Elder Update

MINISTRY RE-OPENING PLAN

• We are continuing to work on detailed plans for what a possible re-opening would look like, when government restrictions lift enough to allow gatherings of a larger group of people.
• Our staff is working on researching three different options. They include A) live services with limited capacity, B) continuing with our Church Online services, while integrating a regular, in-person, fellowship/social event, and C) home church (groups meeting in homes around the city to watch the online service together with fellowship).
• Each option has different pros and cons and issues to be addressed, but we are working hard at investigating each of these, so that once permission is granted from the government to proceed, we will already have much of this work done for the option that fits with requirements and is best for our congregation.
• We have realized through some significant assessment, brain-storming, and actual measurements in our Worship Centre and building, that the limiting factor in starting Sunday services is not the gathering (group) size allowed by the government, but the social distancing requirement.
• For example, our Worship Centre, which has about 640 chairs, can only ever seat a maximum of about 200 and more likely about 175 with social distancing, depending on the number of singles vs. couples vs. families.
• This means that as the government increases the group size allowed, it makes little difference to our Sunday services as we believe, and data indicates, social distancing will remain for the longer term. Therefore, if social distancing is in place, we can only have 175-200 maximum in a worship service.
• The 175-200 will be intentionally spread out evenly in our Worship Centre, so the sense of togetherness, of God’s people worshipping, raising our voices together, etc. will not be the same as we all have been longing for.
• Other factors which will impact our Sunday services include checking everyone entering the building as per government requirements, recording name and contact information of each attended in case of any incident of COVID, flow of traffic in the building (social distancing in hallways?), washrooms needing to be sanitized, etc.
• While some of these realities can be quite discouraging, we have not lost hope that there is a way we can gather together, as soon as allowed. It may look and feel very different for many months to come. Our hope is not in our plans, nor is it ruined by government restrictions, but is in Jesus Christ. God is still on His throne, none of this is a surprise to Him, and He is working all things out for our good and His glory, as He continues to care for His children and grow His church!

CHURCH PLANTING UPDATE

St. Thomas

• Please continue to pray for Redemption St. Thomas. By God’s grace, this healthy and Biblical church has a wonderful staff and elders, and a growing and vibrant ministry. They continue to do well during this shutdown, providing online worship and preaching and shepherding their people with all the restrictions.
• Having a beautiful 700 seat Worship Centre and a congregation of around 270, they should be able to start-up in a more effective manner than we can.
• Please continue to pray for the leadership and people of RBC St. Thomas as they work toward financial independence, hopefully this year or next.

Sibiu, Romania

• Our new partner church in Sibiu, Romania (a GCC church plant) is doing well in this season. Please continue to pray for Pastor Betuel, his wife Sanda, and their children, as well as their elders and congregation.
• We are very thankful to be in a partnership with this growing church as they pursue their gospel mission.

Red Deer, Alberta

• Plans are still going forward to plant a GCC church in Red Deer, Alberta, although it is on hold due to COVID-19.
• Please continue to pray for Pastor Chris Girvan, his family, and core group as they are in the early stages of building a core group.

Melbourne

• As we have communicated in the past six months, our church plant in Melbourne Australia has shut down.
• All ministry has ceased at this point and the people in the core group have found new churches to be a part of.
• A new Melbourne street evangelism ministry has begun from this church and that continues to grow and thrive, so we are thankful to God for this.
• Pastor Adrian is transitioning to other work, one being Biblical counselling. He is a certified Biblical Counselor (ACBC certification) and sits on the boards of Biblical Counselling Australia and Biblical Counseling Coalition.
• Adrian has also been given a scholarship (from another ministry) to start a PhD in Biblical Counselling.

