New church planted in Woodbury

Talk about it

A new church that first started by meeting at Central Park is officially launching in a new location this month.

Although Christ Redeemer Church has been meeting every Sunday morning at Footprints Academy for more than a year, lead pastor Brett Louis said the official grand opening will be March 25.

The church was originally planted in Woodbury under the name Bethlehem Baptist Church. The church branched out to Woodbury from downtown Minneapolis since many members were commuting from Woodbury and the east metro. Louis said it seemed like the right time to plant a local church.

The meetings began with a small group of people at Central Park and now Christ Redeemer has more than 140 members, he added.

The church will continue to have weekly service and Sunday morning classes at Footprints Academy for the foreseeable future, Louis said.

Emphasizing the church’s commitment to the Bible, he said the church is also vying to become a community within Woodbury.

“We believe the Bible is our authority and the Bible is sufficient. It’s all we need for salvation,” Louis said, adding, “I think our church probably does things a little differently than some of the churches here. It just seemed to be a good fit for us.”

He explained that many Christian churches will not hold tightly to the Bible and not see it as the word of God, or not sufficient enough.

Other churches might see it as a self-help manual, he said, and use it to find good morals to live by.

“The purpose of Christianity is not just to make these moralistic people, the purpose of the Bible is to reveal that God has sent us a savior,” Louis said.

Although the church was planted 17 months ago, Louis said official public launch was postponed until people found out about it by word of mouth first.

Leaders of the church then began education classes and a nursery late last year, which utilize classroom space at Footprints Academy.

“We just needed time to get people and just enough momentum to have those people in place before we let the community know that we’re there,” he said.

Bethlehem Baptist Church has planted other churches in Minneapolis, Elk River, as well as campuses in the north metro as well as the south, while Woodbury’s will be the first in the east metro.

Louis said Christ Redeemer doesn’t have a goal of how many members they want to join and said he’s looking forward to connecting with other pastors in the community.

Grand opening will be held Sunday, March 25 at Footprints Academy. Education classes start at 9 a.m., followed by service at 10:30 a.m.

Tags: area news, news, woodbury