It’s just about dusk at Heritage Glen apartments in the Cincinnati suburb of Fairfield. As the sun drops from sight, the lower light begins to mask some of the harsher realities of this low-income apartment complex. A handful of volunteers from Red Door Church, a Southern Baptist church plant in Cincinnati, eagerly play with, laugh with and generally corral neighborhood kids.
The apartment complex is only about 25 miles from the posh community of Indian Hill, where Cincinnati’s elite live. Yet Heritage Glen seems a thousand miles away.
But more to the point for church planter Joshua Lenon, it’s even farther away from heaven. For the past two years, Red Door, started by Lenon in 2010, has pointed people in the apartment complex to Jesus by trying to close that distance.
“We can provide just a glimpse of heaven on earth,” Lenon said. “We can paint a picture of God’s future for these people.”
Today that means throwing a block party for neighborhood families. In the past, it has meant everything from redoing the complex’s playground to providing Thanksgiving meals for its residents.
And much of that ministry is thanks to the faithful gifts of Southern Baptists. “Flat out, we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing without the support of the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and the North American Mission Board,” Lenon said.
The church’s passionate commitment to bringing heaven to earth is borne out of a deeply held conviction about the Bible’s most famous prayer: the Lord’s Prayer, found in Matthew 6.
Lenon came to this realization in the midst of a particularly tough time in his life. Discouraged and saddened by a bad experience on staff at a large church, 30-year-old Lenon and his wife, Tiffany, left the ministry and began a time of deep soul-searching.
“The Lord’s Prayer became really significant for me,” he said. “I prayed it repeatedly. I thought about it constantly. For me, it was hitting the reset button. I knew this was going to be a critically important thing for me — to wrap my mind around this prayer.”
Late one night he came across a life-altering realization — the Christian life isn’t just about getting people into heaven; it is also about bringing heaven to earth.
Realizing this was the kind of truth that should incubate in community, he called up some friends near Cincinnati, where he is from, to see if anyone would want to study the truth together. To his surprise, many did. Thirty-five people showed up for a whiteboard session to discuss what it would be like if they spent their lives bringing heaven to earth.
Even after the group started meeting monthly, Lenon wasn’t ready to call what was forming a “church.” But God soon made the word unavoidable. Lenon and his wife moved back to Cincinnati with no money, no jobs and the conviction that God wanted them to spend their lives “bringing heaven to earth.”
For the next year, Lenon and the others who were joining him (his core team) made plans to start a church in suburban Cincinnati. He named the new church Red Door, which had a creative double meaning. In cultures around the world, red doors represent places of refuge and safety. Lenon said the tradition goes all the way back to the Exodus, when the Israelites painted the doors of their homes with the blood of an unblemished lamb.
Now, a year and a half after the church officially launched in September 2010, worship attendance is starting to climb past 100 on Sunday mornings. Five people have been baptized in the past year.
The help of other Southern Baptists has been crucial to what God has done through Red Door. A strong partnership with a local Southern Baptist association and nearby Lakota Hills Baptist Church, West Chester Township, has provided a breath of fresh air for the church.
“In five years, we’d like to have two churches,” he said. “Not a satellite but another pastor leading a community of people like the Red Door, sharing resources and sharing a vision.”
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