ROOTED

A Vision for Generational Witness in the Community

A Plant Searching for Soil

Redemption City Church began nearly five years ago planted in partnership with Bethlehem Baptist Church (Minneapolis, MN) and Emmanuel Baptist Church (Rochester, MN). This little seedling of a church has steadily grown in the gospel and begun to bear fruit (Grace City Church, Rochester, MN), with many more fruit-bearing ministries on the horizon.

As time passed, Redemption City Church was built up onto its own stalk, sprouted its own leaves, and began to bear fruit, all while being re-potted in various places around the city of Rochester. We began meeting in the afternoons at another church, shifted to mornings in a middle school cafeteria, survived COVID restrictions in an industrial shed and parking lot, and found temporary stability in a hotel ballroom.

But just as no plant can thrive with constant re-potting, Redemption City Church’s Core Values can only be more fully realized by this plant being rooted in a community. Since the beginning of this church, we have desired to press into the heart of the city and engage in mission from a residential neighborhood where exalting Christ in worship can have a generational impact on the community.

While we recognize that God’s Spirit no longer dwells in structures made by human hands, but the temple of the LORD is wherever God’s people gather to preach, sing, baptize, and share communion, we also understand that people need physical objects to understand spiritual realities. The church is not a building, but a building does help communicate permanence in presence. A thoughtful architecture can lift physical eyes upward and unite the small voice with an angelic choir. When a weary wanderer in the world desires answers from God, they intuitively think to find a nearby place where God’s people meet. A building full of worshipers in a community tells its neighbors that Jesus is alive. on his throne, and active in their neighborhood.

The Place

Many decades ago, Bethany United Methodist Church began in an NW Rochester neighborhood seeking to lead many to faithfulness in worship and service to God in the city. Multiple generations grew in the Lord and poured their worldly treasures into the property that future generations of Christians would have a place to come to know and grow in the grace of Christ.

Sadly, after many seasons of faithful ministry, the church could no longer sustain its witness in the Sunset Terrace neighborhood. The remaining members merged with Evangel United Methodist Church and sold the property to a developer. Redemption City Church had tried to work out a deal with Evangel to keep the property in the hands of a Christian witness, but we were not stable enough at the time to make the deal work. For the needs of Evangel, the developer provided a more secure partnership.

The new property owner invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into the property to bring it to code for a child care facility to operate out of the classroom spaces. However, after a few years of striving to make the facility profitable, world events, cultural circumstances, and competing opportunities led the new owner to seek the sale of the property. Before putting the building on the open market, he approached Redemption City Church, desiring to see it back in the hands of a church.

We believe God’s hand has been involved in this entire journey to provide this space in this neighborhood for Redemption City Church to redeem a faithful witness for this community and to establish in our sacrifice a stable presence for many other future ministry projects to be launched, including: new church plants, primary schools, a college and seminary, a biblical counseling center, and ethnic outreach ministries.

The Need

We believe this facility fits the values and meets the needs of this congregation (as well as any property in Rochester could). Its location, size, design, and potential match what we believe God has called us to become. As a congregational church, the membership has tried to look at this opportunity from every angle and believes God has given us an opportunity to grow into our kingdom identity more with this facility.

However, that doesn’t mean God is simply handing it over to us. Just as Israel had to work and fight to enter the Promised Land that God gave them, we will need to work and fight as did Nehemiah’s team with sword and trowel in hand to build a place for future generations to thrive. There are risks and challenges in taking this step as a church. We will need to make great sacrifices to our comfort and security now to see this opportunity become a reality for future generations.

And we are going to need to see a wonderful move of God’s Spirit of generosity through his people scattered throughout the lands. A major part of our identity as a church is to train up and send out as many as possible. We want to give generously to the work of international missions. In four years, we’ve already planted one church and given thousands of dollars to missions to unreached people groups. Many of our families have invested their savings in adopting children. This spirit of generosity has led us to be dependent upon God’s generosity through faithful partners to keep us alive.

So to obtain this property, we must both be sacrificial as a church AND see God provide through others. We are asking our church to provide the down payment of $200,000 by June 30th (of which the elders have already committed 1/3 from their own savings) and seeking support from the community of saints in partner churches, networks, businesses, family, and friends to provide an additional $400,000 over three years to pay down enough of the mortgage to refocus our efforts on sending churches and missionaries as soon as possible.

That might seem like a lot, but we believe God will inspire many to generous giving to redeem a faithful witness in the Sunset Terrace neighborhood of Rochester.

See our messages on faithful generosity in our archived Rooted Series page.