Gospel Saturation in the Grand Valley - A Working Strategy
A Simple Bible Based Strategy for Gospel Saturation in the Grand Valley -
PRAYER is Priority # 1
note: By making prayer a reality in our daily lives and by making it our # 1
Priority in our strategy to saturate the Grand Valley with the Gospel, we
acknowledge that only God is the source of all permanent spiritual change
and growth in the lives of men, in the life of His church and in the lives
of His children!
1. Pray that every person in the Grand Valley of western Colorado will be given an opportunity to hear and respond to a clear presentation of the Gospel in his or her own heart language.
2. Pray for the Lord of the harvest to specifically call out workers who are indigenous to western Colorado into His harvest.
3. Pray for the Father to burden each Grand Valley church to not only be missional in her giving and sending, but pray for each church to be revived and transformed spiritually into a truly missional (incarnational) Body of Christ with a passion for impacting spiritual darkness in her Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the uttermost part of God's creation. Someone has defined the word "missional" as being 'Jesus with skin on;' this is who Jesus has called Kingdom minded people to become in the midst of spiritual darkness and hoplessness.
4. Pray for pastors and church leaders who will be courageous in teaching, preaching and modeling how to be incarnational, and who will sacrifice the time to thoroughly equip, mentor and disciple their flock of God into mature missionaries, who in turn will greatly impact the Grand Valley for the Kingdom of God.
5. Pray for pastors and church leaders to boldly lead God's churches to cancel any activity that would distract from the basic simple functions of a New Testament church: prayer, worship, community, mentoring/discipleship, telling His story, selfless acts of ministry in His name that impact a lost world and reproduction of the Body of Christ through starting new churches.
Seed Sowing (Sharing HIS Story) is Priority # 2
1. Sow the precious life bearing seed of the Good News according to God's Word everywhere He leads us, i.e. in our marketplace, in our neighborhood, in our schools, in our workplace, and with everyone, i.e. family, coworkers, neighbors, marketplace people, strangers, etc.
2. Equip the Body of Christ in various methods of seed sowing including but not limited to effectively using a personal testimony, using a marked New Testament, using a Gospel tract, using the Evange-Cube, how to turn a conversation into a meaningful spiritual encounter with Jesus, etc.
3. Encourage and train the Body of Christ in how God can use truly selfless servant ministry as an evangelism tool to impact lostness in western Colorado.
4. Help the Body of Christ identify neighborhoods and pockets of lostness where God wants to use the block party trailer as a simple tool to help build relationships with people who need to hear HIS story.
5. Teach the lost and forgoten missional strategy of asking the Father through His Spirit to make Valley Believers sensitive to opportunities to share HIS story wherever He leads us daily.
6. Coordinate seed sowing opportunities with partnership groups seeking to minister in the Grand Valley.
7. Encourage churches to do a VBS in a city park during the summer to target the unchurched families living around the park>
8. Coordinate prayer walking in various neighborhoods of the city asking the Father specifically to draw those in the houses and apartments to Himself and ask Him to give the area churches a insatiable and unquenchable burden to reach out to those in these dwellings.
9. Stress the importance of recapturing the once common passion for seed sowing whenever we have the opportunity to preach His Word.
10. Plan and encourage the starting of new churches as one of God's best seed sowing tools to reach a spiritually dark world for Jesus!
Body Reproduction (Church Planting) is Priority # 3
1. Pray for catalytic church planters (pastors, ministers of missions, church planter strategists, member/missionaries) to be called of the Father into His harvest. The vast majority of those He calls will be in the latter category - men and women who make a living in a job in the marketplace in order to feed their family, however, their calling is as a person on mission for Him in their marketplace and in their neighborhood.
2. Develop and provide adequate local opportunities for learning the basics in church planting for these that whom the Father is calling into His harvest, so that they are adequately equipped as His missionaries.
3. Equip local church members to serve as teams of missionaries to partner with catalytic church planters in the study of demographics, prayer walking, understanding of the worldview of target groups, and developing a culturally and linguistically comprehensive and relevant strategy for penetrating spiritual darkness in western Colorado.
4. Build understanding and acceptance of a Scriptural definition of church to include any group of Christ followers, committed to baptism by immersion and Biblical doctrine, meeting anywhere, who see themselves as the Body of Christ and function as such in worship, community (fellowship), discipleship/mentoring, consistently telling His story (evangelism), prayer, ministry and body reproduction (church planting).
5. Encourage and stimulate the beginning of outposts of prayer and peace, as embryonic seed churches. Discover those that now exist and tell their story far and wide.
6. Build an environment conducive to the development of Gospel saturation ministries that will penetrate pockets of lostness throughout western Colorado. Specifically these (Gospel saturation ministries) are ministries to groups like, but not limited to the following: skiers, boarders, bikers, campers, climbers, and other short term visitors. Additionally, these are ministries to the homeless, rafters, hunters, fishermen, guides, mothers of preschoolers, energy industry workers, etc.
7. Intentionally build into the DNA of every new church, outpost of prayer and peace, and Gospel saturation ministry, the Acts 13 principle of sending out workers called of God into the harvest with the lifestyle and mindset of body reproduction.
8. Consistently resource church planting in a manner that reflects the above simple, prayer-based, missions, indigenous, Scripture-based strategy. This simple strategy reflects a strong belief in the Father's promise and His all-sufficient power to provide all the necessary resources for the harvest. The resources (human, financial, material, etc.) are all in the harvest! (See Luke 10:1ff)
NOTE: this page last updated 12/13/06
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