http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/june/15.20.html
by Tim Stafford (CT, 5 Jun 2009)
A CT article about how Ps Tim Keller founded Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York in 1989 with 15 members, and how God has blessed the church to grow to a thriving 5,000 average attendance 20 years later.
When Tim Keller came to Manhattan in 1989, New York City had a well-deserved reputation as a snarling, scary place. Violent crime, drug dealing, and other urban pathologies had weakened or chased off many of the faithful. While a barely perceptible renewal was under way, it seemed as if the few remaining orthodox Protestants were huddled together in historic buildings. All of Keller’s formal pastoral experience had happened in a small, blue-collar town in Virginia.
Yet today, almost 20 years later, he steps onstage before a packed auditorium at Hunter College on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. His church, Redeemer Presbyterian, has five crowded Sunday services in three rented locations—Keller dashes between them—with an average total attendance of 5,000. The service at Hunter is the largest, the “tourist service.” (For many years, Redeemer deliberately avoided publicity, but word has spread lately, and Keller estimates that hundreds of out-of-towners show up each Sunday.) Well over 2,000 people—mainly young whites and Asians you would expect to be sleeping off a late Saturday night—have come to this morning’s service.
