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Rooted in the Gospel

Lay Foundations of our Culture (2021-2022)

 * Sermon series on new Mission and Values
 * Daily Bible reading/prayer guides start


Build for Growth (2022-2023)

 * Opened up CG guides for adults, family, youth

Renewed by Worship

Lay Foundations of our Culture (2021-2022)

 * New Vision communicated to congregation
 * Redesigned Sunday Worship service




Build for Growth (2022-2023)

 * Two morning services start in Fall 2023
 * Recording studio build to create new content

Growing as Disciples

Lay Foundations of our Culture (2021-2022)

 * Discipleship plan designed and communicated to congregation
 * Children’s and Youth Ministries integrate plan intro existing programs
 * First round of Discipleship cohorts launches




Build for Growth (2022-2023)

 * Kids Community Group restarts
 * Discipleship cohorts continue

Welcoming into Community

Lay Foundations of our Culture (2021-2022)

 * Sunday Connections relaunched
 * New at RWS launches
 * Neighborhood Care Teams restart
 * Lobby space opens to neighborhood




Build for Growth (2022-2023)

 * Interest/Affinity groups launch
 * 20’s and 30’s group starts
 * Community Groups restart in-person gatherings

Innovating Ministry

Lay Foundations of our Culture (2021-2022)

 * Missional Incubator launches
 * Lay-led ministry trial experiences start




Build for Growth (2022-2023)

 * Mandarin-speaking lay-led CG launches
 * Multi-year plan for W83 as a hub for shalom begins

Promoting Shalom

Lay Foundations of our Culture (2021-2022)

 * Clarified teaching position about racial justice
 * Joined Pray March Act
 * Frederick Douglas Houses ministry starts
 * Youth Ministry series on Biblical justice begins




Build for Growth (2022-2023)

 * Neighborhood Engagement Teams launches
 * Biblical justice leadership development continues
 * Increased participation by congregants in local mercy ministries





church & pastor

profile

On October 1, 2023, David Bisgrove, the founding senior pastor of Redeemer West
Side (RWS), announced his retirement after more than 25 years of faithful
service to the Redeemer movement of churches. On October 15, you the
congregation voted to create a pastoral search committee (PSC) charged with
identifying RWS’ next senior pastor. Shortly after its formation, the PSC
entered a time of research into Redeemer’s past, present, and potential future
and held listening sessions with members of the congregation, lay leaders, and
ministry staff. Gathering this information and meeting with you were steps taken
by us to ensure that the profile reflected the fullness of the Spirit’s movement
through time and in the body of our church. The pastoral profile will guide us
in what will come next: the active phase of our search process, a phase in which
we will identify potential candidates and invite them to interview with us.




"... seek the prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.
Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." Jeremiah
29:7




Tim and Kathy Keller’s foundational gospel-influenced vision was that Redeemer
is a church not simply for its own sake and benefit but for the good of the
city. Redeemer West Side, one expression of the post-founder era of Redeemer, is
shaped by this founding vision while applying it to our specific geographic and
cultural context. Starting with the Fall 2021 ministry year, RWS articulated our
mission through six distinct values that we believe are formative for how we
relate to each other, the Upper West Side and New York City. These values
envision a congregation that is:




1. Rooted in the Gospel – the gospel shapes us as individuals and as a community

2. Renewed by worship – the love of Christ compels our gathering together

3. Growing as and making disciples

4. Welcoming into community by being warm and hospitable

to those around us

5. Innovating ministry to serve and be relatable to those around us

6. Promoting Shalom by pursuing justice and flourishing of our city.




These values serve to honor Redeemer’s past while taking into consideration how
the gospel relates to our current cultural and societal context. The latter is
informed by our post-pandemic world where there is skepticism, fracturing of
institutions, and widespread longing for justice and rightness with the world.
At the same time we believe the six values outlined above are a timeless call
for the church to embody the compassion of Jesus Christ and provide a basis of
principles for how the church navigates forward. The panels that follow show
some of the ways we have answered this call.



OUR


MISSION


REDEEMER WEST SIDE IS LIVING OUT A SACRED CALL BY JESUS TO LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS
AND HEAL OUR CITY.

congregational

listening

sessions


"FOR THE BODY DOES NOT CONSIST OF ONE MEMBER BUT OF MANY … NOW YOU ARE THE BODY
OF CHRIST, AND EACH ONE OF YOU IS A PART OF IT.” 1 CORINTHIANS: 12:14, 27


In December 2023, the PSC held three large group listening sessions. The purpose
of the sessions was twofold. Members of the congregation were invited to pray
for the search process and share thoughts and reflections about the church and
the next senior pastor. The meetings centered around table discussions on the
topics of what brought you to RWS, why you’ve stayed, what sets our church
apart, future challenges and opportunities , and traits that are important to
consider and discern in a senior pastor. What follows are common themes and
insights extracted from the wealth of information you shared with us. We have
been encouraged by the sense of unity present in these sessions, which we have
taken as an expression of the shared desire to live out a sacred call by Jesus
to love our neighbors and heal our city both now and in the years to come.



WHAT LED YOU TO RWS?


WHY HAVE YOU STAYED?


WHAT DISTINGUISHES RWS FROM OTHER CHURCHES?


WHY IS RWS THE BODY


OF CHRIST TO YOU?


WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FACING OUR CHURCH?


pastor profile


LEADING OUR COMMUNITY IN ITS CALL TO LOVE AND HEAL




Our cultural context

New York City sustains a pluralism of religion, culture, ethnicity, vocation and
education as well as socioeconomic and demographic diversity. The diversity of
New York is what makes it a dynamic, resilient and culturally generative city
while also being marked with deep inequalities. The challenge of the church then
is to speak intelligibly and compassionately within the culture while being true
to orthodox Christian faith. This reality is a key motivation for the six
formative values of identity which were outlined above. The RWS principles of
shalom, loving our neighbor, innovating ministry and worship express our longing
to engage the world with the beauty and truth of the gospel.

At the same time, we recognize that the problems of society also affect the
church, impacting how it functions to answer the call to tend to the spiritual,
physical and emotional needs of those it serves. These challenges are myriad and
mercurial. For example, in our society there is a growing mistrust within our
communities, an erosion of our institutions and an increased recognition of the
injustices suffered by many, especially among those who are marginalized. Debate
over questions of identity and authenticity have become immanent. Political
polarization is present not only in society but also in the church at large. The
church is often seen as losing sight of its mandate to love our neighbor. As a
consequence many people have decided to leave the institutional church in order
to practice spirituality individually or not at all. In response to these
challenges, young people growing up in the church have questions arising from
their perception of culture’s incompatibility with and hostility towards the
gospel.




We believe that the gospel bears up and provides resources to address all of
these issues.




The senior leadership of the church must thus be able to sense existing and
emergent challenges and shepherd the church with compassion to address both
internal and external issues that arise from these. The senior pastor will in
his unique way make the gospel real and relatable to both believer and
non-believer, softening the heart and quickening the mind to the Spirit’s work
in their lives. The RWS community longs to use our abundant resources of
gospel-centered, counter-cultural hope to bring about repentance and revival
within and be a light of durable hope and joy to the world.




Our Community
The staff of RWS are a highly professional, dedicated and creative team of
individuals who lead the church with patience, perseverance and resolve. The
staff includes members with deep and mature experience in church planting,
pastoring, counseling and management, a preaching bench, leadership in worship
formation and direction, and experience in our key ministries for children,
youth, faith and work, and mercy and justice. The staff team has a sense of
purpose and momentum while also being hungry to advance to a new phase of
growing our ministries.




From this perspective the senior pastor is in many respects a first among equals
in ministry who starts with a deep sense of common calling with the staff to
ministry in New York City. He is a team builder who trusts the team and can
delegate significant responsibility without the need to control processes and
outcomes. Because there is a high level of mutual trust and respect, criticism
can be heard, faults admitted, and misunderstanding and conflict reconciled.
Leadership which supports mutual perseverance and tenacity means that
differences can be converted into productive framing of ministry objectives and
process. Given these demands, the senior pastor must ideally have had prior,
established experience as a senior pastor or senior leader in another church or
ministry.




Similar to the staff, the RWS congregation has rebounded from the pandemic with
renewed hope, energy and purpose. The Sunday children’s ministry has ballooned
over the past year. Accommodation of the dramatic growth of children’s
attendance was a driving factor behind the decision to move from one to two
services in Fall 2023. Over the past two post-pandemic years RWS has worked to
open our doors to the community and make ourselves more visible and known to the
Upper West Side. This desire to be a church not for ourselves has made a
difference: to the neighborhood regulars who stop by the lobby to rest and
recharge and to the neighborhood organizations that regularly use the W83
building to serve the marginalized, make music, engage in fellowship, and pray.




Outside of Sunday ministries a characteristic of RWS is that we see community as
a key component of the life of the church. This is in keeping with the Redeemer
vision and the fruit of many years of development of community groups within the
church. Community brings people together to grapple corporately with the gospel
and scriptural truth. Community activates people to service. Community naturally
de-isolates city people and gives rise to deep friendships and accountability.
Christian community often gives people firsthand exposure to how Christians cope
with existential problems that New Yorkers face and how they live out their
faith in various aspects of life such as the workplace, family, and
neighborhood. The senior pastor must nurture community formation and relate to
our multifaceted community which includes youth, elderly, singles, married
couples, families, our seen and our unseen.




Beginning with staff and lay leaders, and through the pulpit and other channels,
the senior pastor will catalyze growth of deeper community, lean into direct
mentorship and embrace the formation of disciples. Formation, articulation and
activation of ministry vision among staff and congregation are entirely
dependent on a deep sense of humility (God must build, only the Holy Spirit and
grace can enable us), boldness (God has called us to this, his purpose for his
kingdom will not fail), and love. In this way, the senior pastor will galvanize
us around our current and future ministry vision with joyful trust in God’s
purpose to bring seasons of renewal and revival for our church and our city.




No degree of personal character, integrity, prayer and passion are adequate to
carry out the leadership profile laid out above. But it is the hope of RWS
constituents that the senior pastor will regard himself as an integral part of
the community, not merely an isolated leader of it, and that the congregation
will support his ministry in the substantive ways that make long-term leadership
possible.


next

steps

The PSC will continue to provide updates every month at both morning services
and through the WS Update as we move forward in the active phase of our search
process. We ask that you continue to pray alongside us, individually and
corporately, as we quiet our own hearts in our earnest endeavor to seek God’s
will for the next seasons to come.





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