Jumping_for_Joy_in_the_East_Metro.pdf

Ever been skydiving before? I haven’t. And I’m not lining up to do it in the near or distant future either. Call me “chicken” if you want. I’m fine with that.

I just don’t get that excited about jumping out of a perfectly good airplane at 13,000 feet, hurtling toward earth at a speed of over 100 miles per hour, and placing my life in the hands of a ripcord and a bunch of nylon. No thanks. I’m fine on the ground.

It’s likely that I’ll never experience skydiving, but I am currently experiencing something similar. It’s called church planting. And from my perspective here on the ground, it seems like skydiving and church planting have a few things in common. Several that come to mind: an open door, a leap of faith, and a rush of exhilaration.

We currently feel like we’re experiencing all three of those things at Christ Redeemer Church, a new TCT church plant in Woodbury.

An open door. Skydiving and church planting both require an open door. I wouldn’t recommend attempting either without it! When it comes to church planting, God is the one who must open the door. We are convinced that God has graciously opened a door for Bethlehem to plant a TCT church plant in Woodbury.

When my wife, Molly, and I arrived in Minneapolis so I could take part in Bethlehem’s one-year church planting residency, we were extremely excited about the possibility of linking arms with a core group of people from Bethlehem and planting a unique, local expression of the Bethlehem vision somewhere in or around the Twin Cities.

Only one problem. Where exactly? We had no idea. So we put a portion of Colossians 4:3 on our Bethlehem TCT family prayer card and asked everyone to pray that God would “open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ.”

And God graciously answered those prayers! He sent us providential pointers all year long, and every last one of them seemed to point in the same direction—east of St. Paul to Woodbury. So we eventually began to take a much more serious look in that direction and discovered an incredible opportunity for a God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated TCT church in that area.

We are convinced that God has opened to us a door in the east metro. And by “us,” I mean Bethlehem! God has opened to Bethlehem a door in the east metro. But the door which he opened to us is not a door he opened for us. He didn’t open it for our glory. He didn’t open it for our reputation. According to Colossians 4:3, God opens doors to us … for his Word!

If God has truly opened to us a door in Woodbury, then he opened that door for his Word … that we might declare the mystery of Christ. So that’s exactly what we’re aiming to do in the east metro. We’re aiming to declare the mystery of Christ!

A leap of faith. Whether you’re skydiving or church planting, at some point you have to jump through the door. You have to jump and trust your parachute. If you’re church planting, your parachute is Jesus Christ and his promise to build his Church (Matthew 16:18). That’s your only hope. Unless he builds the house, the builder labors in vain (Psalm 127:1).

Thankfully, Christ will build his Church. He has promised, and he never lies.

Molly and I officially jumped out of the Bethlehem airplane at the end of the summer. And we didn’t jump alone! The Lord gave me a wonderful partner in Thomas Rydland, and he graciously called many others at Bethlehem to jump right along with us.
Christ has been faithfully building his church in Woodbury ever since.

At our first official worship service on September 12, over 150 people joyfully exalted Christ together for the first time. What an amazing God!

A rush of exhilaration. I can only imagine the rush of exhilaration one must experience right after jumping from an airplane. And isn’t that the key? Isn’t that the driving force behind the whole skydiving ordeal? Sure it is. What else could motivate people all over the world to cast themselves out of perfectly good airplanes?! It has to be the exhilaration.

Well, there’s a similar driving force behind church planting. But we wouldn’t necessarily call it exhilaration. We would call it joy. It’s the joy of spreading. It’s the joy of spreading a passion for the supremacy of God in all things. That’s why you and I were created.

We were created to see, savor, and spread the glory of God all over this earth. And when you do that which you were created to do, you experience the joy you were created to experience.

So I guess you could say that we “jumped for joy” in the east metro. Wanna jump for joy with us?  For more information, you can visit our Web site at christredeemermn.org. Hope to see you soon!

For His glory and our joy,

Brett Louis, Pastor, Christ Redeemer Church
brett.louis@christredeemermn.org