FINANCIAL UPDATE

• Our year-to-date giving is tracking on par to our revised budget. Our donations vary greatly week to week, but we are thankful that our expenses are somewhat reduced in this season of shutdown.
• We are very thankful to God for allowing us to be in the financial position we are in. By the grace of God,
  • We have no debt. He stopped us from building (we would have a $3-4 million mortgage)
  • We will be able to pay for our recent roof replacement without borrowing (cost of about $280,000)
  • We have been able to meet all our financial obligations and keep all our permanent staff employed
  • We have maintained a healthy bank account balance, which is necessary due to the weekly swings in donations and expenses.
• We are also expecting the final payment this summer from the sale of our land on Colonel Talbot. This $1.5M will go into an account to help fund our commitment to Redemption St. Thomas for 2020/21, as well as our phase 1 renovation of our facility to give us a lobby and more classrooms (if approved in the next 6-12 months).
• Copies of our accountant reviewed 2019 financial statements will be distributed to members prior to the AGM. If you would like a copy, please contact kplantt@rbclondon.ca.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING (AGM)

• Our first AGM as a corporation in the province of Ontario is scheduled for June 14 at 6:00pm.
• If you are a member at Redemption Bible Chapel, you should have received an email with information to join the online meeting.
• This will be more of a “business” meeting with a set agenda. There will not be the same open-forum Q&A time.
• If you have a question you would like to ask our elders, send it before the meeting to elders@rbclondon.ca.

FACILITY UPDATE

• Our roof replacement is complete! As mentioned, we are thankful that God provided the funds to pay for this “must do” project. We can say “goodbye” to leaks!
• We presented plans early this year for a possible renovation that would include converting the gym to two floors of classrooms and opening up the space at the back of our building, where you all enter every Sunday, to create a large lobby for gathering and fellowship.
• This project would cost us approximately $1.5M.
• Due to the pandemic shut down, these plans are currently on hold. However, this renovation is not off the table, and we would love to hear any thoughts from you. You can see the plans on our website at rbclondon.ca/facility.
• Please submit any comments, concerns, or suggestions regarding our facility to the staff or elders via email.

STAFF UPDATE

• We are excited to announce that Filomena Wood will be joining our staff team on March 30, in a new part-time position as Financial Lead. Filomena, her husband Chris, and their two kids have been attending Redemption for almost 10 years, and they both serve in a variety of areas. Filomena has training and experience in a variety of business roles and bookkeeping, so we are eager to have her join our team. Please join us in congratulating Filomena on her new role as we seek to consolidate various financial tasks. Part of Fil’s new role will be taking over our bookkeeping from Roy Oldham. We are very thankful to God for Roy’s steady and trustworthy service over many years and want to thank him for his faithful service as our bookkeeper.
• We continue our search to fill the roles of Kids Ministry Director, and Director (or Pastor) of Discipleship. It’s important that we hire the right person, who God would have for us, for both roles. We are trusting in God’s sovereignty in this, while we continue our search. Our leadership team is looking at some variations with these two roles. For example, is there a chance to combine them in some way or adjust these roles slightly as well as some existing roles, to help figure out any different ways we could hire to meet our ministry needs? No decisions have been made, just some creative assessment and exploration.

SOUL CARE MINISTRY

• We are thankful to God for the 160+ people who came to our Biblical Counselling Training weekends, taught by Ken Gentzler. God worked wondrously through Ken, and this set the stage for us to get many of our people trained up in Biblical Counselling.
• Coming out of these two weekends, we have had over 50 people express an interest in further training – praise God!
• We had two conference calls in March with those interested in pursuing training, and coming out of that, many are proceeding with core training over the next 8 months providing a solid and Biblical foundation to Biblical counselling.
• Our hope is that we will have dozens with this foundational training, and at least a dozen or so people proceeding all the way through to full certification with ACBC (Association of Certified Biblical Counsellors), enabling us to have a vibrant Soul Care Ministry at Redemption within 1-2 years.

FINANCIAL UPDATE

• Our year-to-date giving is falling behind budget by about $50,000. This is not unusual for this time of year, and we are fully trusting in God that we will be able to catch up later in the year.
• However, we would encourage and remind our people to put God first in their finances. Please give regularly and generously, and if you are not currently giving, we would encourage you to get set up for online giving. This allows you to continue with donations if you have to miss a service, or if services are ever cancelled. Please contact Karen at kplantt@redemptionlondon.ca to get set up.
• Copies of our financial statements for the past 5 years are available at our Welcome Desk. If you would like a copy, please stop by and ask for one, or you can contact our office.
• Redemption completed the incorporation documents in the fall, so 2020 is our first year as an incorporation.
• We will have our first Annual General Meeting (AGM) on June 14, so please mark this date on your calendar. This will be a similar format to our Town Hall meetings except with a little more detailed presentation of our finances.

