Goals and Strategies
Goal
Encourage Christians to share Jesus
(Note: Sharing Jesus includes inviting people into ongoing discipleship and to help advance God’s kingdom.)
Intro and Key Bible verses
God is weaving Christians/churches together and wants them to work together in new and greater ways to advance His Kingdom. He wants an army of ambassadors equipped to share the good news. ‘Stones’ need to be cleared away’ and the ‘highway built up’ so not-yet-Christians can hear about Jesus and have the opportunity to commit their lives to Him.
Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people.
Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones. Raise a banner for the nations.
Isaiah 62:10
Why this verse?
When God called me, Julie, to train up for pastoral leadership in 2009, one of the verses He highlighted was Isaiah 62:10. In 2013, I shared this verse when leading an evangelism discussion at church. (The Christchurch Evangelism Network had recently formed). Brett Mann got excited as God had given him the equivalent verse in Luke 3:4-6 twenty years earlier and three weeks before he had asked God to confirm if this word was still relevant. Brett then joined the Evangelism Network steering team and remained part of the team until 2020.
We believe that the verse is highlighting the need for the highway to be built up so people can come to Jesus. Holes in the road need to be filled in and all stones blocking the path need to be removed. Building up the highway includes equipping Christians to be confident to share God’s story and their faith story, encouraging churches to be intentionally missional, and encouraging people passionate about evangelism.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matthew 28:19-20
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason
for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.
1 Peter 3:15
Two other verses that God spoke through were Mark 3:24 and Daniel 11:13
While Mark 3:24, “If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand,” is what Jesus said about Satan’s kingdom when he was accused of casting out demons by the power of Satan, God used this verse to highlight how important it is for churches to be united and stand/work together.
Daniel 11:13 was part of the speech an angel was giving to Daniel in a vision regarding what was to happen to the Israelites. Speaking of invading armies, the information included, “For the king of the North will muster another army, larger than the first; and after several years, he will advance with a huge army fully equipped.” Through this verse, the importance of Christians becoming a huge army fully equipped was highlighted.
Strategies
Having been to a conference at the beginning of 2013 at which ‘having a vision for people to follow’ was emphasised, I (Julie) petitioned God for weeks regarding the Network. One morning while eating my apple by the Heathcote River, I got a 10-minute download to share with the team:
Pray: for unity, for breaking of blockages (mentality towards evangelism and being stuck in old ways), declare God’s kingship over our part of the world, repent, bind (the strong man – like in Matthew 12:29).
Every church become evangelistically friendly; having the heart of God and a culture of being welcoming to new people, and having gatherings that are inclusive of people exploring Jesus.
Build up passion groups and strategise
Equip every Christian to be an ambassador: to have non-Christian friends, be confident and competent to share God’s story and their story, be confident to answer questions, and invite people to explore Jesus and disciple them.
The 2016 Pastors and Leaders’ gathering updated our focus strategies to include:
helping churches be even more intentionally missional
reaching kids and their families
connecting and supporting missional initiatives
encouraging existing community engagement groups to share the Gospel in fresh and creative ways
As our steering team met, we worked on strategies and slightly adjusted these over time.
More 2013 revelation
In 2013 I had a dream of walking up to the door of a supermarket. Instead of the supermarket having one name, all the various names of supermarkets were listed on the wall. I believed this was a reminder that all the different churches are one church and need to be in unity for the Kingdom of God to advance.
I had a vision: As we pray, arrows shoot to make an impact and make cracks in the bad spiritual cloud over Christchurch. After the cloud cracked, God dropped a really big ball that disintegrated the spiritual cloud.
I had a dream of people coming up from underground, like out of tube stations. There was lots of crossing over/intersecting as people walked from their tube station. I took this to mean that many Christians would be doing their mission and there would be cross overs so some people will be impacted by more than one mission group, and that’s ok.