Front Matters

F RONT M ATTERS : P REREQUISITE R EADINGS FOR THE E VANGEL S CHOOL OF U RBAN C HURCH P LANTING • 11

Preface How to Use This Guidebook

The Evangel School of Urban Church Planting: Boot Camp for Urban Church Planters

For more than forty years, World Impact has been dedicated to honoring and glorifying God and delighting in him among the unchurched urban poor by knowing him and making him known. An inner-city missions organization, our vision is to recruit, empower, and release urban leaders who will plant churches and launch indigenous church planting move- ments. We are convinced that God almighty desires to empower the urban poor to advance God’s Kingdom in every city in America and beyond through the local church. Indeed, we believe that the Church’s proclamation and demonstration of the Gospel is at the heart of God’s kingdom mission. Our Evangel School of Urban Church Planting trains and equips coaches, church planters, and church plant teams to plant healthy churches among the city’s poor. In order to thrive in their efforts, urban church planters must adopt a clear theological vision and choose sound, culturally sensitive models and expressions of the church. They must apply biblical wisdom in order to effectively evangelize, equip, and empower unreached city folk to respond to the love of Christ, and take their place in representing Christ’s Kingdom where they live and work. This guidebook, the official text of the Evangel School , outlines a process of church planting that respects the unique cultures, environments, communities, and situations reflected in urban America. The PLANT approach outlined here provides practically wise and spiritually vital instruction to ensure that urban church planting teams will neither fail nor blunder as they seek to engage needy yet spiritually ripe unreached neighborhoods. The guidebook will guide teams through that process, with a focus on prayer, reflection, and wisdom to find God’s unique call on each planter and team. Filled with devotionals, seminars, exercises, and worksheets, with dozens of graphics, diagrams, and articles, this rich resource will empower church planting teams to design a strategy that will prove empowering to them. It can enable them to draft a course that is consistent with the vision God has given them to plant a healthy, Kingdom-declaring church, and launch movements that display the justice of the Kingdom among the oppressed. We are excited about both the interest and activity of many churches and denominations to establish outposts of the Kingdom

Source: Ripe for Harvest, pp. 11-22