Fit to Represent, Vision for Discipleship Seminar

18 Fit to Represent: Vision for Discipleship Seminar ▪

World Impact’s PLANT Acrostic Updated August 13, 2010

Theological commitment: The Word of God as illumined by the Holy Spirit and expressed in the Great Tradition (e.g. Canon, Ecumenical Creeds and Councils) and World Impact’s Statement of Faith

Strategic commitment: Evangelicals empowering the urban poor to facilitate church-planting movements

Prepare: Be the Church 1 “Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns and the other prisoners were listening.”

1. Seek God’s leading to select an unchurched target area or population (which may include demographic and ethnographic studies). 2. Form a church-plant team, the initial church which community believers can join. 3. Select reproducible models to contextualize standard 2 church practices. 4. Initiate discussions about associations, denominations, or other affiliations.

1. Invite others (mature or new believers) to join the church. 2. Conduct evangelism to add to the existing church.

Launch: Expand the Church “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

1. Train others through cell groups or Bible studies to follow up and disciple new believers; to continue evangelism; and to identify and train emerging leaders. Focus on leaders for Transition (TUMI). 2. Assemble the groups where the Word is rightly preached, the sacraments are rightly administered, and discipline is rightly ordered. 3. Announce to the neighborhood the beginning of public worship. 1. Train others to serve and lead through individual and group discipleship. 3 2. Encourage believers to exercise their gifts in the church. 3. Assign responsibility to the faithful (deacons, elders, future pastors). 1. Commission faithful indigenous leaders to be deacons, elders, and pastors. 2. Commission the church to be part of a self-governing, self- supporting, and self-reproducing movement. 3. Join a denomination or association for fellowship, support, and joint-ministry activity. 4. Begin reproducing a new church.

Assemble: Establish the Church “Let us not give up meeting together.”

Nurture: Mature the Church “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others.”

Transition: Release the Church “And what you have heard me say, entrust to reliable people who are qualified to teach others.”