FACILITY UPDATE

• We have looked at the long-term possible changes to this building to allow us to continue to do ministry here. We saw two phases in this. Phase 2 would be to add a full-size gym, along with some classrooms and offices, to the back of the building. The new gym would function as our lobby/gathering place on Sundays. Due to cost, we have no plans to proceed with Phase 2 at this time, and we are uncertain if we will need the space.
• Phase 1 addresses our crucial need which is for a proper gathering place – a lobby – since our current building is lacking one. We also need more classrooms (priority #2) and a few more offices (which phase 1 won’t address).
• Phase 1 would open up the lower floor, at the back entrance to our building to be our new lobby. This would double as space for various ministry events, other banquets or dinners, teaching events, etc. We would lose three classrooms; however, the gym would be converted into two floors providing an additional five classrooms. Phase 1 does not address our needs for office space; however, this is not as crucial as our need for a gathering place or classrooms. In addition, the extra classrooms may give us some flexibility to potentially use one classroom upstairs as office space if needed down the road.
• We put more detailed work (and cost) into this project up front, to examine every issue and reduce our risk.
• We proceeded with having one company price out our Phase 1 work, so that we would have a sense of the approximate cost of doing Phase 1. Their quote came back at $1.32M. This does not include the cost to remove the remaining asbestos in the lower level, which we believe will cost about $250,000.
• With the $1.5M to come from the sale of our land, we believe Phase 1 is likely financially doable. We would get a few more quotes from other contractors if we decide to proceed and would look at contracting it ourselves.
• Please visit our facility page on our website for more details, and to see the floor plans – www.rbclondon.ca/facility/
• We are taking this time to seek input and pray as a congregation if this is what the Lord would have us do. We will look to make a go/no go decision sometime in the coming months. If it is a go – we would not commit to anything until we get the cash in hand from our land sale in August, so the earliest the work could start is in the fall.
• Please submit any comments, concerns, or suggestions to the staff or elders, via email or in person.

Note: the following Church Planting Update was going to first be given as a Family Chat in our services on March 15. Due to the cancellation of services during the COVID-19 pandemic, we were not able to give that update in person, but wanted to get this information to you, rather than wait until services are back.

CHURCH PLANTING UPDATE

St. Thomas

• We continue to thank God for His work in St. Thomas. Attendance is continuing to increase and averaging around 270 a week.
• They are also continuing to move toward financial independence, with giving steadily increasing. We anticipate we will still need to give them some support this year, which will be over and above our committed 3% to church planting, but this was planned, and we do it with a joyful heart as we see the kingdom work being done.
• Please continue to pray for their various ministries. Kids Ministry is busting at the seams and in need of more volunteers, small groups have started up, and we hope later this year to start up their youth ministry as well.

Sibiu, Romania

• We are excited to announce a new partnership with a church plant (GCC member church) in Sibiu, Romania. At the Senior Pastor retreat in January, Norm and Cindy had a God-ordained meeting with pastor Betuel Vararu, and his wife Sanda. Betuel has a BA and MA from a seminary in Romania, and his DMin from Midwest Baptist Seminary in the US. They started this church plant about a year ago, as just the two of them.
• Betuel and Sanda hardly knew anyone, but just started reaching out to neighbours and strangers. They soon had a Bible study started, and now, less than a year from starting that core group, they are meeting every week as a church with about 60 people joining them. They rent a building seven days a week, which they do services and mid-week ministries in.
• Betuel and Sanda have come very highly recommended by several within GCC, but they have very little financial support. It seems their meeting with Norm was a miraculous working of God to partner with them, and this has been affirmed by several others who we respect within GCC.
• They are supported enough by their own offerings to get through the year, but Betuel has not been taking a full salary, and things are tight. Betuel’s heart for a partner church is someone that could come along side and mentor and train them, but they also require about $23,000 to meet their full salary and church needs.
• With us no longer being committed to Melbourne, this has freed up funds to be able to partner with this plant in Romania, as well as other church plants.

