Gospel in Life is privileged to share stories from Redeemer City to City (CTC)—stories of gospel-changed lives and communities (like the one below).
CTC exists to multiply churches and Christian leaders committed to a shared vision for gospel movements in the great cities of the world. Through a worldwide network of regional affiliates, CTC accomplishes this by training, coaching and equipping local leaders and pastors to start and strengthen churches and initiatives that serve the flourishing of their cities. Please pray that God will continue to bring about gospel change through this worldwide network of leaders and trainers. To learn more, visit their website: redeemercitytocity.com.
A university city in Ghana where students live only for themselves. A densely populated neighborhood outside Nairobi with not one gospel-preaching church. A township in Uganda struggling with unemployment, corruption and crime. A community between Pretoria and Johannesburg where many search for security and belonging.
The challenges facing these places differ, but Bernard Twumasi, Dan Gachuki, Lauben Ataho and David Kobedi share the same conviction: their cities need the gospel, and God has called them to bring it.
Earlier this year, these four men joined 24 other church planters at the CTC Africa Intensive, a week-long training intensive designed to prepare leaders to start gospel-centered churches across the continent. Thanks to the generous support of Gospel in Life partners who gave this past GivingTuesday, these church planters (as part of the two cohorts you helped sponsor) received this training.
The training reminded them that the gospel they hope to preach is the gospel they themselves desperately need.
They came expecting to learn about ministry strategy, church planting models, and leadership. They did learn those things. But when asked what affected them most, none of them pointed first to a method or ministry plan. Instead, they spoke about what God had been doing in their own hearts. The training reminded them that the gospel they hope to preach is the gospel they themselves desperately need.
For David, the week was a reminder that before he is a church planter, pastor, or leader, he is a beloved son of God.
“It’s been about recapturing that idea that we are sons,” David said. “We are before we do.”
It was a freeing realization. The pressure to prove himself through ministry success gave way to a renewed confidence in God’s love.
It was the training’s “dogged preoccupation with the gospel” that captivated Dan.
“That’s what we’re hearing. And we’re going deeper and deeper,” Dan said. “So I see this as in many ways a turning point, not because it has introduced me to the gospel, but because it has made the gospel fresh in a way that I think will stay with me for a long time.”
He walked away rejuvenated, eager to help others delight in the gospel as he had during the week.
As soon as Lauben began engaging with the pre-reading material, he felt his heart stir. He saw there was an order of priority he had mixed up. What was of most importance wasn’t at the top of his list.
“The training has really exposed me and especially [made me] aware that I was leaning more on the area of being an agent of renewal, instead of being the object of renewal,” Lauben said. “So, work, ministry, preaching, discipleship, you know, programs—the training has really helped me to see that that has been an idol and I need to be reminded of my identity, who I am in Christ as a son of God, as a child of God, that I am a believer first and foremost. I belong to Jesus, God is my Father, and I need him.”
He’s letting go of the things he’s relied on and holding onto the only one that is his true foundation.
Bernard arrived expecting to learn church planting strategies. Instead, he too was struck by God’s desire to make him an object of gospel renewal before becoming an agent of it.
“For me, I’ve seen this training as a surgery,” Bernard said. “I’ve seen it as God invading my heart. And God really revealing himself to me that sometimes we can do the work of God and forget the God of the work.”
Now he’s resting in knowing that he’s loved by God. He’s accepted. He’s finding the beautiful balance between faithfulness and fruitfulness.
The training did more than encourage these church planters for the work ahead. It also sharpened their vision for what God might do through healthy, gospel-centered churches in their communities.
When asked to imagine their cities five years from now, their answers stretched beyond Sunday services and church attendance. They spoke about restored families, transformed communities, new churches, and people discovering the goodness of God for themselves.
Lauben wants to hear people say that there is now a church “where people can come and their hopes are restored. Families on the brink of breaking up, being restored. To see a church where people say that this church makes ministers, intentional discipleship, intentionally planting more churches.”
Bernard sees a community of lovers of God, people who would cherish the impact of the gospel and allow it to flow into every area and angle of their lives. “I see students coming to know Jesus and even by extension, impacting their world.”
Dan hopes to see “not just our church, but hopefully other churches emerging, other churches coming out of our church, where people can walk in and be sure that on any given Sunday, they will hear the good news about Jesus.”
And David? He said, “God comes in. He reaches the least, the lost, the left out. He welcomes them at the table. They taste the goodness of God at the table. And that goodness overflows into the world. So that could impact anything from marriages to economic standing to corruption in our country. If I were to sum it up, it would be that: for people to taste the goodness of God.”
These church planters are at different stages of their journeys, but they are no longer walking alone. Through continued training, coaching, and fellowship, they remain connected to a community of fellow church planters through CTC Africa, and they’re being equipped not only to plant churches but to stay rooted in the very gospel they hope to proclaim.
And in cities across the continent, they are praying that more people would come to taste the goodness of God.
