Redeeming Grace Church | Redwood City, CA

• Rick Carbonneau
• Nov 5, 2009
• Series: Church Profiles

Planter Profile:  Rick & LaRayne Carbonneau

Briefly explain your calling to plant a church.

Our situation at Redeeming Grace Church is different in some ways than an original church plant. We have been in the processes of replanting an established church for the past 3 years. This has brought on a number of different dynamics.

That being stated – I do believe God has called me to lead a church planting church through mentoring young pastors, training, leading and coaching them. My passion is to leave a legacy of church planting churches on the SF Peninsula and greater SF Bay Area. Currently, I am part of a newly established church planting network which is one of the reasons why I desire to be a part of A29 so that what I am trained and mentored in I can pass on to other new church planters.

My philosophy has radically changed in the past 4 years due to a re-ignition of the gospel and missional theology. My former pastor and seminary had a philosophy that America did not need new churches but better pulpits. While, I struggled with this philosophy at first I soon embraced it the longer I was in seminary and served at my former church. I’ve been awakened to the Acts model.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in planting your church (and/or currently facing)?

Our greatest learning curve as a young missional church is learning how to contextualize our church and gospel into our Community. We are working hard at studying the demographics of who we are called to serve and how the culture has shaped them.

How did you become involved with Acts 29? What have been the biggest benefits of being in the network?

We became involved through the teaching ministry of Mark Driscoll and Acts 29/Resurgence media - these have been the biggest benefits to date but a growing relationship with A29 leaders has been a tremendous help.

What advice do you have for men who are wrestling with the decision to plant?

If you can do anything else - do it because it will kill you and everything about you unless Jesus has called you.

How do you personally disciple your family?

Our main discipleship in our family is personal contact - walking through life together. My wife and I spend a lot of time talking to each other and our kids as we endeavor to walk them through day-to-day life struggles.

What are some examples of God's grace that you have seen in your life and/or the life of your church?

A continued gospel transformation of our marriage and ministry. Blowing up the old church and the fact we have people left who desire to join us on mission.

How can we pray for you?

that we see many people saved through our church

Church Profile:

Redeeming Grace

Location: Redwood City, CA
Launch Date: Replanted 2007

Mission, Vision, Values of Church

Core Values

1. We affirm that the gospel is central to all of life.

2. We dedicate ourselves to the grace virtue of Christ-like humility.

3. We seek true Christian renewal and reformation (as opposed to external religious spirituality).

4. We strive for true Christian acceptance of all people and reject religious, political and social sectarianism.

5. We acknowledge our adoption into Christ-generated community.

6. We commit ourselves to missional living.

7. We are committed to bringing in social justice and mercy ministry.

8. We are committed to training and education for the reformation and growth of family, church and society.

9. We live in expectation that God will move in our midst to accomplish His purposes.

Our Vision

We are not a church for ourselves, rather a community of God’s people who love and follow Jesus Christ. We endeavor to be transformed by the gospel so that we can be a positive, lasting benefit to our community and the world by developing an association of like-minded churches through church planting and relationship building. Dig deeper: what will this transformation in people look like?

Our Mission

We desire that God would use Redeeming Grace for the mission of seeing the Kingdom of God transform our society and world spiritually, politically, socially, economically and physically. To this end we work to plant several churches in the Bay Area and around the country and world.

Our Purpose

We contend for the gospel, preserving its God-inspired content while imbedding our lives into our cultural context here in the Bay Area as missionaries to people who do not yet follow Jesus. Our goal is to bring people into a relationship with Jesus, mature them through life in the church, and send them out into mission to bring God/human reconciliation in their specific context through the gospel.

How did you build up your core?

Personal one-on-one discipleship.

What is your philosophy of community in your church and what does that look like practically?

As human beings created in the image of God, we are designed to be interconnected with one another. Relationships are the key to fulfilling God’s mercy of reconciling lost and broken people to Himself. As people come into a relationship with Jesus, they become more n tune with God, others and themselves. Once a person realizes that the church is not about what they can get but instead, what they can give through God’s grace, he or she becomes a powerful force used by God to take the responsibility for the care of others. The Bible explains that this takes place through the 45 or so “one anothers” (i.e. love one another, forgive one another, bear one another’s burdens, confess your sin to one another or confront one another and so on). Community Life is about using one’s gifts, abilities and resources to release the potential of others through God’s grace and love manifested in their hearts.

We build community for the purpose of fulfilling Christ’s mission. Strong community life is the mission of Christians to bring the powerful redeeming force of Jesus to their cultural context. Lives begin to change, marriages are strengthened, people find fulfillment in Jesus and not in things, reputations, occupations, money or treasures. Life on life interaction is powerful because people lose their self-centered tendency and find their joy in connecting their life to others so that the mission of Jesus can flourish, spread and grow. Being a part of Redeeming Grace Church is much more than simply attending on Sunday mornings—we encourage those who visit to connect with others through ministries and on an informal basis.

What is your philosophy of evangelism in your church and what does that look like practically?

Our greatest learning curve as a young missional church is learning how to contextualize our church and gospel into our Community. We are working hard at studying the demographics of who we are called to serve and how the culture has shaped them.

We live in a middle class suburban culture with a lot of affluence. The dominant people group is white-collar techies with young families and a large population of blue-collar families. The idols of our culture are materialism, comfort and kids’ sports. We also have a large Spanish-speaking population on one side of town in Redwood City.

Currently, we are:

a. Infiltrating the youth soccer and baseball programs endeavoring to build relationships through coaching and participation.

b. We meet Saturday nights because most people work insane hours and want a day off for themselves and their families on Sunday as well as the fact youth sports is huge on Sundays due to limited field availability (there are not enough fields for all kid and adult sports – we live on the peninsula). These services are highly missional in focus as represents our mission: We are not a church for ourselves, rather a community of God’s people who love and follow Jesus Christ, endeavoring to be trans-formed by the gospel so that we can be a positive, lasting benefit to our community and the world by developing an association of like-minded Churches through church planting and relation-ship building. We have incorporated evangelistic worship services (learned from Tim Keller) where there is never an “in-house” moment for Christians only as well the fact that we are not a seeker driven church where Christians are not challenged with their idols and how the gospel transforms them.

c. Continually developing ministries teaching our people missional theology and how to live as mission-aries in their context. Our people need to be taught that simple evangelism programs of yesteryear are not as effective as they once were; they are called to penetrate their culture. We are endeavoring to teach them they are called to incarnate into the context God has placed them in not to simple bring their non-Christian friends to the pastors to evangelize them.

d. Web site: Our new web site is almost complete. We want our website to be the front door into our church where non-Christians can be sent to investigate Christianity. We have it filled with tons of resources and links that our people can send their non-Christian friends too to find out about Christianity.

e. Community groups: patterned after Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan – our CG’s are designed to be missional in nature giving people the opportunity to be introduced to Christianity in a non-church worship service setting. This missional perspective has not been as successful as we wish because our people are working the gospel into their personal lives and CG’s have been more about care than seeing themselves in mission (we have work to do here).

Future:

f. We are praying about and strategizing to put together a music ministry called AMPed. Our Director of Music and Media Arts would like to develop a Friday Night venue where Bay Area bands (Christian and non-Christian) could come and play. The pattern would be like our infiltration into the sports community - coaching youth sports in order to build relationships with non-Christians so we may invite them to church. Our musicians would do the same in the music community.

g. Convalescent homes – since we are meeting Saturday nights some of our people in Community groups would like to visit and minister to our growing senior community.