Church Planter's Core
We believe the Life Mission of every believer is to participate in the Great Commission Jesus Christ left to His first disciples before He ascended to heaven.
o Matthew 28:18-20. “All authority is given to Me in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe everything I’ve commanded you, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I'm telling you the truth when I say that I’m with you always, even to the end of the age.”
o Mark 16:15-16. “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized is saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
o Luke 24:46-49. “It is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And look! I am sending the promise of my Father on you. Make sure you stay in the city until you are clothed with power from heaven.”
o Acts 1:8. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
The first disciples interpreted and implemented this commission of Christ by going out, evangelizing, gathering the converted, forming a community, building structure, all in order to replicate the process. This is called church-planting. Church in the Boro identifies and embraces the application of church-planting in team with New Frontiers, a family of churches together on a mission.
If this is the Life Mission of every believer, then a Christian will reflect the Christianity of the early church by either being a sender or being sent for this commission. Either way, the mission is the same, and therefore the focus of everything we do in our lives.
At Church in the Boro we believe a biblical, healthy local church will reproduce. So we want to prepare ourselves for that next step. Life Mission Groups enable us as a church family to grow inward in sanctification and holiness, in order to glorify God by preparing to grow outward in the mission. The Church Planter's Core are the Life Mission Groups we believe to be essential to fulfilling both of these goals in the life of every believer in our church family.
The Church Planter's Core currently contains the Life Mission Groups we presently feel are absolutely essential to preparing a believer to be a part of a future church planting team. These Core groups are the means by which we engage participants to understand and build in their DNA the most vital components of the mission we are on as a family of churches.
The following Life Mission Groups are a part of our Church Planter's Core.
- Partnership. What it means to become a member at Church in the Boro.
- Reconxiled One: Stories. Applying the first part of our mission statement, "Reconciling Sinners to God", this LMG focuses on evangelism through story-telling, using the historical-redemptive flow of the biblical story line.
- Reconxiled Two: Embracing Grace. Applying the second part of our mission statement, "Reconciling People to Each Other," this LMG centers in on our relationships with one another and seeks to remove the offenses and obstacles to truly living in a community of grace.
- Reconxiled Three: The Truth Project. Applying the third part of our mission statement, "Reconciling the World to King Jesus," this LMG seeks to show Christians how to see everything in God's world as a tool for the mission.
- Kingdom Stewardship 1: Money for the Mission. Crucial to the mission we are on is the proper stewardship of our finances. This LMG instructs believers on the importance of budgeting with the mission in mind.
- Kingdom Stewardship 2: Redeeming the Time. Just as crucial to the mission as money is the usage of our time. This LMG assists believers in seeing their time as a resource for the mission, as well as budgeting it wisely around the mission.
- Kingdom Stewardship 3: What to Do With Who You Know. The final installment in this triplet of LMG's seeks to build into the DNA of believers the necessity of stewarding the influence we have in the lives of the various people in our lives for the mission.
- Real Love 1: Your Spiritual Gifts. The Holy Spirit gives each believer gifts of grace which are intended to build up one another in our faith. The first of a two-part LMG, Real Love 1 discovers each spiritual gift and seeks to help believers implement and practice their own, in order to build a biblical church for the mission.
- Real Love 2: The One Anothers. The repitition of the key phrase "one another" in the New Testament points to the significance of our focus on one another. This second installment of the Real Love LMG's discovers each "one another" and attempts to help believers implement and apply one each week.
- Scandalous Grace. The fact that God's grace is almost too good to be true is a testimony to why so many believers struggle with legalism. If God has completely forgiven my sin so that I am no longer condemned for them, I am radically liberated in a way that has radical implications. Based on Terry Virgo's book, God's Lavish Grace, this LMG points people to the truth that there is nothing more important for a believer's life and a church plant than to understand and live out of this scandalous grace.
- Demolishing Strongholds. The Bible teaches that the weapons believers fight with are not earthly weapons, but the kind used for demolishing strongholds in our own lives, as well as each other's lives. Essential for the mission of church-planting, this LMG is based on David Devenish's book, Demolishing Strongholds, and seeks to equip believers to identify and demolish strongholds in their personal lives, as well as practicing the same for one another.
- The Hermeneutic of the Gospel. Hermeneutics is the study and practice of interpreting the Bible. And while many Christians spend much time learning this important subject, it often escapes our thinking that the world interprets the gospel by what they see in the church. This LMG focuses on the biblical components of giving the world what they really need to interpret us accurately, in order to interpret Jesus accurately. The substance of this LMG is foundational for the mission of planting any church.