Wednesday, November 7, 2012

We are...

It has been years in the making.  It has been the biggest decision in the ten years of our married life.  It has and will impact our lives, our children and our future more than anything we've ever done before.  The decision has been made...

We are church planters.

If you have been following our journey thus far, you will know that our path has been a slow and steady calling toward this day.  Eight and a half years ago we sat in a room off the cafeteria at Pepperdine University listening to a man share his dream.  This man was Stan Granberg, founder of the Kairos Church Planting organization.  At the time it was not called Kairos, he was wanting to call it C.P.N.W. or Church Planting North West.  At that very first vision casting, someone challenged him to think broader than the North West and to change the initials to mean Church Planting Nation Wide.  We went to that meeting to be a support to our former Cascade College professor and to see good friends from years past.  (Including Kevin Woods who was to be the first church planter for Kairos there in the beautiful North West!)  When we were giving hugs and chatting with friends after the meeting, it was mentioned that maybe God would someday call the Redelsperger family to church planting.  Very content in youth ministry with the Rancho Cordova Church of Christ this compliment was endearing, but certainly didn't cause too much pause for thought in our lives.  But yet, the seed was planted.  It would be six years(and three kids) later that we would travel to the East coast for Discovery Lab with Kairos, and then another eighteen months before we would attend Strategy Lab with them as well. By this point we were feeling a very strong pull toward church planting, but were still uncertain of our specific role in supporting this vitally important movement.  After another year of prayer, struggle, heartache and hard work it became clear that we needed to make a decision!  Either we are going to be church planters, or we are not.  Though it seems like such a simple choice, there have been a lot of factors working into the decision.  We felt the need to be financially responsible by getting out of debt, relationally responsible to transition our youth and church members after almost 15 years of ministry and spiritually responsible for our children's well being!  That's a lot of responsibility which means this decision could not be made lightly.
Please continue to pray for us as we take this next step in our church planting journey.  God has very clearly provided for us during this time of searching. I can't wait to see how He works as we take our giant leap of faith!

Thursday, May 3, 2012


Strategy Lab
In September of 2011 we went to Strategy Lab with Kairos. Three things happened there. The first is that we finally concluded that we are going to become church planters. We felt God call us to take the step of committing to start new churches. It has been a long process to get to this point. We had been moving toward that decision for years without ever committing that we were going to do it. At strategy lab we finally took the last step.
The second thing that happened is that we decided upon planting in the San Francisco bay area (though probably not in San Francisco proper, but maybe). We feel pulled to the population density, the diversity of culture, income, religions, ethnicity and everything else. In Galatians 3:27-28 Paul said “ 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave[g] nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  We are excited to see that vision happen in the Bay.
The last thing that happened was that we agreed upon a clear vision of lots of churches in the bay. We Want to 50 churches in 30 years around the bay. Churches of Christ on the West Coast are dying, not growing. More and more churches close their doors every year. The way we see it there are three options.
1. Ignore the issue and watch the Church die.
2. Attempt to revitalize established churches.
3. Build new churches in new places for new people.
We are obviously choosing the third option because we think it is the best chance we have for churches to reverse the trend of shrinking, dying churches.
                I believe this post will stir up lots more questions for those who read it. I will be continuing to write about our process, and I think many questions will be answered as we go. I also believe more questions will be stirred up along the way and on we go.