed a conviction of heart among thousands of Christians all across the world to establish new Gospel churches for the building of His kingdom. However, things aren’t always what they seem when the curtain is pulled back. New churches are often started because of problems at the old church: bitterness, jealousy, pride, animosity, power struggles, musical tastes, theological conflicts, methodological differences, and good ol’ fashion idolatry of preferences. Church plants can often be little more than Johnny getting angry with the fellas and taking his ball and bat somewhere else to play. This, of course, is not a good thing. The Lord has called the church to unity, harmony, and conflict resolution, not division, hostility, and retreat.
In order to establish an accurate understanding of how Redeemer came to exist as a local church, I would like to succinctly describe what that process looked like:
In the Fall of 2011 the elders of Grace Fellowship Community Church and Anniston Bible Church began to pray and discuss the possibility of planting another local church together. These two churches are partners in the Gospel and regularly serve and worship the Lord together. Various members of the two leadership teams met frequently to pray and seek unity on this potential Gospel vision. Other leaders from the two churches then joined in praying and seeking the Lord’s direction. When December 2011 arrived there was a consensus among the two church leadership teams that this church planting vision is both a biblical and strategic one for our goal to reach the Calhoun County area with the powerful Gospel. We had unity on the vision, the partnership, and the location. The dominant theme among the leaders was this principle: The greatest way to penetrate a community with the powerful Gospel is to plant more churches that are committed to the powerful Gospel.
So, we made the commitment to pursue the vision. I cautiously yet zealously agreed to lead the church plant mission. And the church leadership teams began to communicate the vision over the next few months. Every single step in the process was not perfect. We had some ups and downs, to be sure. Leaders made mistakes in communication. Church members got confused, disappointed, and even hurt at times. But at the end of the day we worked through the various struggles together and joyfully agreed as two churches to make the commitment to this one, unified vision of a local church plant.
Instead of starting with one or two families the leaders believed that a more strategic approach would be to start with ten or twelve. Even though this would be a significant sacrifice for both churches we believed that it would ensure greater Gospel success. So, in the Winter of 2011 about ten families began to meet together as the Church Plant Team from Grace and ABC. We mostly met in homes for prayer, study, vision casting, and fellowship. The believers from both churches shared their testimonies, pursued relationships with each other, and united together around the Gospel mission. By the time Spring arrived we felt ready and poised to start making some concrete decisions about start date, ministry responsibilities, and specific mission goals.
After seeking the guidance and blessing of the elders at ABC and Grace we decided to start Redeemer Church Oxford on Sunday, June 3, 2012. This start date would be a “soft-launch.” Basically, what that means is that the church plant team meets together as a functioning church, but the full, public mission to the community is not in place until later. And that is exactly what we did. Redeemer Church began meeting on June 3rd. We have been worshipping together on Sunday mornings and training together on Thursday nights since that date. Our plan is to begin reaching the community more aggressively and publicly in August. As a matter of fact, on Sunday night, August 5th we will have a commissioning service at our location (365 Davis Loop, Oxford 36203). The members of ABC and Grace will come and commission us to the Gospel mission of reaching our community for Christ. And we are excited!!!
Without writing a small book, that’s pretty much the story of how Redeemer Church was born. We are grateful to God for His faithfulness. We are grateful to ABC and Grace for their graciousness. And we are grateful to their leaders for their guidance. May the powerful Gospel be unleashed and penetrate the hearts of the unsaved in our community for the glory of God and the joy of all people.
by Ryan Limbaugh
Have enjoyed reading about Redeemer!