“Our perspective is that New England is underserved,’’ said Bob Sawyer, director of the Church Planting Center at Christ the King Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Cambridge. “Boston has become a magnet for church plants. It is perceived to be very needy, spiritually…
Within the walls of a traditional New England church that saw its longtime membership diminish and depart in recent years, a new band of faithful is growing quickly.
Redeemer Fellowship Church started 14 months ago with fewer than 20 people — including its pastor, the Rev. Chris Bass, and his wife, Brandi — in the former Phillips Congregational building on Mount Auburn Street. They will celebrate Christmas next weekend with nearly 100 members…
New churches have blossomed in area communities, including Brookline and Newton, over the past year, cultivated as “plantings’’ by large evangelical Christian groups that hope to spread the Bible-based message long associated with churches in the South and Midwest…
“This is an area with a rich religious heritage,’’ Sawyer said. “We are not trying to rescue anyone per se, but rather capture and inspire a new wave of people who have grown up in a way where spirituality has not been part of their upbringing.’’
Sawyer said his Atlanta-based organization, which represents evangelical Presbyterian churches (Mission to North America of the PCA), has been planning urban church plants in New York and Boston since 1994.
Christ the King in Cambridge opened in 1995. In the late 1990s it started three Brazilian churches in Boston, and in 2006 gathered an English-speaking congregation in Dorchester.
Subscribe to Free “Top 10 Stories” Email
Get the top 10 stories from The Aquila Report in your inbox every Tuesday morning.