Glossary

Center-city

Center-city references the main business and commercial area of a city.

City Ministry Program (CMP)

The CMP is a strategic urban education for pastors, parachurch ministers, seminary students, church planters and emerging Christian leaders. Taught by a diverse team of practitioners with decades of city pastoral experience, CMP synthesizes robust, theologically informed content with true-to-life projects and actionable instruction to impact the next generation of pastors for metro NY.

Content Team

This team is responsible for developing and carrying out a publishing strategy that equips gospel movements around the world through books, training and other content resources, such as articles, podcasts, videos, and online courses, that foster community and communication among church planters.

Contextualization

See Contextualization Project in Global Resource Initiatives.

Continental Alliance

The Continental Alliance is made up of 22 local organizations working together to see greater gospel impact in the cities of Latin America.

Crete Collective

A new church planting network that exists to establish gospel-driven churches in distressed and neglected Black and Brown communities.

CTC vs. RCTC

"CTC," when it appears alone and not connected to a regional affiliate, refers to the entire worldwide CTC global network or ecosystem. “RCTC" refers to the global organization headquartered in New York City.

CTC Latino

The CTC Latino Initiative seeks to connect, catalyze and cultivate Hispanic-led, gospel-centered churches by planting networks that seek to advance gospel movements in cities of North America and the Caribbean (Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico

DNA

DNA is a set of instructions deep within the cells of an organism that directs how it develops, grows and self-replicates. At the core of CTC’s ministry is orthodox evangelical theology—the classic doctrines of the biblical gospel. We want our doctrine to act as a control and driver of our ministry. We ask, “How should this unchanging gospel doctrine be communicated and embodied in a specific great global city in this day and age?” Our answers to this question are the DNA that enables us to develop ministry expressions that are not only consistent with our doctrinal commitments but that fit our time, place and culture.

Ecosystem

A gospel ecosystem is an organic system of relationships fostered by adaptive structures and collaboration that, when blessed by the Lord, can give birth to a movement of the gospel across a particular time and place. The ecosystem that the Holy Spirit uses to produce a gospel city movement consists of three key elements: 1. Contextualized communication and embodiment of the gospel 2. Several denominationally and traditionally diverse church multiplication movements that produce new and growing churches 3. A complex set of specialty ministries, institutions, networks and relationships all stimulating and sustaining the churches.

EMPOWER Initiative

A collaboration of more than 20 African American denominational and network leaders working together to plant churches in North American cities.

The GWFI, a ministry of RCTC, is committed to helping pastors and ministry leaders equip their people to do God’s work in the world. They:

︎︎︎ Equip ministry leaders to develop faith and work ministry within their current ministry context through training and resources.

︎︎︎ Connect collaborative teams of faith and work catalysts, trainers and coaches in major cities.

︎︎︎ Mobilize the people of the church to work to God’s glory in every vocation and industry through a variety of programs.

Gospel City Network (GCN)

GCN, the CTC-related city network in Kuala Lumpur, is a group of Christian leaders that encourages and equips new and existing churches to be vibrant in health, theology and mission, resulting in reproducing gospel-centered churches.

Gospel in the City

Gospel in the City is a two-day learning experience that exposes urban ministry leaders to a vision about the centrality of the gospel—a theological and practical understanding of how the gospel shapes all of life from the heart, to a church and to a city.

Gotham Fellowship

Through this nine-month learning community, participants grow in their understanding of God’s redemptive work by applying theology, spiritual practices and cultural renewal to their work, their relationships and their city.

Gulf Training Center

A seminary in Dubai hosted by Redeemer Church Dubai, RCTC’s key partner in Dubai and the regi

Hub City Strategy

Since its founding, RCTC’s focus has always been to see the gospel impact the cities of the globe. Over the last 20 years, we have served cities by helping local leaders plant churches, start and strengthen church planting networks and develop ministries to serve the city. As more cities grow in their opportunities and influence, we want to help them mature and increase their impact, thus enabling them to become hub or resource cities. This initiative is called the Hub City Strategy. Over time, these hubs will take more responsibility to mature the church planting networks, expand the resourcing of church plants and launch initiatives for the good of the hub city and the principal cities in its region. Over the next 10 years, through this Hub City Strategy, we seek to activate about 60 cities classified by three categories: global hubs, resource cities and strategic cities.

Immersion

The Immersion training program, happening in South Asia and Africa, focuses deeply on gospel renewal: individually, corporately and city-wide.

Incubator

Incubator is CTC’s key two-year program delivered through local trainers to serve, train and develop urban church planters.

Intensive

The Intensive is a multi-week program designed to prepare urban church planters by exposing them to urban church planting concepts, theological resources, leadership modules and other church planting principles.

Langham Preaching

Langham Preaching partners with national leaders to nurture indigenous biblical preaching movements for pastors and lay preachers all around the world.

Leaders Impacted

Ministry or lay leaders who have attended a RCTC or CTC conference or event that exposes attendees to some aspect(s) of the CTC vision and components of gospel ministry.

Leaders Trained

Church planters, pastors, ministry leaders, trainers and coaches who have participated in one of RCTC and CTC’s multiple training programs.

Learning Community

A Learning Community is a one-year training program for emerging urban church planters who are one-to-two years out from planting new congregations.

MENA

Middle East and North Africa.

Network

A network is formed when leaders from the same area (city, region or even country) develop relationships with each other and formally decide to work together to serve that region, plant churches and see the gospel flourish.

New York Project (NYP)

The NYP is a joint strategy of RCTC and RCM—two organizations that have worked for decades to build gospel-centered communities that seek to serve cities and care for the poor. Under the leadership of Tim Keller, the NYP is leveraging the unique strengths of senior leaders from both organizations to lead the gospel movement forward for the good of New York City.

Regional Affiliate

A regional affiliate is a network of networks. (See network definition.) It takes shape as the network leaders and churches start to work together in their geographical region. The groups are often transdenominational, reflecting the diverse and unique relationships that CTC believes are vital to developing robust and healthy church planting networks. A regional affiliate could be a legal organization domiciled in the region. It could also be a more dispersed network of churches, ministry organizations or entities whereby RCTC provides oversight.

Sankofa Project

This project forms learning cohorts of African American churches to look back at its heritage of church planting, mission, biblical justice and disciple-making so it can inform present church revitalization and flourishing.

Together LA

A movement of local churches, ministries and organizations that work together to love LA by creating healthy gospel ecosystems and communities.

Train the Trainer (TTT)

This program orients trainers to CTC's Incubator curriculum, which can be adapted for their city. By employing a training curriculum that increasingly reflects the practitioners' own culture, leaders will develop a locally delivered training program that more effectively serves church planters. TTT gives a network the opportunity to activate, grow and develop their ability to have a public platform to train church planters, gain momentum and let that network have another sign of health to serve that city and to see the gospel flourish.

Training and Coaching

Training and coaching refer to learning experiences where leaders are equipped with CTC’s DNA for greater gospel impact. This includes things like Intensives, Incubators, etc. and new initiatives developed in response to the unique needs of various contexts.