Fit to Represent, Vision for Discipleship Seminar

Where Do We Go from Here? ▪ 19

1 Our identity is based on the guardianship and cross-cultural transference of the Great Tradition, which guards against heresy, sectarianism, syncretism, schism, and pragmatism. A church is birthed from an existing church (we have to BE the church before we can plant the church). We reproduce after our own kind. We do not start churches [out of nothing], but from other churches. ex nihilo We have an organic link from church to church back to Pentecost; to the Apostles; to Israel; to the Trinity. Community has been eternally existent; we are a part of that stream. OUR COMMON THEOLOGICAL AND STRATEGIC COMMITMENTS ARE FUNDAMENTAL (i.e. DNA), not merely methodological. As in families, parents birth children, raise them in their homes, and prepare them to be parents. Offspring bear our name and character. They share our biology and nurture. This intimacy is needed to create and sustain a church- planting movement. We do not distinguish the spirituality of training leaders from the spirituality of missionaries. New congregations will share our vision, doctrine, spiritual discipline, mission, and finances. There is no distinction between the new congregation and the sent team. The “P” of PLANT recognizes that the church exists as soon as the team is formed. Paul’s team WAS the church in Philippi before Lydia’s household joined them. Launch adds to the existing church. 2 This could be a mother-church, a cell-church, a simple church, or other form. We RETAIN OUR INTERDENOMINATIONAL IDENTITY while developing commonality to facilitate standardization and reproducibility. We will partner with traditions that do things differently than us. We will promote multiple types of church-plant movements. 3 Future church leaders observe and practice their developing skills in a church with real people, identities, and structure, under leadership that ensures consistent practices. Leaders must be developed in the context of community. COMMON COMMITMENTS (theological, strategic, standard Church practices) that facilitate training leaders will be replicated from one church to another. When an emerging leader learns how to serve communion at the mother church, he knows how to lead communion at the daughter church plant. The contextualization of the must be designed to make standard Church practices it easy to train leaders and export to new churches. Structures facilitate and enable innovation. Missionaries must understand that these churches might not meet their cultural needs (it will be Christ-centered, not me-centered) for the sake of leadership development and reproducibility. A church of this kind will train and send out church-plant leaders into the community. Pioneer teams can be launched in new neighborhoods simultaneously with the “mother” church. It must embrace and follow our Common Commitments so that leaders will be trained uniformly. ESTABLISH A WORLD IMPACT NETWORK OF CHURCHES, which shares our Common Commitments, allows for contextualization in culture, and dynamically standardizes practices to make reproduction easier and more efficient. This oversight, support, and resourcing facilitates the church’s protection and health.