"Every Church a Parent or a Partner" Campaign
| Visit
the
Parent
or Partner web site
for
more information about
- The Challenge
- The Vision
- The Plan
Plus! Read testimonies, see
video reports and learn how you can be a part! |
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The 50th General Council in Washington, D.C., may
only be a few months away, but the Church Planting Department is
getting a jump-start on an exciting new campaign.
The campaign's purpose is three-fold. The first goal
is to jog the collective memory of the Assemblies of God Fellowship
of its church-planting heritage. The second goal is to focus church
planting energies around the central theme of "Every Church
a Parent or a Partner." The third goal is to challenge churches
to make faith promises by either parenting a new church or partnering
with another church in a new plant.
"Historically, church planting is the most proven
means of evangelism," says Jeff McElhattan, Church Planting
project coordinator. "The power of multiplication rests in
the hand of the local pastor. I believe it's in the heart of every
pastor and congregation to impact their community for Christ. Our
movement has a strong church-planting heritage. The desire of the
Church Planting Department is to simply be a resource center to
help facilitate what is quickly becoming a grass roots church planting
movement."
According to McElhattan, Church Planting Ministries
is prepared to use every available resource to ignite a passion
for planting churches.
"We are producing a series of videos about churches
planting churches," McElhattan says. "There will also
be an ad in the Pentecostal Evangel every month leading up to General
Council. We will be using archival material, direct mailings and
the Internet to educate laypeople about the significance and power
of church planting."
This effective approach will serve the campaign very
well as people will already know what it's about by the time they
arrive at General Council. While there, they will be inspired by
testimonies of churches that have already taken this step of faith.
"What makes this so exciting is churches are
already doing it!" McElhattan says. "We are going to
highlight pastors and churches that are parenting new works. There
are wonderful examples of God's blessing on churches that plant.
It's really a stewardship issue. The size of the church is not
as important as the size of its heart to reach and disciple lost
people."
Once these inspiring testimonies have been heard,
people will be encouraged to sign faith promise cards as a way
of sealing their commitment to parent a new church or partner with
other churches to do so.
"Multiplication is a principle God has woven
into the fiber of all He's created," says McElhattan. " 'Be
fruitful and multiply' in the Old Testament becomes, 'Go! Make
disciples,' in the New Testament. We expect living things to reproduce.
When they don't or can't, we know something is flawed. The church
is a living organism complete with the capabilities of reproduction."
The goal of Every Church a Parent or a Parent is
to focus energy and resources on church planting and revitalization.
The key to growth in the Kingdom of God is the local church. When
the local church is healthy and catches God's heart for multiplication,
new churches will be planted. Ultimately, this translates into
more souls redeemed, more resources for missions and ministry and
a greater impact on our communities for the glory of God. The campaign
culminates Saturday night, August 2nd at General Council. The churches
of our fellowship will be challenged to make a faith promise to
be a church planting parent or partner.
"When members of our Fellowship come to General
Council in Washington, D.C., we want them to be thinking about
the possibility of planting churches," says McElhattan. "When
they leave, we want them to see they can do it!"
If you would like to learn more about the Church
Planting Department of the Assemblies of God, e-mail ChurchPlanting@ag.org or
call (417) 862-2781, ext. 3252.
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