Summer 2009
(A Note from Don Graves)

We are currently redesigning our website to reflect our call from the Spirit to passionately pursue two primary things:

1.The Equipping of Ordinary Believers to be Planters of the Gospel.

This is our passion.  We have come to the conclusion that in order for the Church to fulfill the mission of God (That God wants every person in this region have a repeated opportunity to hear, see, touch and respond to a Incarnational, geographically close, culturally relevant presentation of the gospel of the Kingdom)  In order for this to happen we must:

Partner with the Church as we know it, to raise up an Army of Ordinary Believers who are Encouraged, Equipped and Released to:

• Creatively Access Communities of Need,
• Discover Persons of Peace,
• Engage that persons “family” with Gods Story and
• Form those new disciples into Communities of Practice (Simple Churches) who endeavor to obey all that Jesus Commanded
  
  We call these the “4-Core” practices

This is the GOAL:  Contextualized communities of practice within cultural and geographical reach of every person in our region and around the United States.  To that end we have developed (and are still developing) interactive training modules that help ordinary believers develop this passion, purpose, skill and discipline. 

We currently offer (3) different types of training.
An Overview of Contextualized Simple Church Planting Movements:  A 4 Hour journey that covers the “4-Core” elements of our process.  It is designed for regular, non vocational believers who desire to be released in the gifts to plant the gospel in their context or preferably as a part of a team.

The Journey: This is an 8, 12 or 16-week training that focuses on practicing the “4-Core” elements.  It is practical and hands on.  Participants with their team develop a biblical framework around planting the gospel and then go out and implement what they have learned. They come back and share with the group.

The Year of Playing in the Mud: This is a 1-year internship designed to build upon what has been already been learned and then to experiment boldly and passionately with different seeds on different soils order to see where the Spirit might be moving.  It is messy by design!  But out of this, will come a vibrant learning environment and hopefully lasting fruit for God.

2.The second passion we feel called to is the Establishing of Missional Simple Churches.

God seems to be nudging an increasing number of believers to launch out on a special journey with him.  One that honors the work of God through his Church (past, present and future) but also desires to see smaller, more organic, simple, penetrating, profound, culturally relevant expressions of Church.  We call this Simple Church.

Excerpt:  ...They are rapidly multiplying, simple gatherings of believers, living as a Shared-Life community under the Headship of Jesus Christ and meeting wherever God is moving … Our gatherings are not principally Bible studies, prayer meetings, songfests, or supper-fests, but something different. Namely, the church meets to reveal and display Jesus Christ together out of a real, experiential, life-giving encounter with the Lord. And everyone is functioning on equal footing. No one is dominating. And few, if any, are passive.  This is a church where the members are learning to live by Divine life together and they are finding creative ways to express that week after week, month after month, and year after year. They are living for God’s grand mission: Revealing His eternal purpose in the world.

Our focus in on “missional” Simple Churches.  We see ourselves assisting non-connected believers to form into smaller committed communities of practice who endeavor to obey all that Jesus commands. These groups from their inception will be committed to fulfilling God’s mandate of making disciples of all nations and not just merely meeting each others needs in a smaller format.  We will help any such group of believers to connect around some core principles as well as to network them with a larger regional network.  This is in order that body of Christ can be connected and thus maturing through the shared ministry of Spirit gifted individuals, i.e. Apostles, Prophets, Evangelist, Shepherds and Teachers (Eph 4:11)  We are committed to the goal of a networked region of missional simple Churches for the purpose of seeing the complete transformation of the region.

Finally, we see ourselves, our network and our ministry as a small part of Christ’s larger body.  We seek to do our part and fulfill our mandate in reaching primarily those not-yet Christians who will not find expression or maturity in church as we have known.  We are committed to Christ’s Church in all of its expressions.