Kingdom-minded Churches
At Central we avidly seek to be a Kingdom-driven church. Such a church has a clear understanding of the reason for the delay in judgment. You might ask, what is a Kingdom-drive church look like.
A Kingdom-driven church is:
- A church that passionately communicates the good-news of Jesus.
- A church that calls people to expose evil in their own lives and surrender to the Lorship of Jesus and the ministry of the Holy Spirit that overcomes it.
- Finally, it is a church with a comprehensive understanding of how that church is to push back evil and usher in healing and wholeness (shalom) as an organized, cooperating faith-family.
Such an understanding:
1) Will be different from church to church.
a) How each church tackles ‘evil’ and establishes ‘shalom’ may look different. There is no fixed pattern. On January 29, we unveiled what the Lord has shown us. We are going to be intentional about pursuing that in the months and years to come. Visit: www.centralwesleyan.org/amped
2) Will be comprehensive in scope.
a) What Micah unveiled regarding our strategy is a full-frontal assault on what we consider five of the primal expressions of evil at work in our world.
3) Will be constant across all campuses.
It will be constant for three reasons:
a) All mission is local: we increasingly sense God calling us to shift our mission strategy to an equipping and supporting role. Just as our multi-site model is decentralized, giving freedom to local leaders, so too our mission model is localized. We will prioritize indigenous ministry. This does not mean that we will not send; but we are committed to both equip and support localized expressions of Kingdom-minded, shalom bringing, evil defeating ministry.
b) All mission is consistent: even though our multi-site model is highly decentralized, our mission strategy is highly synchronized. At the heart of our multi-site model is a definite mission strategy from which no campus will deviate. Our multi-site church is, essentially, “a network of missionally motivated, Kingdom-driven churches.” This is what unites us not a common speaker and common worship. In keeping with that localized but synchronized expression, we have determined to promote our multi-site church as a house of brands and not as a branded house. There will be flexibility with names, for example, but consistency with missional philosophy. Central is a Kingdom-minded, mission-driven church. We are not afraid of diversity of expression and believe that Kingdom impact works best when we harness diversity and local knowledge as vehicles for growth. Our mission strategy and philosophy is what unites us. In light of all this, moving forward we will refer to our multi-site church as ‘The Water’s Edge Network.’ The good news is that no campus will need to change their name (although all would be free to do so).
c) All mission is personal: what Micah unveiled can be personalized as well as organized. What excites us about our strategy is that whether here in Holland, in Grand Rapids, Cambodia or Indonesia, our strategy is simple enough to offer every person a framework to live as a Kingdom-driven believer. It’s so simple, so memorable and so comprehensive that we can all minister to the whole needs of the whole person. That’s what we call, living on mission.
I am so excited by what God is doing in and through our church. Central is a Kingdom-driven church because we have a clear understanding of how Jesus’ life on mission affects ours. In His life, Jesus brought an experience of God’s shalom to those He met. We are committed to doing the same.
Join us in that task!
Shalom,
Craig
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