RHC Story

Introduction

Good evening, I just want to say thank you for having me this evening in order to tell you a little bit about my story and the of my church Redemption Hill Church. My name is Josh Rosentreter for the last ten years of my life I have had the pleasure of being Brittany Rosentreter’s husband. My wife is God’s greatest gift to me this side of heaven and she wishes that her and our kids could have made it tonight, but we were just traveling this week to see my sister and her family while they are on furlow from their assignment with the IMB. Brittany and I have three kids Judah (6), Vera (4), Simon (3), and a 4th baby due in June. So, we are busy, but very very happy.

RHC Story- Paramount

My wife and I moved to Columbus in 2013. At the time we were not yet married so by God’s Providence she was able to live with her Grandma and I lived with some other young men from church we had agreed to be a part of. We came to the city because a NAMB church plant called Paramount Church had just started and was looking for someone who would intern for free, desired to go to seminary online, and hoped to one day plant a church. That guy, was me. I joined the Paramount team as a zealous 22 year old intent on being trained up and sent out for ministry. At the time I was a part of what used to be called NAMB’s farm system. The idea was that they would bring in young guys like me to help church plants give us $500 a month to live expensive cities and then level up each year and in like 3 years go plant a church. That system is dead, but I did benefit from it for a year. It turns out building church planters is more like cooking BBQ than steaks. A slow low process makes for healthier planter and therefore a healthier church.

I spent 8 years at Paramount Church as a pastor in training. Where I preached, sat in on counseling, led worship, taught Sunday School, led community group, trained leaders, watched my wife grow in her faith and ability to disciple women, build a children’s program, and both of us saw the nitty gritty and not so pretty parts ofl ministry. All of this has served us well as we have labored at our church plant Redemption Hill Church. The best way to make a church planter is nice slow bake in a healthy church. The other ingredient in my case was suffering. During this time my mom died, my wife and I struggled through infertility and a miscarriage, and I worked a night shift at UPS.

As Sending church, Paramount Church, grew and I did as well. In the spring of 2017, I finished seminary, and decided to stay in Columbus to plant another church. At this time though I didn’t know the where in the city I wanted to plant, what the church name would be, or who might join the church planting team. So, I took the next year to determine those things. By 2018, I found a new job so I could work during the day and we adopted our oldest son Judah. We slowly began to lay the ground work for our church plant, and we began to look for a house in our target area. However, no matter how hard we tried we could not get a house, every door continued to close on us until our Send city missionary reached out to my pastors and asked if we would like to live a NAMB house. We had no idea what the next two years would like for the world, 2020 or what it would look like for the Rosentreter’s 2021.

Though the house wasn’t in our target area it was between Paramount Church and where Redemption Hill now meets. We had no idea just how huge of a blessing this would be. We were able to stay rent free in this NAMB housing for two and half years. Typically, this housing is used for only 18 months to help planters transition to a city, but we had some extreme circumstances.

We had planned to start getting boots on the ground in 2020 and our first missions team was a group of college students from Hannibal, MO. They came for their spring break and we were sending them door to door to do surveys in our area. The plan is that they would do the surveys and see if we could get any traction with developing a core team. However, on that Thursday the governor of Ohio announced that all non-essential personal would be working from home because COVID-19. That obviously put a major damper on our summer plans. I continued working as a salesman, we attempted an outdoor Bible Study were we attracted Mormons and a Church of Christ Pastor named Charles who believed he was like a Aquilla and I was like an Apollos and he was going to sent me straight on baptism. Which meant he would bombard me with rhetoric about regenerational baptism (the belief that baptism saves you) which would ruin my Bible Study.

I knocked on 1400 doors in one summer and only had Charles, to show for it. At that time we had two young couples join our team, one from Paramount and one from a friendship I had from college. But, the Lord continued to bless in our outside funding. We were getting no traction from the community, yet God continued to move in people to fund this work. I would spend my evenings making phone calls and zoom calls asking churches, friends, and family to give. So, in 2021 I had a team of 7 if you included my oldest son Judah, a free house, and funding. I had a provisional board of pastors to help advise me through the process and we decided that it would be wise to quit my job as a salesman and give my full attention to the plant. Perhaps with more time and effort we could get this thing going.

