We're moving to your neighborhood

REDEMPTION CHURCH IS MOVING!

We are very excited to announce that Redemption Church is moving our Sunday location to CARVER MIDDLE SCHOOL on Barwick/Atlantic beginning EASTER SUNDAY, March 27th at 11am! God has been leading us and opened the door for meeting at Carver, and we are thrilled for all He has ahead for us in this new space. It’s an awesome set up for our service and children’s ministry, a great location for reaching our local community, and an awesome opportunity to connect with and support an amazing school and administration.

BE A PART OF OUR LAUNCH TEAM

As we prepare for our move, we need YOUR HELP! We have flyers, door hangers, and mailers ready to go out into the surrounding areas, and we’d love your help distributing them. We have a few special times where we will be doing this as a group as well as having them available for you to pass out on your own! We will also be needing all the help we can get on Sunday mornings to serve and make a service possible! We are praying that we are able to reach many new people with the love of Jesus at Carver, so we hope you will pray about committing to serving with us on Sunday mornings too!  We need about 15 people to serve with us every Sunday. There are many ways you can help on Sundays, so e-mail Pastor Daniel directly and he can find the best place for you to serve. You can also contribute toward the costs of the move as we are praying for God to provide for all the necessary needs for meeting at a new location. Click here to donate online. 

SAVE THE DATES

Here are a few DATES you can put on your calendar NOW! Even if you can't make every event, we hope you can participate in some of these with us!

Sunday, March 6

• 10am-11:30am | Last Service at Veterans Park Community Center
• 5pm-7pm | Launch Team Meeting at The Williams’ Home

Friday, March 11

• 6pm-9pm | First Friday Night Set Up Party at Carver Middle School

Saturday, March 12, 19, 26

• 9am-12pm | Passing out door hangers & invites to the community

Sunday, March 20

• 11am-12:30pm | “Preview” Service at Carver Middle School

Sunday, March 27

• 11am-12:30pm | Public Launch on Easter Sunday at Carver

Sunday, April 3

• 11am-12:30pm | Celebration Service 

*We will be continue to have our Community Group meetings on Tuesdays & Thursdays during the month of March.

PRAY WITH US

We are continuing to seek Jesus through prayer, and as we move ahead through these next few weeks, we hope you will take some extra time to lift up some of the needs and requests we are praying for!

Here is a short list of ways you can PRAY with us for the move:

• PEOPLE to be reached and saved in our new location
• FINANCES to provide for moving expenses and new costs
• VOLUNTEERS to serve with us
• HEALTH and JOY for those serving
• GOD’S GLORY to be seen in all we do

INVITE PEOPLE TO COME WITH YOU

Feel free to copy and paste this brief invite to your own social media platforms as well (Facebook, instagram, twitter, etc.):

On EASTER SUNDAY, March 27th at 11am, you are invited to Redemption Church for their first Sunday Service at their new location at Carver Middle School in Delray Beach! Come and celebrate Easter with a time of worship, teaching from God’s Word, and a chance to learn more about what God is doing at Redemption Church. There are fun and safe classes for children through 5th grade every Sunday, so bring your family and friends, and plan to attend on March 27th!

We love you, are praying for you, and are excited to continue pursuing and proclaiming Jesus together!

-Pastor Daniel & The Redemption Church Team

The Intimacy of Prayer by Alesha Sinks

“God is the most important part of the Gospel. And that is why prayer is so awesome. We get to access God, Himself.”
Pastor Daniel Williams

"God is the most important.”

And I’m stuck by how often I forget this. It becomes about the praying, the reading, the serving, the giving… It so quickly becomes about the stuff and the doing instead of the One we are giving to and doing for.

It reminds me of early on in our marriage when we were having an at-home date night. I spent all afternoon cooking a fancy meal and setting the table just right. I wanted the perfect fancy home date for my husband, but by the time we sat down to eat, I was stressed and tired. There was a still a kitchen full of dishes to take care of, and I didn't enjoy our date night or my husband.

I had made it about the stuff, about the doing for my husband instead of about my husband himself. From that time on, I've carefully considered how I spend my day before we go on a date or spend time together. I want to enjoy my husband and be enjoyable to him and connect with him personally, not waste all my energy on doing things for him.

And it’s the same in my walk with God. There are days I find myself drowning in the do more, try harder life, and when I look deep, I realize that I'm not enjoying God. In those moments, I wonder how to find release. How do I keep serving and giving and loving and reading and praying, but change the why?

Because the doing is good…so good and so important. But without the right motives, the right why, it’s meaningless in the end.

So I wonder, how do I change my why?

And I’m quickly reminded that all of this stuff and activity is about a relationship...a personal, intimate relationship with God.

