"God is crazy in love with you,” Senior Pastor Doug Doyle informs his congregation and the community. Through sports, barbeques and street parties, members of Redwood Park Church seek to make their city a better place to live. As the arms and feet of Jesus, they stretch out a hand to the poor in their neighbourhood.
"Thunder Bay (Ontario) has fewer people in church than other cities,” states Doyle, increasing the challenge to connect people from all walks of life to a life-transforming relationship with Christ, and to inspire a church family to impact their city with the life of Jesus.
Loving the Neighbourhood
Incredibly, others in the community refer seekers to Redwood Park. Rough language, messy divorce, high alcohol consumption—all are welcome in this grace-filled congregation because they don't see themselves influencing from a protected Christian environment.
"Following Jesus is not risk free,” asserts Doyle. Children bring parents and grandparents. Alpha and Celebrate Recovery groups address specific needs. Redwood Park is all about connecting people from all walks of life to a life-transforming relationship with Christ.
Sixteen months after Redwood Park relocated to a renovated school and new worship auditorium, their original facility was transformed into the Redwood Park Opportunities Centre, serving the poor, addicted, discouraged and hungry of Thunder Bay. Hundreds of families benefit from the food bank each month and every family that comes has a brief conversation with a caregiver and an invitation to pray.
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Serving the city and beyond with joy! |
A portion of the sales proceeds from Threads, their used-clothing store, provides income to help stock the food bank. Some congregants serve 20 hours-a-week shopping for food, stocking shelves or working at the centre. The Christmas dinner theatre sells out quickly—all 2,400 meals—as parishioners buy tables and invite their neighbours.
First Nations people account for about eight percent of the Thunder Bay population. Some worshippers house young people from the reserves while they attend school in town. Redwood's youth ministry offers a coffee drop-in centre at local area high schools. A First Nations presence is growing in the Sunday evening student ministry service while Doyle dreams even larger, envisioning an aboriginal worship service at the Opportunities Centre.
Doyle's vision is that every believer will be empowered for missional involvement. "Knowing God and chasing after his ways is anything but boring!” he exclaims. It is truly an experience of ‘life, passion and adventure' made possible by God's Spirit. Redwood Park is "a loving community of Christ-followers who together are stumbling forward in this God-led missional journey.”
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Baptism,
Thunder Bay style |
While some shy away from numbers, this community of passionate, adventurous believers has grown from 100 to 900 at some services, with 1,600 identifying Redwood Park as their ‘home.' At least half bring no evangelical background.
There are those who are excited and those who were aghast as Redwood Park has intentionally transformed its vision over the past decade. "Our environment is always in transition; the culture changes. It takes time to become missional,” reflects Doyle.
Loving the City
As a reflection of how this family of God-followers serves the city, the Catholic Teachers Association invited Redwood Park members to assist them in distributing thousands of winter coats. Partnering in ministry, Stoney Creek Alliance Church contributed hundreds of boots.
Confederation College (Thunder Bay) requested a partnership with Redwood Park's three-year pastoral apprenticeship program, a collaborative ministry with Briercrest's Distance Learning and Continuing Education Centre.
One Redwood Park apprentice was invited to live on the Confederation campus to positively influence the residence, not through proselytising but through building caring relationships in the dorm.
Doyle believes God has placed a unique call on the Redwood Park church family to shape the future of their city with the life-changing power of God's love. God has called them to be a church with city-wide influence, a ‘missional cathedral' of acceptance, wholeness and transformation where people find love, hope, encouragement, forgiveness and healing.
Outside the city, Doyle mentors other pastors. A Barrie church was in decline when Doyle was asked to offer a hand. Sending a student minister, supported by sermons on DVD, the Redwood Park Church, Barrie Campus has grown.
Commissioned pastor, Nathan Barnes builds relationships in the local community while being mentored from Thunder Bay. Video feeds now enable sermons to be shared in either direction. Doyle encourages this multiplication of resources where other larger congregations can get involved in mentoring smaller parishes.
Loving the World
Internationally, Redwood Park members regularly join denominational teams to come alongside International Workers on an Asian island where 95 percent are Islamic militants. A few years back, every church on the island was burned to the ground.
Now Redwood Park couples give a-month-a-year to encourage a church battered by persecution, following the example of Aaron and Hur holding up Moses' hands until the battle was won (see Exodus 17:8-13).
In practical terms, that means working on water pumps, offering literacy classes, teaching English-as-a-Second-Language, offering wholistic education and reversing the hostile environment through positive action until the face of Jesus is revealed.
Doyle concludes, "We are agents of God's re-creating work wherever we live and throughout this planet. We are people who simply bless our neighbours and enhance the reputation of our God here and around the world.” It's a foretaste of heaven on earth!
Charlene de Haan, a freelance author in Toronto, writes a regular column for Faith Today magazine. More information at www.stepUPtransitions.ca 