So in February of 2021, I had my last day as a Salesman and started full time as a church planter. I had about 10,000 door hangers advertising three informational meetings that we would hold at the community center we now meet in, and huge ice storm came through Columbus. It would be easy to just stay home or maybe take a vacation week between the two jobs. But I was eager, so I skated my way through the westside of Columbus and hung my little doorhangers and just prayed.

During this time we were in the process of adopting our daughter Vera. We had been matched with her birth mom and she was due in March. Then, on Valentine’s day my wife told me that were pregnant! Then three days later Vera was born via an emergency C-section. Her birth mom used a lot different kind of drugs, and Vera was born with the need of a feeding tube and had to be weaned of off Meth. So, we spent 14 days in the NICU holding our shaking baby. I had to drive back and forth between Dayton, where Vera was born, and Columbus because we had our first informational meeting.

While in the hospital I received an email from Jimmy Angel, who heard about our church plant through the Pillar Network. Jimmy is now part-time with our church and is in process of becoming an Elder with us. We reconnected with some old friends, the Heatons, who have two sets of twins so with them we got a worship leader and kids ministry. They brought their parents as well. A doorhanger brought in Steve and LeeAnn Derwent, Steve still serves as our church Treasurer. Another young woman found us online and she used her singleness to work her tail off every Sunday morning to help us set up and tear down. And this group of people became our core team.

So, July, 18 2021 we had our first Sunday morning gathering as Redemption Hill Church. There were 23 people including kids, 25 if you were to count the two pregnant women. One of whom was my wife. It was exciting, but it was really hard. I remember one time looking out in the audience of this little group of people and my wife was holding Vera in one arm, and had my three old in a headlock with the other arm, and she was very pregnant at this time. And I thought, Lord are we gonna make? We were able to fit all of our equipment into the back of Mark Spitzer’s pick up truck, and he drove that truck and loaded it every week for over 2 years. We met in the multipurpose room of the PTCC and used one small room for our “childcare” which was really just a cry room until we got enough volunteers to staff it.

Those were the early days of our church plant. Since that time things had changed. We now have 25 kids in our children’s ministry which is up to three classes, 40 adult members of the church, and we average about 60 people on a Sunday. We bought a trailer and were gifted a Chevy Tahoe to pull it. We still meet in the PTCC, but now our worship service is in the gym and use that multipurpose room for kids. We have baptized 5 adults, and pray for a lot more in the coming years. People in our community finally know who Redemption Hill Church is, we host summer sports camps each year and block parties, we have a summer internship as we attempt to raise up more church planters one day, we have two men training to be elders at our church right now.

The first woman we baptized recently started teaching the Bible to our kid’s class once a month. Another leads our tech team each Sunday, and all of our baptized folks are still members of our church. We have two men become assistant CG leaders in the last month who have never lead a small group before, we have seen people find hope in the Gospel through biblical counseling, overcome financial struggle as church members lent their expertise through financial planning, we average like 4 babies a year, and we on track to becoming self-sustaining and we continue to grow. God has been so good to Redemption Hill Church.

We are still a small group of overwhelmed people trying to reach their community together. But we are not quite as small as we used to be, and we are healthier spiritually today than were three years ago when my wife held my son in a headlock. I don’t think a woman in our church would need to that these days. In fact, a non-member was placed on bed rest while pregnant about a month ago. Before I even knew it happened her small group had organized a meal train and began to care for other physical needs. Our church in many ways is a different place.

I planted an imperfect church. We still need elders and deacons, I preach too long, the slides have typos, the kids are wild, people sleep in when there are scheduled to help set up, we can struggle to get volunteers, especially for outreach events that might be uncomfortable… the list could go on and on. Our story isn’t about an amazing group of people with a great leader. Our story is one in which the glory of God shines bright against the backdrop of our imperfections. We are imperfect, but we love Jesus. My church is like the average Christian. Weak but growing stronger, small but slowly increasing, babes in the faith who are by God’s grace growing into mature and faithful servants of Christ.

As you consider giving to Annie Armstrong you give to church’s like mine, lead by pastors like me. Imperfect, but I do believe faithful. We are faithful to God’s word and God’s people. I am asking you to give to this special offering not be we “need” the funds. I want to encourage to give because you believe in the promise. After Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus says of that confession, Matthew 16:18 “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” God has promised to use his church to evangelize the world and make disciples. God always keeps his promises. Investing in church planting is a sure investment. Even when it’s really hard and you pray, Lord are we gonna make it? God will build his church.