The Need

Dr. Timothy Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York and the Chairman of Redeemer City to City, which plants new churches in the New York and other global cities, helps to explain why church planting is so essential towards increasing the number of believers in a city.  Dr. Keller wrote that we should consider these facts:

1.  “New churches best reach new generations, new residents, and new people groups.  Younger adults have been disproportionately found in newer congregations.”  

2. “New residents are almost always reached better by new congregations. Older congregations sometimes require a tenure before someone is allowed into places of leadership, but new churches tend to give residents equal power with longtime area residents.” 

3.  “New sociocultural groups in a community are reached better by new congregations. Also, new racial groups in a community are best reached by a new church that is intentionally multiethnic from the beginning.” 

4.  “New Churches best reach the un-churched. Dozens of denominational studies have confirmed that the average new church gains most of its new members (60-80 percent) from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshiping body, while churches over ten to fifteen years of age gain 80-90 percent of new members by transfer from other congregations. New church planting is the only way that we can be sure we are going to increase the number of believers in a city, and it is one of the best ways to renew the whole body of Christ.”

In addition, a study from the Barna Group has found that Christians are not evangelizing as often as they used to.  The official title of the study is “Sharing Faith is Increasingly Optional to Christians.“  The recently-released study is a follow-up on a study conducted back in 1993.
A revealing change in the statistics between 1993 and today was that in 1993, 89% of Christians who had shared their faith agreed this is a responsibility of every Christian.  The new study found that just 64 percent say so - a 25% decrease.

The greatest missionary in history, the Apostle Paul, had a rather simple twofold strategy. First, he went into the largest city of a region (Acts 16:9,12) and second, he planted churches in each city (Titus 1:5 appoints elders in every town). Once he had done that, he could say that he had “fully preached” the gospel in a region and that he had no more place to work in these regions (Romans 15:19,23). This means that Paul had two controlling assumptions: a) That the way to most permanently influence a country was through its chief cities. b) The way to most permanently influence a city was to plant churches in it.

Within this backdrop, the Kendall suburb of Miami-Dade County is fertile ground to plant a new church.  The community is populated by young families and its residents are diverse, with a large percentage coming from Latin American descent.  Renew Church will be a diverse church that reaches out to all of its residents without discrimination.  We also recognize that many families we reach will have parents that immigrated here many years ago to raise their children and start a new life and that the home consists of one or both grandparents as well as the children in the home (3 generations under one roof).  What a beautiful picture of the family living life together!

Our vision is to plant a community church within the heart of the Kendall community which will minister to its multicultural residents. We want to develop a church community where a diverse group of people experience renewal in all facets of life, worshiping God is a privilege not a burden, where children and youth are nurtured in faith, and where the people of God will serve their community with courage and compassion. We also dream to become a church where the lost and hurting will find renewal and healing, and where people discover their spiritual gifts, using them to find fulfillment in their lives. Our dream is to become a catalyst for the renewal of the Kendall community for the glory of God!

Thanks for Reading!

Treavor and Misty Pound                                                                                                                        facebook.com/renewmiami                                                                                                            www.renew.miami

P.S. Our next “Interest Gathering” is in just a few weeks.  Go to www.renew.miami/gathering to learn more and to sign up!  This is a great opportunity for us to get to know one another and for us to share our vision for Renew Church!  Text/Call/Email if you would like more information and directions.  My cell phone is 786-547-3594.  

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