Vision Statement
Our vision is first and foremost to love God with all of our hearts, working together within the church and with other local church bodies in unity and humility, submitting to God with a servant’s heart, with the leading of the Holy Spirit to reach our community of Newport and other areas of service for Jesus Christ according to the Word of God.
Acts 1:9
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
How will we achieve this goal?
To accomplish this task we will need to set up the proper structure in the church. What is this structure?
Evangelize the local community
As Christians living with in the local community we are in a ideal place to witness the good news of Christ Jesus to our friends and neighbors not only in word but in deed, showing them that we ‘walk the walk’ not just ‘talk the talk’. By doing this we can demonstrate God’s love for them.
Disciple new believers
Evangelism is not enough. We need to take new believers in under our wings, teaching them scripture and showing them by example what it means to be a Christian so that they can grow and mature in the way of God building up a firm foundation in Jesus Christ.
Raise up leadership
Once we begin to disciple new believers, we can begin to identify those who have matured to the point where they have not only discovered the unique spiritual gifts that God has given them, but have begun to actively engage these gifts in the service of God.
We can then work with these people to turn over leadership duties and responsibilities within the church. These responsibilities would include nut are not limited to:
- Local Missionary
- Lay leadership
- Pastoral Training
- Foreign Missions
These leaders would have the full support and covering of the pastor and the local body.
Local missions
Once the leadership has been indentified and established we as the body can then send those that through prayer and fasting we believe God has called to go out into the communities (and surrounding communities) to proclaim the gospel. These local missionaries would be the responsibility of the local body to train, send and support.
If and when these local missions plant new churches, this body would take that work under its wing and help to the church to follow a similar cycle there.
World Missions
Our body will also work with worldwide mission agencies to assist in bringing the gospel to “the remotest part of the earth” These agencies will be selected using the some of the following criteria:
A church planting effort
- Their teachings align with the word of God
- We can communicate with the missionaries
A helping ministry
- The gospel is proclaimed
We will work in concert with the mission agency to provide monetary assistance as well as prayer and fasting on behalf of missionaries and for the agency. If God raises someone up within the body to be a foreign missionary, we can work with the agency to provide our brother or sister the necessary tools, training and support to move out into this calling.
Flexibility
We must remember as a body that forms and plans are great to help us organize, but reliance on the Holy Spirit is the key to a successful missions plan and to the church as a whole. We must not hold so rigidly to ‘our plan’ that we forget God. Our missions plan and our church vision must be God’s plan and God’s vision.
Mark 16:15:
15And He said to them, “(A)Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation
0 Comments