Redeemer Q&A PDF (PDF)

Redeemer Q&A

Why are we planting instead of relaunching?
God spoke to Alex about planting a church personally, it also makes sense of prophetic words we’ve
received as a church over the years, but first and foremost, we are confident that God has spoken to us
about it now. It came out of a conviction that we want to start something new in the town centre, and get
into a church planting mentality, where every person can say ‘I’m planting Redeemer’.
We want every person and family who makes an intentional decision to join the planting team to realise
the cost of planting, seeing everything in a new way in light of it. What we do with our time, our
friendships, the people we meet, the places we work, the people we live next to, how we invest our
money, our personal relationship with God, all now seen through the eyes of a church planter.
Relaunching is like decorating a room. Same room, new look and feel. Planting is building something from
the ground up. We love who we’ve been as Jubilee, much of our DNA will naturally continue into
Redeemer, the same could be said for some of the prophetic promises we’ve lived with, because they live
in us. But Redeemer will be a new church in every way, laying fresh foundations, and exploring together
what kind of church we want to start, not limited by our current set of expectations of what it means to be
a Jesus follower, what a church should be like, and what impact we can have in the town.

What will eldership/leadership look like at Redeemer?
Like Jubilee, Redeemer will be a church that loves and values the gift of leadership and will be led, in time,
by a team of elders. However, a church plant is a brand-new thing and therefore will not start with an
established eldership team. That team will emerge in time once we can see who God is raising up as an
elder among us. From the start, Redeemer will be led by Alex with a leadership team alongside helping
carry the load. We imagine that to be the case for the first year at least until an eldership team can be
recognised. The leadership team will be responsible for leading the church plant through the initial phase
as it starts to take shape and become established. We’ve got a lot of work to do to get this new church off
the ground, so as well as a leadership team, we are going to need all sorts of leaders, everyone playing
their part so that we can become all God has for us and see people come to know Jesus in this town.

How will membership work at Redeemer?
Redeemer will certainly have membership, because church is a family it’s important that people carefully
consider whether they want to join that family and play their part in it. Membership of the family also has
implications for how we act together, the feel of the church and how we might leave it. It is not like a gym
membership that you cancel, but a family that you leave. If you are currently a membership of Jubilee, we
are not assuming you will be a member of Redeemer. We want each person and family to prayerful
consider whether they want to join this new planting team. So right now, we are in many ways conducting
an elongated membership course. We are starting to explore what Redeemer will be like and what it will
mean to play our part. That started in the ‘Redeemer is coming’ series (catch up online if you’ve missed it)
but will also continue in the new year in our January ‘Redeemer’ series, through the prayer and worship
nights we will do together seeking and hearing from God, and the planting groups we want to everyone to
be a part of. The planting groups will be about doing life with another 10-15 people, discussing, hearing,
praying, prophesying and dreaming about all Redeemer could be. If you sign up to be part of the Redeemer
planting team, we will take that as ‘I want to be a part of this new family, count me in!’, and we’ll explore
what comes next later on.

How much money do we have for the Guildbourne Centre renovation? How much are we expecting it to
cost? Can we afford the ongoing costs?
We currently have around £625,000 available for the renovation and associated costs, we always knew we
would need more than that. We have now gone out to tender for contractors to bid for the work, based on
the design we have pulled together. Thank you for all who’ve been involved in that. We went in with a
budget of £750,000, but it has become apparent that it is going to cost more than that, we will of course
value engineer the design to make it as affordable as possible, but on top of that we have associated costs
(legal, accountancy, design etc), the fit out of the space (PA, AV, furniture etc), not to mention some initial
running costs behind us so we can hit the ground running so to speak. We are currently working on a more
precise costing, but we are now expecting the cost to be around £1million.
One of the challenges is that although we’ve said we won’t do the next part of our ‘building our home’ gift
days until we’ve got change of use and we know we are moving ahead (absolutely still our intention), we
need to know ahead of that how much money we have so that we can commit to a contract with a
developer. So, in the new year we will be asking you to pledge what you are able to give/loan once we are
granted change of use, alongside asking you if you are 100% in for Redeemer, as well as if you are able to
loan the church any money, for a minimum fixed period, interest free, with a legal contract. We are
convinced in the principle of doing together what we can afford, each of us bringing what we have, gifts
and loans (and any way you want to contribute!) into the middle to see what we can do together. So
please do start thinking about that now.
Regarding the ongoing costs, we currently pay around £35,000pa to rent the school and our office space.
That’s a lot of money considering most of that goes on the school and we only have that for several hours
on a Sunday. Jubilee has kind of been a pop up church. As Redeemer, we want to have a permanent
presence in the town, to have thousands of people through our space every year, a place to be proud of
and invite friends to, and to be a base from where we plant churches and host the nations of the world.
The Guildbourne centre is an ideal opportunity for that, as well as redeeming a space of poor reputation in
the town we will be making the space work for us financially, so we can begin to be a channel of resources
for the town and the nations rather than the other way around. It has the potential to enable us financially
in the future to achieve and do more.
The Guildbourne centre space we are going to be leasing will cost us less (in rent) initially than the school
and our offices currently does. What a fantastic deal for a town centre location and our own space.
However, there will be additional costs on top of that such as insurance, electricity, water, cleaning,
internet, etc. It’s a great opportunity and a great deal, but we do need to be aware that there will be
additional costs, which we are planning to meet by using the space in the week by letting our space,
hosting the community and making the centre work financially.

How long is our lease? Could this be terminated?
We are entering into a 20year lease, with break clauses at 5, 10 and 15 years, only exercisable by us. Unless
we default on the rent or break our lease agreement in another way, we can’t be moved. It gives us the
option to make changes down the line, either out of necessity or because of how God leads us. Even after
the 20 years are up, as an existing tenant we have preferential rights, providing we are willing to sign
another lease and pay the necessary rates etc.

Will Tots, Foodbank, and the Night Shelter be based in the GBC? Have we got plans for any other
community projects?
Redeemer will be a brand-new church, so we are not assuming that anything we currently do as Jubilee will
be carried across to Redeemer. We want to see where God leads us and go from there. We recognise
however, what a great asset and opportunity Foodbank and Tots are, both to enable us to serve the town
and engage with people not from Jubilee, so we will almost certainly be continuing with those, even if they
look at little different. Serving the community and lifting up people out of poverty is in our DNA, and is an
important value of Regions Beyond, our family of churches, and that will absolutely continue. What that
looks like is yet to be seen, but we’d be very surprised if we didn’t launch a key way we serve the poor in
our town in the future.

Will there be any parking deals available to us?
We are not sure yet but are in the process of finding out. There’s free parking throughout the town centre
on a Sunday, if not. Even if we did have to pay to park though, maybe that’s one of the costs of being in the
town centre and reaching people for Jesus. We want to be there, not for our own convenience, but for
people who don’t know Jesus, even if it costs us.

What kind of church is Redeemer going to be?
That’s the journey we are going on together, being before God and allowing Him to shape us and guide us.
That’s what we are doing in the ‘Redeemer is coming’ series, that’s what we’ll be look at together in the
new year in a three-week vision series, that’s what we’ll be praying and fasting about in prayer and
worship evenings, that’s what we’ll be exploring in planting groups as we pray, discuss, prophesy and
dream. We want this to be season where we tune in to what God is saying to us, allowing Him to put
something in our hearts, a church we long to be a part of.
However, we do know some headlines, and they all flow from the name. Redeemer is going to be a God
first, gospel centred and mission focused church. These are the key foundation stones we want to build on
as we go forward, and we are confident that God will give ever increasing definition to these things as we
go forward.