church planting residency
About the
Residency
We believe effective church planting residencies are critical to planting healthy, gospel-centered, missional churches. Many churches desire to be “church-planting churches” but lack the resources or opportunity to do so. Redeemer Network helps our churches become “church-planting churches” by offering an immersive and collaborative residency program.
IMMERSIVE & COLLABORATIVE TRAINING
Our residency is largely about immersion in a church planting environment. Residents will be immersed in the life and leadership of one of our local churches that will best develop/prepare the future planter. Although residents will be immersed in different churches, they will get the opportunity to learn together in community with other Redeemer Network church-planting residents. Here at the Redeemer Network, we take responsibility for developing the resident into a capable, competent, and ready planter within the two-year residency.
DEVELOPMENT
The local church will play a large role in developing the character and testing the calling of the planter. Church planting residents will be given opportunities to observe, participate, lead, and learn alongside church planters who are 3+ years ahead of them in the planting process.
GROWTH
Residents will learn from the past and present experiences of their local church. We place residents within churches based on a similar context or location of the city they are hoping to plant in. The local church will be responsible for developing the resident into a tested, trained, and qualified elder within the two-year residency.
TRAINING
Our residents will collaborate with nine training cohorts to get "cross-trained" over the two years of residency. Our church planting cohorts will help future planters develop biblical paradigms for church planting (year 1) and a variety of skills/competencies needed to plant a church (year 2).
About the process
How we prepare planters
The information below will give you an idea about our framework for preparing planters. Year 1 will look the same for every resident, while Year 2 will be customized to the needs/readiness of each resident based on ongoing assessments.
1 / Foundational Year
Duration: 12 months
Planting a church is hard. We have found that a church planter needs much more than just a vision statement and a list of values to hold on to during the early trials of planting a church. We want to help our residents develop deep biblical convictions for the churches they will plant. We want them to have strong theological foundations for the philosophies of ministry, methodology, practices, and values they will pursue. Year 1 operates in three phases that will force a resident to think critically about what the Bible is calling us to in church planting.
Foundational year timeline overview
PHASE 1:
Church Planting
PHASE 2:
& Strengthening
PHASE 3:
2 / Finishing Year
Duration: 10 months + Assessment
Every church planter is unique. We want to dig into each resident’s gifting, skills, strengths, and weaknesses and help sharpen the skills needed to plant a gospel-centered, missional church successfully. To this end, Year 2 is divided into three phases to hone the church planting skills.
- Personal Health & Self Care: Spiritual, Emotional, Physical, Financial Health
- Family & Marriage
- Missional Leadership
- Leading Teams: Sharing Leadership, Hiring/Leading a Staff, Creating Healthy Team Culture, etc.
- Organizational Leadership: Structures, Processes, Finances, Fundraising, Legality, etc.
- Pastoral Leadership: Gospel Shepherding, Preaching, Teaching, Counseling, etc.
- Developing Deacons & Elders
- Gatherings & Sunday Liturgy
- Discipleship and Gospel Communities
- Seeking Justice & Engaging the Marginalized in Your City
- Growing in Diversity & Generosity
PHASE 1:
PHASE 2:
PHASE 3:
HUB Training
In addition to the training outlined above, Redeemer provides four HUB trainings for our residents. Each HUB is a 2-3 day in-person training with intensive style teaching.
HUB 1
HUB 2
HUB 3
HUB 4
CHURCH PLANTING RESIDENTS
McKenzie Buchanan
2023 / 2024 Resident
McKenzie “Mack” Buchanan lives in Amarillo, TX with his wife Moriah, and his daughters Clementine and Birdy-Ruth. He serves as the Director of Redeemer College Mission and as a Deacon over the Connections ministries at Redeemer Christian Church. Mack and Moriah are devout foodies, fans of gardening and chickens, and love talking philosophy and theology over some good coffee. They are deeply interested in Teaching, Training, Making Disciples, growing leaders, and Mobilizing the church to go and grow!
Josh Clark
2023 / 2024 Resident
After 20+ years of working for HEB Grocery, God has called our family to begin Gospel work in Buda, TX. What began as a simple heart to serve locally quickly grew into a passion to spread the Gospel full time. Shortly after completing a Theology degree at Liberty University, God began to communicate through others that Church Planting was what He had planned. Through fasting, prayer and wise counsel we have begun to walk in obedience towards Church Planting.