“God is the most important part of the Gospel. And that is why prayer is so awesome. We get to access God, Himself.”
Pastor Daniel Williams

When I’m finding myself overwhelmed with doing for God and failing to connect with God, prayer is the first place I turn. Because usually, somewhere along the line, I’ve turned prayer into a box to check instead of a conversation with the One who loves me.

It’s a beautiful thing to realize afresh that I can pour out every thought and worry and question and joy and agony of my heart to God. He wants to hear every little thing hanging heavy on my heart and mind.

I can come to him in tears, in joys, in worries, in pain, in fear, in truth, in sin, in expectation, in suffering, in questioning, in anger…

He has born the sins of the world, so surely He can bear the weight of our worries and our fears.

But as I come to Him in truth and honesty, as I pour out my heart to Him, I need to listen to what He would say to me in return. When I do, I will find Him calming me, restoring me, loving me, and forgiving me. Though I might not feel His hand immediately, I am strengthened with the knowledge the He hears and He cares and He is good.

It is in talking with God through prayer that I find intimacy with Him renewed and restored and my faith in His care and goodness restored.

And I find myself returning again to this truth...

“God is the most important part of the Gospel. And that is why prayer is so awesome. We get to access God, Himself.”
Pastor Daniel Williams

Thoughts On Prayer (pt2) by Daniel Williams

As I have read and studied the topic of prayer, I have come across so many wonderful insights into the topic by many men and women of God. These have helped me better understand prayer itself, the importance of praying, and how to pray. I hope you find them to be helpful for you as well. I am also including a link to a very valuable book on prayer that I read recently called, “Prayer” by Pastor Bruce Zachary. You can download the book for free, and I highly recommend it. I pray that you are encouraged and inspired by some of these thoughts and insights on prayer.

PRAYER & POWER

"If you are strangers to prayer you are strangers to power." - Billy Sunday

“Most of the great movements of God can be traced to a small group of people He called together to begin praying.” - Donald Whitney

“Little prayer, little power. Much prayer, much power.” - Rick Warren

PRAYER & TIME

“I’m too busy not to pray.” - Martin Luther

“That four hours of work for which one hour of prayer prepares, is far better than five hours of work without prayer.” - George Mueller

“I feel it is far better to begin with God - to see His face first, to get my soul near Him before it is near another.” - Robert Murray Mc Cheyne

“Praying, true praying, costs an outlay of serious attention and of time, which flesh and blood do not relish.” - E.M. Bounds

“Mastering the art of prayer, like any other art, will take time, and the amount of time we allocate to it will be the true measure of our conception of its importance. We contrive to find time for that which we deem most important.” - J. Oswald Sanders

PRAYER & METHODS

“The church’s organization, methods, marketing, and machinery are powerless to deliver apart from prayer.” - Bruce Zachary

“We are constantly straining to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Gospel. What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use - men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men - men of prayer.” - E.M. Bounds

PRAYER & FASTING

“Prayer links us to heaven and fasting separates us from earth.” - C.H. Spurgeon

"Fasting is typically associated with abstaining from food. Nevertheless, we can appropriate God’s power by drawing close to Him by abstaining from certain material pleasures. For example, you can say “no” to television so that you can say “yes” to God. By spending time praying and reading the Bible rather than watching television, we are in effect fasting." - Bruce Zachary

PRAYER & SATAN

“God’s child can conquer everything by prayer. Is it any wonder that Satan does his utmost to snatch that weapon from the Christian or to hinder his use of it.” - Andrew Murray

“Satan the hinderer may build a barrier about us, but He can never roof us in so that we cannot look up.” - J. Hudson Taylor

PRAYER & SUBMISSION

“Our motive in prayer should be for us to desire to do things God’s way, not to get God to do things our way.” - Bruce Zachary

MY STORY by Andre & Angie

Bexley Park Neighborhood (photo essay)

For The Days When You Want A Shortcut by Alesha Sinks

Every day we see them, promises of a shortcut...of an easy way out or up or around.

It’s so easy to get sucked in. We want to think that things don’t take time or work or perseverance. Because hard work over a long period of time takes discipline…

Discipline is hard and even discouraging and overwhelming, until I sometimes wonder what the point is. But we all do it... We go to work because we want a pay check. We limit our diets so that we won’t gain weight, or perhaps will lose it. We lift weights and run laps and complete reps so that our bodies will look the way we want. But just as easily, we chase fad diets and drink popular health drinks and jump on money making bandwagons…all with the promise of quick and easy with little-to-no work involved.

All the areas of my life that I look back on and am pleased with the growth and progress I see are the result of hard work and perseverance…not loop holes and skipping steps. And I’m beginning to realize that for most good things, there are no shortcuts.

