Riverwest Church Plant Teaser from Bliss Lemmon on Vimeo.
“Christ Redeemer Anglican Church” will target the Riverwest Neighborhood of Milwaukee. The population of Riverwest holds steady at about 11,000 people. There are more non-Anglo persons living in Riverwest than Anglo persons (56%/44%). In this neighborhood of 11,000 there is one Lutheran church, two Roman Catholic Churches, along with a storefront church here and there. Of the 11,000 people in this zip code, 35% have no religious affiliation and another 13% have vocally expressed the need for a good church in the neighborhood.
By August of 2012, the Bleything family will move back into the Riverwest neighborhood and begin core team development in the context of a missional community[1] (MC from here on), demographic and ethnographic research, and networking. Tony will work bi-vocationally at Nashotah House Theological Seminary as core teams are developed and funds are raised to support the plant over the next five years.
Before Redeemer Anglican’s first public service, there will be at least two MCs with 15 – 20 people (not including children) meeting across Riverwest and potentially in other neighborhoods. MCs will be the heartbeat of the Redeemer Anglican Church. These MCs will be the center of outreach, discipleship, leadership development, and fellowship. MCs will be the context in which the church grows not only large but also deep. Redeemer Anglican Church will work to cultivate a culture of discipleship through the use of discernment groups and triad accountability groups. The leaders of these MCs will initially all be members of the core leadership team but eventually they will peel off to start more MCs as things develop.
We hope the church will be able to sustain one full time pastor and two part time pastors by the third year of the plant and that by the fifth year the church will be able to support three full time pastors and the ministry expenses.[2] As MCs develop into clusters scattered throughout the city, we will establish more large parish gatherings in those neighborhoods.
