Redeemer East Side Update

Oct 12

Pause with me for a moment, if you will, and pull up a mental image of the neighborhood you live in. What do you see? What do you hear? What buildings do you notice? What shops or local establishments do think of? Who are the people that you know—characters that bring your neighborhood to life? Where is the local school, the public library, the police precinct, the playground? Where do you see brokenness or poverty or segregation or injustice?

At Redeemer East Side, we believe that your neighborhood is where God has sent you to bear witness to his work in the city. What would change in your life if you began to see your neighborhood as a place of genuine belonging and true calling? What if hundreds of others—Christians in particular—started to do the same?

East Side Neighborhoods is an easy way to begin to live out Christ’s call to love your neighbor. Once a quarter, volunteer leaders in your neighborhood organize a fun, low-key gathering in a local establishment. The intent is to provide an easy way for you to connect with others in your neighborhood so that together you might get more rooted where you are. It is a great place to invite friends, co-workers, and especially neighbors.

The first of these gatherings starts this week, so go to esneighborhoods.com and register now! And start thinking about who you could invite. I hope to see you there!

Warmly,

Rev. Abraham Cho
East Side Congregation Lead Pastor


quoteImage.title Femi Osunnuyi
City to City Intensive Participant

We shouldn’t love the city to use it—to fulfill our dreams—to get what we can get out of it.

Redeemer City to City helps leaders from around the world plant churches and build gospel movements in their cities that fit their culture and context. In the past 16 years, they’ve helped start hundreds of churches in 56 countries in 6 continents.

This month, around 20 church planting couples and global trainers from 12 different countries are visiting New York City for the annual City to City International Intensive, a three week accelerated training designed to equip leaders to plant and sustain city-loving, life-giving urban churches in their cities.

Here is the story of a past International Intensive participant.

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Imagine a city more than twice as crowded as New York City. Lagos, Nigeria is the most populous city in Africa, and every year, 250,000 people move there. It’s a cultural hub that sets the direction for Nigeria. In turn, Nigeria sets the direction for Africa.

The spiritual climate is a vibrant nominalism with a health and wealth gospel message. But promises delivered by this prosperity gospel haven’t delivered, and people are disillusioned and leaving the church.

Femi Osunnuyi grew up in Lagos. He moved to the UK in 2007 where he lived for seven years and earned a Ph.D. in engineering.

While in Manchester, England, Femi heard the teaching that God loves cities, and it really captivated his heart. He and some friends started praying for a gospel-centered movement to ignite in the churches in Lagos. He knew about CTC, so when Al Barth was speaking in Manchester, Femi attended the event. He recalls, “I had the Rocky theme song playing in the back of my head as I rehearsed stats about Lagos, preparing to accuse Al and CTC of ignoring Africa’s largest city. But as soon as he knew where I was from, Al quoted several statistics about Lagos that I didn’t even know.” CTC had identified Lagos as a target city and was searching for the right person to plant a church there.

After experiencing true gospel renewal in their own lives while in the UK, Femi and his wife, Tosin, wanted to share this with others. In 2015, they moved back to Lagos and launched City Church Lagos in January 2017.

City Church Lagos is growing and already needs a bigger meeting place. Femi and others are actively looking, but money is a challenge. Lagos is the seventh most expensive city in the world. This is a struggle, and they would so appreciate your prayers.

Another obstacle is the pace of life. The average work day in Lagos is long. It’s not unusual for people to leave their homes at 5:30 am and not get home until 10 pm. Burnout is a huge issue.

Because the prosperity gospel is so prevalent, Femi, Tosin and others at the church have studied it extensively. Femi says, “We think the questions the prosperity gospel is asking are legitimate. We don’t engage in a condescending way. People understandably want a better life. There is a plausible logic to their thinking. We think their conclusions are wrong, but we understand how they got there. We are trying to paint a better picture. We try to come in the back and slowly teach what the Bible really says.” Their approach seems to be effective, as about 50% of their congregants were formerly part of churches that held to health and wealth teaching.

The church’s three values are: Love Jesus. Love people. Love Lagos. Femi says the first two are considerably easy to talk about. The third is the hard sell. He points to the gospel as the example. “God loved us while we were unlovely, and so we too are called to love cities that are not always lovely. We shouldn’t love the city to use it—to fulfill our dreams—to get what we can get out of it.” He says that a lot of love starts with intentionality before it moves to the heart. He sees hatred of the city slowly shifting to neutrality, and he’s encouraged.

City Church Lagos has three small groups, and the community is growing and strengthening. Femi says, “There’s a lot of personal renewal and community building going on, and we are looking into the mission aspect now.”

Thank you, Femi and Tosin, for answering the call to return to and love Lagos with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Please, take time to find out more about City to City by clicking here and by:


+ On November 17-18, Redeemer will host the Gospel Identity Conference with two days of teaching from Tim Keller.

+ A new round of East Side Classes begin at the end of this month after both worship services.

+ East Side Neighborhoods invites you to attend the Fall Quarterly Gathering this week and next.

+ Engaged or Dating? Come to a premarital seminar on November 11.

+ Would you like to become a member? Take our next membership class on October 14.

+ Serve as a re-entry coach at Riker's Island with Prison Fellowship

+ Read about Hope for New York's 10 year vision to see a movement of mercy and justice expand across our city.

+ On October 17, join NYTimes best-selling author Sally Lloyd-Jones for a lunchtime discussion at Soulful Writing

+ This November, recommend a new elder, deacon or deaconess

+ Actively seeking a job? Join a 5-session Skills Training course starting November 2.

+ Find a career that fits your personality and interests at a Career Direction Workshop on October 28.