Archive for the ‘Redeemer Church Planting Center’ Category

Posted on October 26, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

New York Trip: Part VIII

It’s all over (although my jet-lag isn’t quite yet)! We left the States on the 21st of October at around noon and arrived in Cape Town on the 23rd, around noon (local time). We’ve spent the weekend trying to get our internal clocks back on track.

The final week of the intensive went off well. We were all a little jaded and starting to think about getting home. It was quite sad to say goodbye to the other planters and their wives not knowing when we’ll ever see each other again. We had a send-off lunch with the RCPC staff and then each one went their separate way.

Our way took us to one more stop before the long trip home: St Louis, Missouri. I was in St Louis in February 08 visiting friends and the Journey Church which is one of the more influential churches in the Acts29 Network. On my previous visit I was really impressed with the Journey and the setup they had in St Louis so I really wanted Robin to see it and experience their community a little. So we spent 5 days catching up with friends and attending functions at the Journey. I had the chance to meet Darrin Patrick, the lead pastor, and spend some time getting to know him and talk about church planting both in the States and in South Africa. It was a worthwhile time of building relationships and getting further learning on the subject. We also had the chance to attend the Midwest regional Acts29 quarterly. By this time of our trip I was completely conferenced out and so I was expecting to doze off during most of the quarterly but they had Jeff Vanderstelt out from Soma Communities and he did 2 brilliant sessions that kept me wide awake.

So here’s my thoughts on the whole trip: God seems to be doing something huge through both the ministries of Redeemer Presbyterian and the Acts 29 Network – when you’re around these guys you really get the sense that something big is afoot in the world of church planting. And so in many ways Robin and I are completely humbled by the fact that we get to play a small part in this global movement. We were truly blessed by our time and I can confidently say that we were both affected and changed deeply by it. We come back to Cape Town with new eyes on a number of important issues. We’re also really grateful for the many friends we made along the way and are looking forward to building those relationships in the future.

I’d like to thank everyone, both at home and in the States, who helped make this trip possible. We are enormously thankful to God for all of you.

Posted on September 16, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

New York Trip: Part II

Ok, so these updates are not exactly daily – but there’s a lot going on that keeps us really busy so that’s my excuse. It’s Tuesday afternoon as I write this, I’m sitting in our apartment’s living room still enjoying the amazing view of Manhattan. We’ve been here for a week now and it’s still a bit surreal to wake up in the morning, get up to go make coffee, and see the Manhattan skyline stare you in the face across the Hudson – my guess is that it will still be surreal in 5 weeks time when we leave.

So what have we been up to? Let me back-track to last week. Wednesday through to Friday saw us attend the Global Cities Initiative Conference with 400 other leaders from around the world. Tim Keller spoke in the plenary sessions each morning about planting gospel-centered churches that start movements of renewal in global cities. There were lots of other breakout sessions in the afternoons about networking on a city-wide level and planting multiplying churches. Keller’s talks in the mornings were superb (we’d heard a lot of it before but he just seems to make it fresh and compelling each time he opens his mouth).

Slowly we’ve gotten to meet the rest of the church planters attending the Fall Intensive with us. Amongst us we represent the following countries:

Cape Town, South Africa

Pretoria, South Africa

Barcelona, Spain

Mexico City, Mexico

Seoul, South Korea

Monterrey, Mexico

Rome, Italy

Dublin, Ireland

London, England

Paris, France

Budapest, Hungary

We’re quite a diverse bunch but all committed to gospel-centered church planting in global cities. On Saturday we all met up at the Redeemer Church Planting Center’s offices which are on Broadway in the middle of Manhattan. We had an introductory lunch and got introduced to each other and the staff. On Sunday then we we’re required to attend two Redeemer services: One on the upper west side and one on the upper east side. It was a frantic rush to get to these two services and we only just made the sermon on each occasion where we heard Dave Bisgrove and Tim Keller preach respectively.

That evening we visited a church plant, Resurrection Presbyterian, in Brooklyn where we heard this really great young guy by the name of Vito Aiuto preach (one of the best sermons I’ve heard all year).

Monday morning saw the Fall Intensive classes start. We had sessions with Dave Bisgrove (one of the Redeemer pastors) and Vito Aiuto where we got to ask them questions about their churches and philosophies of ministry. Vito was super engaging and really gave us down to earth insight into the life of a new planter.

This morning I had to give a presentation about the church planting work we’re involved in back in Cape Town and we got hear about our flatmates (and now friends) Endre and Eneh’s work in Budapest, Hungary. After that Al Barth (who many of you know) took us through a session on the spiritual dynamics of gospel-renewal. We visited Columbia University this afternoon, and Union Theological Seminary in particular where we spent the afternoon with two of the Redeemer staff talking through the pastor’s devotional life. They day had a very devotional focus in general and I think we’re all feeling deeply grateful for the mercy shown us in Christ Jesus as we’ve explored it in depth today.

So yes, we’re fairly busy. We’re about to have supper with some of the planters (Robin is making curry). We’ll let you know more as we experience more. I’ll try to be more regular so that I don’t have to write such long posts in future. Hope you’re all well – we’re loving NYC but we still miss our beautiful Cape Town (and I think our presentation this morning made some of the guys wish they were planting in Cape Town!). Later…

Posted on May 10, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Planting a Movement

I spent the day yesterday with Al Barth from the Redeemer Church Planting Center, based in New York. It was amazingly encouraging to hear how God is using Redeemer to motivate, envision and resource a global church planting movement – churches that plant churches are starting to pop up everywhere and there seems to be significant growth in post-christian Europe which is really exciting. We spent a lot of time talking through planting in South Africa and the effect it can have on Africa in general – we’ve got a lot of work to do but with the backing of groups like Redeemer and Acts29 we might just begin to start pulling some of it off.