Neighborhood-Driven Evangelism

In Kansas City’s urban Waldo neighborhood, ministry is all about who you know, including the manager at one church member’s local Blockbuster Video store.

“We had (a church member) who would go to the Blockbuster Video store quite often and got to know a manager there,” said Pastor Ryan Pelton of the Christian Reformed Home Missions-backed New City Church plant.

“When the manager asked him, ‘What’s going on this weekend?’ he told him that our church was having our first service and would he be interested in coming?”

The manager, Jeremy, not only wanted to come to church but also had a short walk getting there: he lived right across the street.

“Jeremy was a practicing Wiccan, but he and his wife, who had become a Christian in secret recently, and their five children came for weeks and weeks,” said Pelton. “After a few months, Jeremy came to Christ, and so did three of his five kids. I baptized them all and it was like a household baptism in Acts.”

New City’s first service was held in September of 2010. Today the church serves 130 adults, 35 children, and “lots of babies in bellies.”

Pelton, the father of two young boys, calls his adopted town “neighborhood-driven.”

“Waldo is over a hundred years old,” he said. “It’s multi-generational and multi-ethnic. We have families, retired people, single professionals who are African-American, white, Asian, Hispanic. Waldo is a very interesting place to live and do ministry.”

Fifty percent of New City members live within five minutes of the church. “One third are churched, one third are (young) Christians, and one third are what we call skeptical/nominal. We’ve baptized about a dozen people. I’m excited because it’s happening through relationships, through praying for people and sharing the Gospel.”