Steven Lewis
2023 / 2024 Resident
I am currently blessed to serve as the Teaching Pastor at the Anchor Church El Paso. I am married to the beautiful Cynthia Lewis!
Zach Tharp
2023 / 2024 Resident
Zach is currently a Church Planting Resident at Redeemer Brady. He is married to Kimbra and they have two daughters. Zach has previously served as a Lead Pastor, Outreach Pastor, and Associate/Youth Pastor. He has a background in sports broadcasting and is a veteran of the United States Navy. He hopes to plant Redeemer Brownwood sometime in 2024.
Dawson Tolley
2023 / 2024 Resident
I was born and raised in Amarillo, Texas. I am married to Melissa and we have one daughter, Jane. After living in Houston for two years, we received the call to move back to our hometown and help plant Citylight in East Amarillo. I currently serve as the Sunday Morning & Connections Resident and am excited to be a part of gospel renewal in Amarillo!
McKenzie Buchanan
Josh Clark
Steven Lewis
Zach Tharp
Dawson Tolley
Chris Cummings
Ryan Perkins
Nathan Young
Brian Carroll
JR Favela
Jeremy Hare
Justin Smith
Ivan Valdez
James Vallee
Chris Vidaurre
Chris Cummings
2022 / 2023 Resident
My name is Chris Cummings and my wife Kristyn and I are from Galveston, Texas. We have four incredible kids that we’ve adopted through Foster Care and believe that God is calling us to plant a healthy church in Tucson, Arizona that plants healthy churches all across the southwest region of the United States.
Ryan Perkins
2022 / 2023 Resident
I am originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, but my wife and I recently moved to Lubbock, Texas for the church planting residency. We will be planting alongside Justin Smith and his family in Austin in January 2023.
Nathan Young
2022 / 2023 Resident
Nathan Young
2022 / 2023 Resident
Brian Carroll
2021 / 2022 Resident
My name is Brian and my wife Kirstie and I currently live in San Angelo, Texas. We are humbled that the Lord has called us to co-plant Redeemer San Angelo, and are excited to serve God through the local church in West Texas
JR Favela
2021 / 2022 Resident
Born and raised in Amarillo, Texas but left from 2016-2020 to live in Philadelphia, PA where I met my wife, did a pastoral residency with an Citylight Church (fellow member of A29), and receive my MDiv. from Westminster Theological Seminary. Now, we have returned back to Amarillo, Tx to do a church planting residency with Redeemer Christian Church and replant a church on the East side of Amarillo.
Jeremy Hare
2021 / 2022 Resident
I'm from Wichita Falls, TX and I'm doing my residency with Redeemer Round Rock. My family and I feel led by God to join others to plant a church in Hutto, TX.
Justin Smith
2021 / 2022 Resident
I am from Arkadelphia, Arkansas. My wife, Rebecca and I currently live in Lubbock, Texas, with our two boys Shepherd and Jude. I'm doing the residency at Redeemer Lubbock and our planting location is TBD. (We are hoping to know by August)
Ivan Valdez
2021 / 2022 Resident
My name is Ivan Valdez and I am from Brownsville Tx. I’m currently doing my residency with City Life Church in Austin Tx. We are planning to plant a church in East Austin Tx. There is a huge need in East Austin for solid biblical church plants. Our hope and prayer is to bring the gospel to the people of East Austin for their joy and for the glory of God!
James Vallee
2021 / 2022 Resident
I am from Midland, TX. I am currently the Discipleship Pastor and church planting resident at Redeemer Midland. We are looking to plant a church in Dripping Springs, TX.
Chris Vidaurre
2021 / 2022 Resident
Hello my name is Chris Vidaurre I am a Resident Church Planter at the New Hope Baptist Church in Amarillo. I am originally from the city and I am looking to plant in Amarillo’s Historic San Jacinto district.
Ivan Valdez
2021 / 2022 Resident
My name is Ivan Valdez and I am from Brownsville Tx. I’m currently doing my residency with City Life Church in Austin Tx. We are planning to plant a church in East Austin Tx. There is a huge need in East Austin for solid biblical church plants. Our hope and prayer is to bring the gospel to the people of East Austin for their joy and for the glory of God!