A Story of Gospel Renewal from East Asia
Redeemer City to City provides training, resources, grants, and coaching to leaders in global cities, including the great cities of Asia Pacific. Here’s one leader’s story. For security purposes his name is withheld.
In 2010, Redeemer City to City invited me to join the International Church Planter Intensive Training (the Intensive). I had already helped to plant sixteen churches and originally thought they wanted me to come teach. I was surprised when I realized they were inviting me to participate. I’ll admit, it wounded my pride a little, but nevertheless I decided to participate in the month-long training. I’m so glad I did! During the Intensive I was personally and professionally challenged, and I completely changed my plan for church planting.
Before the Intensive, my vision was always for a large church. I studied megachurches in America and South Korea, with their large audiences and even bigger buildings. Such churches don’t exist in my country, and to copy this model would have been the highlight of my career. So I made it the goal for our church.
During this time, I was struggling through some big questions: What is the church? Who will attend? How many will we save? I was focusing on my personal legacy, that one day it would be my church with my name, and generations would look back and remember me. The church was becoming my idol.
The CTC Intensive changed all that. It reminded me that I need the gospel. I am a servant of Christ. This is all of grace. In my whole life, I may never build a grand church, but I can build up people.
For the past five years, we’ve walked that path, and we now have a grand vision for urban church planting. Using the training provided by CTC, I’ve started discipleship training in the church. I’ve led hundreds of disciples, 20 of whom have become pastors themselves. Hallelujah!
Read and watch more stories of gospel renewal in the cities of Asia Pacific as well as support this work at redeemercitytocity.com
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