NAMB missionary Josh Lenon preaches at Red Door Church, a one-year-old church plant that operates out of The Underground, a state-of-the-art club concert venue in Cincinnati. The church runs about 100 each weekend.
Members of Red Door Church take the elements of the Lord’s Supper.
In the fall of 2010, that mission became the driving force behind the start of a new church in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio—called the Red Door Church. The name has a double meaning. In cultures around the world, red doors represent places of refuge and safety. Lenon says the tradition goes all the way back to the Exodus, where the Israelites painted the doors of their homes with the blood of an unblemished lamb. Everyone behind that door was safe. Today, Lenon says, Jesus is the red door behind which all can find safety.
By trying to “bring heaven to earth” and giving people a glimpse of how God wants to work in their lives, the Red Door Church points people to Jesus.
Rayshawn George had been raised in church but felt ostracized from the church and his family when he began to struggle with homosexuality. George says that Lenon and the others at the church have always been willing to listen and show their love to him in practical ways—like helping him out when his car broke down last year. While he hasn’t made a decision for Christ yet, he’s closer than he has ever been to doing so.
“The church has been like family to me,” George says. “When I need someone to talk with, they’ve been here for me.”
Today worship attendance is climbing to more than 100 most Sunday mornings—many of those people are re-connecting with church after a time away. Five people have been baptized in the past year.
Just a year and a half into the life of the Red Door, Lenon is planning future church plants with a similar vision of bringing heaven to earth. OM
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Tobin Perry is online editor of On Mission.
30 Spring 2012 •
onmission.com
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