Redeemer Presbyterian Church: The Facts

Redeemer Presbyterian church is part of the Reformed Tradition and grew out of a group of people who wanted to provide a ministry for New York professionals. It rapidly grew from its original base and now has satellite communities in America and elsewhere. It is moving towards the future with a strong Christian character and gospel based social ministry.

The history

Foundation
The church, which is part of the Reformed tradition, began in 1989 when fifteen people met to discuss the need for a ministry to the professional workers of New York.
Shortly afterwards Reverend Timothy Keller, who lectured at Westminster Theological Seminary, came to work with them.
Soon, Tim Keller was to come to work full time, and brought his family with him.
The congregation soon grew to 250. Housing the church
Originally, the community had to rent a building from the Seventh Day Adventists, but the community grew quite rapidly, reaching a peak of 4500, though it is now about 4200.
It soon had to acquire its own buildings.
The growth of the church meant that it had to develop a multi-site model, and so it re-organised into four separate buildings in the four quarters of the city. Development
From 1973 to 1992, daughter churches were being instituted beyond New York. These were established in the following places: Texas, New Jersey, California, Budapest, Sao Paulo and London.
However, the New York community does not exercise controlling authority over these churches, but merely shares a common presbytery [ministry] with them as part of the wider Presbyterian ministry.
In 1992, the church launched Hope for New York, an outward facing ministry aimed at serving the spiritual needs of the wider city.

Character

Other features
The church sees itself as being in the world, but not of the world, meaning that while it lives in the community, it preserves its Christian values.
It maintains the Christian view that it is a community with the risen Christ at its heart. Thus, it sees three dimensions to its mission: upwards towards God, inwards towards its own community, and outwards to the wider world community.
Its mission statement can be summed up in the following phrases: deeper in worship, stronger in fellowship, broader in mission.
Final word
In the meantime, the church has developed a strong influence, substantially through the preaching of Tim Keller, who has published the Tim Keller sermons.
It attempts to live the full Christian life, which is centred on the worship of God in the love of Christ, in fellowship with other Christians and in service to the world.
This led it to develop a strong social ministry with deprived people in the communities that it serves.