Some Basic Assumptions
- After knowing God personally, our most important leadership efforts are to lead people toward the center of discipleship (Christ-likeness) and the center of what it means to be the church (love God, love others, make disciples)
- Fruitfulness is more important than institutional legitimacy
- The most fruitful ministry is life-to-life (organic) and not programmatic
- The mission Jesus launched is different than church. Jesus’ mandate is to make disciples. Churches are the result of making disciples
- The church decentralized for the purpose of mission with Jesus is a powerful thing
- A Jesus movement will yield a church planting movement—not the other way around
- We’re serious about church in its simplest form (small clusters of people, witnessing communities, who love God, love others, and make disciples)
- Any person who’s being led by the Holy Spirit and who’s willing to be equipped can lead church
- Leadership is not about methods or models or styles or forms--it's about character
- We don’t believe structure is unimportant. Even organisms have structure
- Our weekly rhythm is to gather to celebrate what God is doing (Sunday morning) and scatter for mission (life together in LifeGroups the rest of the week)
- We expect miracles
How Do We Live This Out at Grace?
- For Jesus, it started with the incarnation. It’s where we need to start. Jesus identified with the people he came to reach and spent 30 years in that effort. We too need to become intentional about going to the people we are trying to reach. This is very different from the more common approach that is based in attractional methods—making it comfortable, contemporary and engaging enough that people will want to come—hoping that once they visit, they will want to return. Jesus never marketed a message that attracted people to him. We must learn how to first live the message we are called to proclaim. We are called to live missional-incarnational lives just like Jesus; ministry and life where it happens—not in a sanctuary. We expect ministry to happen “out there” as we engage with people in their context who are then invited into a relationship (not a church program). From this point it’s a short step to the next point.
- Jesus clearly made community a strategic part of his ministry development. He called and trained twelve according to the rabbinic method. This is very different from a classroom, yet they were constantly learning. They actually never graduated, yet they were radically transformed by the experience. Jesus facilitated community by helping the disciples learn the basics of living as his body—mutuality and interdependence. They lived out the “one anothers” with each other starting with the great commandment (John 13:34-35). They became the church before they were even aware that one was being organized. For us it means that every believer must be connected to a small group where body life can be practiced and lived out. We choose never again to settle for mere association with a church organization. We want to be the church and experience the spiritual vitality of seeking Jesus’ presence together. It is as we live out life together as the body of Christ that Christ’s power to transform individuals, families, and culture is most fully experienced.
Mobilize for Multiplication
- Jesus came to launch a multiplying movement that would change the world by releasing and reproducing disciples who were trained non-formally in highly relational ministry contexts. He sent the twelve out to do what they’d seen him do. The twelve became seventy-two and they too were sent out what to do what the twelve had done. This is more than “leadership development.” Jesus wasn’t simply raising up leaders to better operate his enterprise and build an institution. Rather he was training AND releasing, raising up AND dispatching. In order to facilitate ongoing missional effectiveness we will focus on empowering and releasing instead of command and control. This means that we are purposely training and sending workers, disciples, leaders and LifeGroups to engage culture and facilitate community on other fronts. This effort is the engine for expansion and missional effectiveness. The DNA is set for future multiplication by the successful multiplication of disciples, leaders, and LifeGroups.
- The first indication of congregational structure came in Acts 6 when the ministry was expanding. The deacons were elected to better facilitate ministry that was already happening. Later in Acts, Paul describes the appointment of overseers and much of the Epistles are about dealing with the resulting problems of expanding ministry. We too often start with this step (structured congregations) believing that structure begets life. It seldom does. For us this means that as disciples are being made and as LifeGroups multiply there may come a time when a larger congregation, a beachhead, is organized to facilitate the spread of Jesus’ mission.