Our Short Story…
City-Wide Redeemer is a new church serving Jesus in and around the communities of North Las Vegas and Paradise.
In September, 2007 two church planters and their families began the full time work of seeing City-Wide Redeemer become a reality. This was a dream already more than a year in the making. At that time the church was without a name, but a vision began to be crystallized for a community of Christians who would pray for, work for, encourage and support a movement of God for the redemption and transformation of the people in every community of Las Vegas and cities like it world-wide.
The means for transformation would simply be the message of the gospel—God’s plan to save sinners and to redeem all of his creation through the death and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus. This is good news.
As we further considered the needs and assets of the city, the vision really began to take shape. We began to envision a city-wide church made up of multiple community-based congregations (and the name of this new church, City-Wide Redeemer [CWR], was born) who would regularly gather for mutual encouragement, prayer, projects of service, activities of recreation and conversation about making sense of how best to apply God’s word to the messes and joys of life. This would give CWR a local face for maximum impact. It would make the gospel real through the relevant proclamation of God’s word, but also through the visible demonstration of his love through rescue to the weak, vulnerable and victimized. Finally, we envisioned a church whose worship styles and membership would reflect the ethnic and cultural diversity already present in each local community.
By late November, 2007, God had begun to draw others to this vision and December 16, 2007 would mark the first Sunday morning worship of City-Wide Redeemer as 29 people gathered in a home in North Las Vegas. Three weeks later we began to worship at Findlay Middle School. On July 6, 2008 we made a move to Goynes Elementary School in Aliante in order to gain some needed space. In 18 short months since we made the move to Goynes we've watched CWR become a group of 100+ people and growing.
November, 2009, saw the formation of CWR’s first missional community. These missional communities number between 20-40 people and exist to give localized expressions of the gospel among neighbors. They meet regularly to consider God's word, pray, share a meal, and to serve the neighborhood. At present there are three of these MC's meeting around the city. The vision is for many more neighborhood missional communities to form throughout the city for local transformation through word and deed ministry.
In February, 2011 we launched our second site, City-Wide Redeemer, Paradise. This congregation, centered just east of the UNLV campus, meets for worship Sunday afternoons.
Where is this story headed? What will God have for City-Wide Redeemer as He marches forward to conquer the hearts of people in this city with His love? Only God knows, but you’re invited to come along and discover it with us.