STORY

In the Fall and Winter of 2011, God stirred Pastor Jeff’s heart with a growing vision for new church called Redemption. As he prayed with his wife, Nan, to seek God’s direction, the doors opened for them to launch a new church for the Edmond and Oklahoma City area. What began as an idea, a name, and weak attempt at a logo sketch, soon become something more.

Our church’s journey began in a living room with a handful of people who were willing to take a risky step of faith. We didn’t know exactly where it would lead us. We didn’t know if our new church would make it, but we were willing to take a step of faith.

In 2013, more people began to rally around this dream, a leadership team emerged, and new family came together. We prayed together, prepared together, learned together, laughed together, and served together. Soon, we outgrew our living rooms.

We began meeting in another local church on Sunday evenings, and we officially launched on January 12, 2014. Everyone pitched in to help, and most of us learned new things along the way. As one new friend said, “It’s kind of weird if you are aren’t doing something around here.” He was right, and we liked it that way (see the two pics below where our church family showed up on Saturdays to set up our new spaces for the first time). God used our steps of faith and the sacrifice it took to launch a new outpost for the gospel in our city.

Our Sunday morning launch at John Ross Elementary took place on August 17, 2014. It was a fantastic day of celebration.

While the gathering of the church on Sunday is a wonderful and important part of our church life, there is more to church than a once-a-week gathering. Redemption Groups meet in homes during the week to study the Bible and share life together, and our people scatter to live on mission throughout our city and world.

In July of 2017, we moved to Cheyenne Middle School. We love our Edmond schools and the opportunity to connect with our community and to serve our city. We are grateful for this partnership. We won’t always meet in a school and are beginning to pray and plan about a future home base for our church, but we are enjoying the season we are in.

The first few years of our church’s life has taught us this crucial lesson: God makes redemption happen. He is the author of our redemption story. We continue to see new people added to our family, and they add their redemption story to ours. Together, we are on a journey to trust Jesus with all of our lives and go wherever he wants us to go.

We want to continue taking risky steps of faith together as we grow, learn, serve, and love our church family, our city, and our world. We aren’t sure exactly where God will lead us as he writes our story, but we are convinced we can trust him along the way.

We would love to have you add your redemption story to ours. We believe the story of Redemption Church is just getting started.