Mission: Urban

I’m back from Germany and Charis 08. It was an amazing and historic week as brothers from all over the world came together for the dual purposes of celebrating the 300th anniversary of the Brethren movement and to meet to discuss the issues of church planting, leadership training and ‘integrated ministries’ (also known as wholistic or compassion ministries). The meetings were wonderful and very productive. The conference passed the following resulotions:

Church planting
We affirm that the church is God’s plan for this age and commit to mobilize our members and resources to
plant new churches because:
•the Spirit of Jesus poured out upon the Church is the Spirit of Mission to the nations (Acts 2:1-42; 13:1-4)
•the Church is a fruitful community in which disciples are made (Acts 2:42-47; Eph 4:11-16)
•the Church calls the lost to be reconciled to Christ through its evangelistic efforts (2 Cor. 5:16-21)
•the Church displays the multifaceted wisdom of God (Eph 3:10-11)
•through the Church God is glorified in Christ Jesus (Eph 3:21)

Therefore, we call upon:
•every local church to reaffirm their God-given mandate to reproduce through a concentrated effort to make disciples and form new churches.
•every National Fellowship or Association of Grace Brethren Churches to designate 2010-2020 as the decade of multiplication in which every church will be mobilized to reproduce itself through planting one or more new churches.

Leadership training
We affirm that a leader is a person who influences others towards the fulfillment of defined objectives and is indispensable to the health and multiplication of the Church. We affirm that leadership training:
•Takes place under the responsibility of the local church
•Seeks the equal development of character, knowledge and skills according to giftedness.
•Is a life-long process involving mentors who share their example, values, convictions and experience
•Protects existing leaders from temptations such as pride, exhaustion, family neglect, immorality, isolation, through accountability and team work.

We call upon the churches:
•To develop culturally sensitive strategies and means to train leaders, creating a comprehensive set of
tools to:
- Proclaim the Gospel (from non-belief to salvation)
- Teach the fundamentals (from salvation to baptism)
- Enlist in ministry service (from baptism to service)
- Train leaders according to gifting (from service to leadership)
- Empower leaders to train others according to gifting (from leadership to coaching)
- Encourage a life of wisdom (family & work ethics, etc.)

•To share these resources worldwide with appropriate training how to use them (objective, target, content, time, cost, required skill to teach them…).

Integrated ministries
We affirm that God has created human beings with physical, emotional and spiritual needs and that the
Church expresses the compassion of Christ in proclaiming the Gospel while caring for various needs
of mankind. We call upon the Church to bless believers, strengthen churches and reach the lost by showing the works which reflect true faith (Jam 2.26):
•Assisting those in need,
•Promoting economic, family, and personal development,
•Encouraging the development of businesses with a missionary focus (Business As Mission)

We recognize that this is still an investigative avenue for mission. We encourage churches to deepen their theological understanding (cf. Charis paper) and further refine the principles governing holistic ministries.