As I’m leaning into this new year and reflecting on the past one, I’m seeing that this is especially true in spiritual growth.

”…train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” 1 Timothy 4:7b-8

I look at rough edges that are being rounded out… 

I look at areas I’m learning to bite my tongue… 

I look at things that used to completely derail me with stress...

And the growth I see is a product of years of habit and perseverance.

There are no shortcuts for spiritual growth. We can slow down our spiritual growth, but we can’t speed it up or skip ahead or go around or make it easier. We won’t get the fruit of a life saturated in Jesus unless we discipline ourselves to actually saturate our lives in Jesus.

And I look back at years past and am thankful. I was training before I knew it. I was disciplining myself without realizing the results that would come. I was building habits and disciplines that have held me close to Jesus in the hard times. As I reflect on those disciplines, I don’t feel anything but thankfulness. I don’t feel pride or accomplishment or boastfulness, because I know that the building of those habits in Jesus was so much of His grace and so little of my own wisdom or strength.

It may feel pointless today… 

It may seem like useless repetition today… 

It may be impossible to see growth or progress today...

But choosing to train myself for godliness is something I’ll never regret. Because, looking back I don’t regret one single Sunday of sitting through church, one sink left full of dishes so I could read God’s Word, one moment of putting aside my schedule to love my neighbor…

And just about this moment is when guilt and condemnation and comparison creep up and threaten to beat my desire back into apathy. So just about this moment is when it’s essential that I remind you and remind me…

You won’t be able to do it on your own. I can’t do it on my own. I haven’t done it on my own.

And I certainly haven’t done it perfectly or easily or beautifully. But looking back through the mistakes and the work and the brokenness, growth has sprung forth, because the mistakes and the failures and the mess ups have just pulled me to the feet of Jesus again and again. 

Isn’t that the point anyways? Isn’t that the whole reason Paul tells us to discipline, to train, ourselves for godliness? Disciplining ourselves for godliness requires that we draw near to Jesus in humility and surrender, because we need His strength to do it, so that He gets the glory for it.

Don’t we all want to be closer to Jesus in 2016…in 2017? 

In 2020? 

In 2030? 

It starts today.

It starts with perseverance and discipline and failing forward by falling into the arms of Jesus, Who has promised to do it in us. 

The question is...will we?

Thoughts On Prayer (pt1) by Daniel Williams

As I have read and studied the topic of prayer, I have come across so many wonderful insights into the topic by many men and women of God. These have helped me better understand prayer itself, the importance of praying, and how to pray. I hope you find them to be helpful for you as well. I am also including a link to a very valuable book on prayer that I read recently called, “Prayer” by Pastor Bruce Zachary. You can download the book for free, and I highly recommend it. I pray that you are encouraged and inspired by some of these thoughts and insights on prayer.

PRAYER & IMPORTANCE

“Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.” - E.M. Bounds

“As it is the business of tailors to make clothes and of cobblers to mend shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray.” - Martin Luther

“Prayer is the vital breath of Christians. Not the thing that makes us alive, but the evidence we are alive.” - Oswald Chambers

PRAYER & PLANNING

“Unless I’m badly mistaken, one of the main reasons so many of God’s children don’t have a significant prayer life is not so much that we don’t want to, but we don’t plan to. If you want to take a four-week vacation, you don’t just get up one summer morning and say, “Hey, let’s go today!” You won’t have anything ready. You won’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned. But that is how many of us treat prayer. We get up day after day and realize that significant times of prayer should be a part of our life, but nothing’s ever ready. We don’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned. No time. No place. No procedure, And we all know that the opposite of planning is not a wonderful flow of deep, spontaneous experiences of prayer. The opposite of planning is the rut. If you don’t plan a vacation you will probably stay home and watch tv. The natural, unplanned flow of spiritual life sinks to the lowest ebb of vitality. There is a race to be run and a fight to be fought. If you want renewal in your life of prayer you must plan to see it.” - John Piper

PRAYER & GODILNESS

“The neglect of prayer is a grand hindrance to holiness.” - John Wesley

"Prayer is a means for spiritual acorns to become mighty spiritual oak trees." -Bruce Zachary

“Through prayer, our hearts are aligned with God’s heart so that we gain spiritual insight.”  - Bruce Zachary

“Prayer - secret, fervent, believing prayer - lies at the root of all personal godliness.” - William Carey

“What is the reason that some believers are so much brighter and holier than others? I believe the difference, in 19 cases out of 20, arises from different habits about private prayer. I believe that those who are not eminently holy pray little, and those who are eminently holy prayer much?” - JC Ryle

