What’s the link between a church in metropolitan Milwaukee and a church in Queens, New York? Let’s start in Milwaukee. The vision and the heartbeat of the Ridge is to create churches that engage unchurched people. We exist to be a place for people who have been turned away, fallen away, or never been to church and our mission is to simply help people find and follow Jesus.

Locally in Milwaukee, our mission and vision has led us to open a second physical location in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. We describe ourselves as one church in multiple locations (Greenfield, Oak Creek, and Online) with the hope of reaching more people by planting contextualized community-based campuses. We hope to grow bigger by growing “smaller.”

In 2017, our Ridge team participated in a Stadia vision trip to learn about their partnership with World Impact to plant churches in under-resourced neighborhoods in the U.S. I was struck by the alignment between all of our visions. The Ridge has been long-time partners with Stadia and whole-heartedly support the goal to plant churches. Like Stadia, we want to see every child have a church and grow up in Christ-centered families. On the vision trip, we quickly discovered how Stadia’s partnership with World Impact’s mission of urban evangelism, discipleship, and church planting would lead to the Ridge’s next church plant—in Queens, NY. We are humbled to partner with the Bengali Church in Queens. The church is at the forefront of the Great Commission, reaching out to people groups who desperately need a local gospel-sharing church.

Looking forward, the Ridge is more committed than ever to see contextualized urban churches planted across the U.S. We have recruited a few Milwaukee area pastors, including respected urban leaders, to attend the next Stadia vision trip to see what God is doing through under-resourced neighborhood church planting. We are eager to see what new partnerships may emerge and are praying boldly about what God might want to do—even right here in Milwaukee. At the Ridge, we believe the only solution to racial, ethnic, economic, and social reconciliation is the local church and we are “all in” trusting God’s provision to make it happen.