Red Deer, Alberta

• God has provided a church planter for a new work in Western Canada. Chris Girvan has been commissioned by Redemption Calgary North to plant a church in Red Deer, Alberta (between Edmonton and Calgary).
• Chris officially began on March 1 and has already begun making contacts and tilling the ground.
• GCC Canada as well as all the western churches have committed support, and we are excited to come alongside and help supplement with approximately $12,000 to meet the financial need in 2020 and $21,000 in 2021.
• Please be praying for this very new (new to us, but not to God) work that God is doing.

Belize

• God gave us a contact in Belize 3 years ago, when Norm and Jon were there with other GCC Senior Pastors conducting several pastor’s conferences. Out of the hundred plus pastors or potential church planters they met, one man stood out the most – Pedro.
• Pedro is the principle of a residential Christian high school, an experienced leader, and a godly man and pastor. He has been pastoring the students and many of their families.
• Through the tragedy of the death of one of their recent graduates, God opened a door for Pedro to share the gospel with the parents, who got saved. They started a bible study with Pedro to grow. This has led to several families meeting with him to learn and that group moved to a Sunday morning.
• The past two summers, we have sent mission teams to Belize to help build a structure for this small church to meet in.
• Pedro has asked us to help provide some training for him and his small church, and he has not asked, but we think he can use some funds to help this new church. We will be exploring what sort of support as well as training we may be able to provide during 2020 to help this wonderful man and his new church.

FINANCIAL UPDATE

Note: Our Financial Statements for the past five years are available at our Welcome Desk, to anyone who wants a copy. You can also pick up a copy of the summarized budget for the current year.

2019 Year-End Financial Summary

• We are very thankful to God for the generous donations of our people. Even with the decline in attendance due to the St. Thomas replant and Saturday cancellation, our financial needs were met – praise God.
• We finished the year in a good financial position. God provided $1,867,000 to our general fund, which was about $40,000 over our budget need. We have no mortgage and no long-term debt, so are in a good place financially.
• Our 2019 expenses were under budget by about $88,000 which is good, however, that does not include the money we invested in the St. Thomas re-plant.
• We received $500,000 from York Developments in 2018, as part of the sale of our land (this is not included in our general fund donations). We put that in a short-term GIC and earned $11,000 in 2019 on that investment. We will receive the final payment for the sale of our land of $1.5M, in August of 2020.
• We gave RBC St. Thomas $200,000 in the summer/fall of 2019 to update their facility. Much of the work was supplemented by volunteers and some donated products and services, so much was done beyond the value of $200,000. We also gave them $25,000 in December, to ensure they would make budget for year end. We anticipate needing to supplement their budget this year (and likely next year). The elders have approved a maximum of $200,000 more to do this in 2020/21, if needed. These funds are coming out of the sale of our land.

2020 Budget Summary

• For the first time in 20 years, we have reduced our budget rather than increasing it. This is simply a step to be proactive in assuming donations may be less in 2020, due to the 150-200 who left because we cancelled Saturday services (we assumed this would happen when we made this decision), and the over 100 who transitioned to our re-plant in St. Thomas. Because of this anticipated decline, we have adopted a budget for 2020 which is 1% less than our 2019 budget. This will still be a stretch budget for us, so we would ask you to pray with us about this and to give generously in 2020.
• If you would like a copy of our summarized budget, we will have some at our welcome desk over the next few weeks, or you can contact our office.
• This fall, we were approved as an incorporation in the province of Ontario. Since we are now incorporated, this adds a bit more process and internal requirements, and will require an annual financial audit, rather than the financial review we used to do. This will increase our costs, due to the audit, by about $10,000. However, the cost and extra requirements are more than offset by the solid financial protection this incorporation provides for our membership, staff, and elders, and is the wise and prudent thing to do.