“This much we do know---Jesus prayed. Luke tells us ‘But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed’ (Luke 5:16). If Jesus needed to pray, how much more do we need to pray? Prayer is expected because we need it. We will not be like Jesus without it.” - Donald Whitney

PRAYER & GOD’S WORD

“The more familiar we are with God’s Word, the clearer His will is to us. The clearer His will is to us, the more confident we become that He will respond to our prayers.” - Bruce Zachary

“The great lack of our faith is that we do not know God.” - Andrew Murray

PRAYER & ACTION

"We learn most about prayer by praying." - Bruce Zachary

“Reading a book about prayer, listening to lectures and talking about it is very good, but it won’t teach you to pray. You get nothing without exercise, without practice. I might listen for a year to a professor of music plating the most beautiful music, but that won’t teach me to play an instrument.” - Andrew Murray

“Reading about prayer instead of praying will simply not do. But reading about prayer in addition to praying can be a valuable way to learn.” - Donald Whitney

PRAYER & PERSEVERANCE

“If the ships of prayer do not come home speedily, it is because they are more heavily freighted with blessings. - C.H. Spurgeon

“It is comforting to know that God is never late. However, He is rarely early. As we ask, and while we wait, we learn to depend on God.” - Bruce Zachary

“The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer; they do not go on praying; they do not persevere. If they desire anything for God’s glory, they should pray until they get it.” - George Muller

DOWNLOAD A FREE EBOOK ON PRAYER:

Picnic In The Park (photo essay)

4 Things To Remember When Facing Trials by Travis Sinks

We will all face our own times of trouble. Peter tells us that we should not be surprised when testing and trials come (1 Peter4:12), and James encourages us to approach our trials with joy knowing that trials and temptations produce endurance (James 1:2). Whether they be personal, family, ministry, or other in nature, they will come, and we ought to be ready.

In Genesis chapter 26, Isaac experiences his own difficulty, a famine. In the first five verses, we are reminded of 4 major truths about facing difficulties in life:

1. We have to experience our own “famines"
It’s specifically said in verse 1 that “there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham.” The writer is making clear that Isaac is about to experience something that is not new to people, but new for him. We should, and can, learn from the sufferings and experiences of others, but God knows that there’s no teacher quite like experience.

2. We need to go to God
In verse two, the Lord appears to Isaac and says:
”Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you."

If you’re familiar with Bible symbolism, you’ve probably heard that Egypt often depicts the world and it’s system, which are against God and His ways. Just as He tells Isaac to trust Him, rather than Egypt, and to go where He says, rather than what would make sense, God also tells us to go to Him in times of difficulty.

3. Our trials will bless us
God gives Isaac a promise that if he would go into the land that He told him, He would bless him and his offspring. Similarly, when we use our trials as a time to act in faith towards God, He promises that our trials will turn into blessings (James 1:2).

4. Our trials will bless others
In addition to blessing himself, God reminds Isaac that He doesn’t bless people in a box. He blesses us so that we may in turn be a blessing. In Isaac’s case, it means the lineage that would bring the Savior of the world. In our situations it could mean a new empathy or increased character that God will use. Or it could mean a testimony that will be shared in the future or an example set for other believers. God has many uses for our trials, and it’s important to remember that He has a much bigger picture in mind than just ourselves.

If you are going through a trial of ministry, family, personal wellbeing, finances, etc. I hope you take God’s Word to heart and press on knowing that He is good.

Unbelief by Pilgrim Benham

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

“Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.”  -Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube and father of television.

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”– Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

Unbelief

We are all touched by unbelief in one way or another.  Many of us see it as a harmless, healthy dose of doubt that we need from time to time. But God sees unbelief as rebellious sin! When God brought the children of Israel to the promised land, they sent spies ahead to scope out the land.  Ten of the spies came back with a report full of fear, lies, and doubt.  The people listened to these men, rejecting Caleb and Joshua’s full-of-faith testimony that God could do what He was leading them to do.

The result was that the children of Israel were given 1 year of judgment for each day the spies were gone: which equaled 40 years!  Each one of the fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, and grandparents would perish in the wilderness, with only the next generation and Caleb and Joshua being allowed to enter in.

The application here is dramatic: are you living a paralyzed life of unbelief?  What is God calling you to do?  Where is He calling you to go?  He wants to bring you into the fullness of the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey, but your faith is the admission ticket! Throughout the Gospels it was unbelief that Jesus marveled at, and often would not do miracles where people were doubting.  Don’t allow Satan to whisper his lies to you anymore.  

Remember this familiar quote?

“You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” —Satan to Eve in the garden of Eden.  

 Give God your doubts, and begin living the fruitful life of faith today!

“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, Hebrews 3:7-8