To the Members of Redemption Church,
Do any of you still remember when you were known as the First Baptist Church of North Mobile? That said something about you. It said where you were. Like the churches of the New Testament, your church was a local one, associated with its city. Right there you were, in that very Roman Catholic part of Alabama, as Baptist witnesses to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Being “Baptist” told the people of Mobile that you were independent and that you properly baptized professed believers, just like the churches of the New Testament. Now you’re not “Baptist”, now you’re a brand. You’re “Redemption” Church. Ed Litton was the man who led you to that branding and now, having been branded, your brand has never been worse.
Do any of you still remember when you only had one church campus, not split between “North” and “West”? You probably didn’t have an “online pastor” then either. (What exactly is that anyway, the pastor to people who aren’t there?). Like a New Testament church, you were a local one. You were in one place. But you expanded. But isn’t that what brands do? I mean, who’s ever heard of the North Mobile Baptist Church of South Mobile or the North Baptist Church of Birmingham? Of course, those places already have local churches. They just don’t have “Redemption” but now, I doubt they’d want it.
I’m not sure who your pastor was before Ed Litton but I imagine he wrote his own sermons and did so without the assistance of a whole team of people. I doubt he used his wife to help him preach and I bet probably he didn’t plagiarize his messages, right down to the anecdotes. Has it hit you yet that your pastor, Ed Litton, has an entire team of people helping him prepare sermons they still copied someone else’s work, for an entire sermon series? We likely have different opinions on how sound those messages were but I think we can agree that JD Greear preached them better…after all they were his. When I watch Ed Litton stumble through his performance (on the videos that weren’t quickly scrubbed from the internet) I see a man who isn’t preaching from his heart, I see a man who is preaching from someone else’s manuscript. Litton’s copy-and-paste attitude is likely how you ended up with a Trinitarian Heresy on your website. That same heretical statement (partialism) is on a lot of church websites. Clearly someone at Redemption didn’t write it. Whoever it was would have done well to, once again, copy what JD Greear had.
I think it’s very obvious that Ed Litton needs to go. Either you fire him or he resigns but he needs to go. After he’s gone, you need to sit back and think about how you got to where you are. If you consider what gets preached to you, you’re basically a satellite campus of Summit Church; you even knocked off their logo. I hope you’ll decide to unbrand and go back to being a Baptist Church in one location with a pastor who preaches his own sermons. Ed Litton and everything that goes with him needs to be reconsidered, but be very careful during that process. You hired Ed Litton and you, as church members, are ultimately responsible for what your church has become, which is, as present, a very embarrassing brand.
Jesus deserves better.
Best,
Seth Dunn
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
