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In an effort to accomplish our mission to Glorify God by Making Disciples of All Nations, we realized there has to be a variety of environments that help us think through and process what we believe God is calling us to accomplish. Jesus did this in His ministry. We see him in different environments accomplishing different things with different groups of people. For instance, by the time He ascended most believe Jesus had nearly 120 or so followers which would be a rather large gathering of people. Then, Jesus called the twelve which was a smaller group or community of people he engaged in life on mission together with almost daily. Then, we find an even smaller group of Peter James and John Jesus engaging in some of the most intimate spaces of His life together. So, we have taken Jesus' example and our statement as a framework for the development of those environments as we seek to fulfill these in our desire to make disciples.
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So, the first part of our strategy to accomplish our vision is to Gather. We have discovered that when we are in the process of making disciples living life on mission gets weary and tiresome. Often downright discouraging and overwhelming. This isn’t to surprise us right? Jesus said we are going to enter a warzone…we are like aliens… So we follow the historical orthodoxy of the New Testament and gather every Sunday or the Lord's Day to worship God together. Furthermore, we recognize our need to gather regularly because of our day-to-day mission reminding ourselves how great God is and what He has accomplished through Christ. Why? So we are filled with hope and certainty that God will finish and accomplish what he has started. It was Jesus who said I will build my church… We see hearts being warmed in affection for Christ as they are reminded again in a larger gathering that yes Jesus died for us so we live for him. This is essential for our discipleship because it reminds us that we are not alone. Others are facing what we are and when we come together we are able to pause and rest once again in Christ's sufficiency and grace and be encouraged, inspired, exhorted, and reminded that we have a God who is capable of helping us with everything they will face in the lives He has called us to live. Every week we gather and rehearse the Gospel Story through our liturgy of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration and the repetitive refrain of hearing from God through His word and responding to Him in prayer and confession. So we gather once a week to glorify God and experience equipping to getting us out once again on mission together.
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Our second part of the strategy is to Go. As God's gathered people, we are then scattered into the world in the everyday stuff of life. We believe that the best environment for a group of people to live as a family of missionary servants who are disciples who make disciples is in what we call Missional Communities. Although we highly value our gathered community, we do not believe you are able to make disciples merely in a gathering. In a gathering, you don’t know if someone is growing or what to speak to in each other's life or whether they know or believe in what they have been hearing. There is virtually no way to even know if we are developing as disciples unless we are doing it together. If discipleship is the lifelong process of applying the gospel to every area of our lives then our discipleship must occur in the midst of an environment that is life on life. As we seek to make disciples who worship Jesus, are changed by Jesus, obey Jesus, and teach others to do the same, Missional Communities provide us with the best environment for this to happen. Here we find this communal nature to discipleship that cannot happen in a 1 or 2 hour event on Sunday. It happens in the flow of life together in the community as we learn to love one another and be the body of Christ in the everyday things of life while simultaneously being a testimony to the world. When we read Jesus in John 17 He says the world will also know the Father sent the Son because of our unity together in the middle of the world. So they will see a living testimony of people being changed in a broken world and our unity together will be a picture of God the Father sending God the Son. Our time together on mission is like saying this is what God is like as He comes into the world. We can't do this in an event. It has to be done in everyday life. It is imperative that we provide an environment that provides a structure for disciple-making which has to be life on life, life on mission, and life in community.
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The third part of our structure is to Grow. As we gather together instructed by the teaching of biblically qualified elders and go through our Missional Communities, we are growing in the experience of life. In the everyday rhythms of life, we are confronted with issues and struggles that people on mission experience together. When you are on mission together oftentimes stuff of the heart shows up! Your messy lives come out. Jesus said out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. It's not what goes into a person but what comes out of a person. The beauty is that being on mission in a community is God’s way of squeezing what’s inside so it can be seen and addressed and we can then be changed. Being in community has a way of revealing our loves and many of these issues are unable to be dealt with in a Gathering or Missional Community. How we grow is an instrumental part of our disciple-making strategy. At Christ the King, we reflected on the answer of Jesus when he was asked what is the greatest commandment. His answer was you shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, as we seek to fulfill the great commission, we want to see the redemption and restoration of the entire person. So, we provide opportunities to grow through these four categories. Our DNA groups are the primary environment we utilize to help people grow and be changed in their hearts. These are same-gender triads that meet together regularly to help one another Discover the truths about who God is what He’s done, who they are, and how they should live (D), Nurture the hearts of one another in our belief, rebellion, and struggle (N), and then as we speak the gospel and lead them to faith and repentance we want them to Act that out in obedience in action and word (A). This is where we discover what we have learned in the word, where we are having a hard time believing what God is teaching us. When appropriate we call one another to respond in repentance and faith and hold each other accountable to act in obedience. However, we do appreciate and recognize the need at times for more extensive counseling which we offer pastorally through our Elders here and professionally with our partnership with Faith and Hope Clinic and the Association of Biblical Counselors. Our equipping in our Sunday Gatherings and in our personal devotions is what we use for growing in areas of the soul. We offer various classes and courses inside our King's Institute for reforming the mind. Lastly, through our partnership with Legacy Fitness, we provide opportunities in our activities center to be transformed physically as well.
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As these three work together discipleship is cultivated and nourished. Our gathering pulls people back to the truths of God teaching His word reminding us of the gospel. It’s almost like it resets the week reminding us of who Jesus is, what he’s done, and who we are! Once equipped, we are then sent out together on mission as a community. While we are on mission there are a lot of things happening, a lot of brokenness in us and around us. So, in our DNA groups, we work through our successes and struggles. So all three help guide us in our ongoing discipleship so we have that upward inward outward development of our maturity in Christ. This is our strategy for fulfilling our mission here at Christ the King. If you have any questions or would like to get involved, please contact us for more information.