FACILITY UPDATE

• We have looked at the long-term possible changes to this building to allow us to continue to do ministry here. We saw two phases in this. Phase 2 would be to add a full-size gym, along with some classrooms and offices, to the back of the building. The new gym would function as our lobby/gathering place on Sundays. Due to cost, we have no plans to proceed with Phase 2 at this time, and we are uncertain if we will need the space.
• Phase 1 addresses our crucial need which is for a proper gathering place – a lobby – since our current building is lacking one. We also need more classrooms (priority #2) and a few more offices (which phase 1 won’t address).
• Phase 1 would open up the lower floor, at the back entrance to our building to be our new lobby. This would double as space for various ministry events, other banquets or dinners, teaching events, etc. We would lose three classrooms; however, the gym would be converted into two floors providing an additional five classrooms. Phase 1 does not address our needs for office space; however, this is not as crucial as our need for a gathering place or classrooms. In addition, the extra classrooms may give us some flexibility to potentially use one classroom upstairs as office space if needed down the road.
• We put more detailed work (and cost) into this project up front, to examine every issue and reduce our risk.
• We proceeded with having one company price out our Phase 1 work, so that we would have a sense of the approximate cost of doing Phase 1. Their quote came back at $1.32M. This does not include the cost to remove the remaining asbestos in the lower level, which we believe will cost about $250,000.
• With the $1.5M to come from the sale of our land, we believe Phase 1 is financially doable. We would get a few more quotes from other contractors if we decide to proceed and would look at contracting it ourselves.
• Please visit our facility page on our website for more details, and to see the floor plans.
• Our next step is to take the next three to four months to interact and pray about this as a congregation. We will look to make a go/no go decision sometime in the spring. If it is a go – we would not commit to anything until we get the cash in hand from our land sale in August, so the earliest the work could start is in the fall.

STAFF UPDATE

• We are prayerfully considering who God would have to fill the role of Kids Ministry Director. Julie continues to provide interim leadership in this ministry in a capable manner, while we recruit to fill this vacancy.  
• We continue to search for a Pastor of Discipleship. We planned to hire another pastor in this area and back-fill Jason so we could move him into a focus on family ministries (marriage and parenting) for families in general.  
• For now, we are addressing the needs in the area of discipleship in more creative ways and are very excited about what God is doing with these efforts. We think this will greatly impact our church.
  • We are working on a trial of having some small groups be more intensely focused on discipleship. Scott Vanderform, one of our small group leaders, is leading this effort, starting with his own group (under Jason’s overall leadership). We are hoping to expand this beyond Scott’s group in 2021. 
  • We are running two training weekends in February, taught by Ken Gentzler, on an introduction to Biblical Counselling. Ken is a highly experienced biblical counsellor and teacher. We hope that out of this, many will pursue further training through an organization called ACBC, perhaps some working towards being a certified Biblical Counsellor. If you have any interest in Biblical counselling, please come out to these weekends (February 14-15 and February 28-29).

CHURCH PLANTING UPDATE

St. Thomas

We are very thankful to God for the work He continues to do at RBC St. Thomas. As of year-end, the new name was officially changed, small groups are starting up, Kids Ministry is hitting its stride, worship services are a blessing to all with a rich time in worship and the Word, they have a fully vetted and installed elders team leading the church, and the staff is healthy (although very busy). God continues to draw people as attendance increases regularly and the people are engaged and worshipping, walking, and working for God. Continue to pray for sustained growth, finances, working toward financial independence, and the startup of other ministries in 2020 (youth, men’s, and women’s).

Melbourne, Australia

A difficult, but necessary decision was made in January to shut down the operation of Vertical Church in Melbourne Australia. This decision was recommended by the planting pastor, Adrian, and his core group, in agreement with Norm, as the overseeing elder, and our RBC London elder team. Adrian and his core group have faithfully served God and given their all to launch this new church, but there were a number of factors that worked together to bring us to this hard decision, due to the lack of a reasonable belief that this church could get to a sustainable size. These factors included the very secular and hard soil of Melbourne Australia, the lack of additional cohort churches to partner with us in GCC, the necessity for several moves of location for this young and fragile church (finding viable rental space for a church is very difficult in a city like Melbourne) and each of these moves, although at times brought new people, also caused committed people to drop out due to travel distances. We thank God for the fruit that was produced by God in the nearly two years this church did gospel ministry as lives were touched and God was glorified. Please pray for pastor Adrian as he begins the process of looking for new full-time employment and pray for his core group as they all process this loss and change.