Help Push Back Lostness in Salt Lake City
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Church planting is hard work. It takes grit and spit and a little elbow grease. It demands resources and thick skin. And above all, it depends upon the mercy and grace of God, so we pray. I am leading a church plant in Salt Lake City and in a lot of ways it feels like we've got a little baby on our hands--a little baby church that's just been birthed.
My wife recently gave birth to our daughter. Some wonderful church friends threw her a baby shower; but before the shower, Lisa and I went to Target and shot things we needed for the baby with a laser gun to add it to a registry. I listed some Bose noise-cancelling headphones but nobody ponied up the $300 for those and my wife teased me relentlessly. (True story.) The nice thing about registering is we were able to get the things the baby needed most from those who truly wanted to help us. It has been a huge blessing.
I often feel like Redeeming Life Church, a little baby church plant, needs a registry blaster to mark out what we need most. We need a church plant shower. In fact, when we move our Sunday service out of the building of our sending church and into the northwest quadrant of the Salt Lake valley, we should have a shower. Or maybe if you'll let me mix my metaphors, we'll have a church plant house warming party.
But in the meantime, we could still really use your help. Here's how individuals and churches can help us see the lift off of a local Christian church in the Rose Park area. (I realize you might only be here to read the blog and could actually be annoyed by my plug for help. If so, please notice how commercial free this website typically is. This is important enough for Redeeming Life Church that I thought I would post a rare request here.)
We are working hard to share the gospel and make disciples. We want to gather these disciples into a church and all of this takes resources. We need supplies for our church services. We want to give out printed materials and Bibles. And we spend a lot of time across the table with people in our homes, coffee shops, and restaurants.
1. First and foremost, we need prayer. We need lots of prayer because the truth is there is no way we could do this without God's hand in it all. Please pray for us, boldly and often. And please pray for the people of Salt Lake.
2. Next, we have some bills to pay and could certainly use some financial help. Many among our little baby congregation are faithfully giving but we need some help getting started because we're still small. We don't want to be on "welfare" for long, but we could use a boost to get us going. If you'd like to help us financially, you can find info on how to help here.
3. If you like to support missionaries, please consider supporting Brett and Nicole Ricley. They are serving with Redeeming Life Church as self-supported missionaries trying to push back lostness in a place where less than 3% of the population is Christian. (Just a hint, that's Salt Lake City). This family is huge blessing to me and Redeeming Life and we greatly appreciate all those who help support them to make their mission possible. You can learn more about that and support the Ricley's here.
4. Another way you can help us is by sending us copies of The Jesus Storybook Bible. We give this book to children and their parents because it is a fantastic gospel message that shows how all of the Bible points to Jesus. We'd like to give these out like candy because we believe The Jesus Storybook Bible will have an impact with families who don't yet know Jesus.
5. Finally, we meet with lots of people and could also use gift cards to places like Starbucks, Subway, Wal-Mart (for supplies and groceries for hosting in our homes), Chick-Fil-A, McDonalds, Denny's, Beans & Brews, Jimmy Johns, Apollo Burger, and other similar places that have a place for us to sit and use for meeting places. In a way, these gift cards not only help us show hospitality to those we meet with, it helps pay the rent for the "office space" where we hope to share Jesus.
You can send your support and materials to:
Redeeming Life ChurchThank you for all of your prayers and encouragement!
2780 East 3900 South
Salt Lake, Utah 84124
May God bless you,
Bryan