A Summary of the ACT Strategy Apostolic Church-planting Team Strategy (4.0), © Grace Brethren International Missions, 1998

The ACT Strategy is a principle-centered document designed to provide a specific framework for organizing the efforts of our church-planting teams. It was formulated through study of the Scriptures, church history and actual field experience. We believe that these principles will empower our staff to fulfill our vision to begin a world-wide movement of reproducing spiritual communities.

The vision of GBIM is a global movement of World Mission churches faithful to the Brethren heritage who are aware of the significance of the times and thrust into the mainstream of the movement of the Spirit of God in the fulfillment of their mission.

The Apostolic Church-planting Team Strategy expresses our commitment to:

A. The apostolic nature of the missionary:
Fundamental to the ACT Strategy is the belief that missionaries are to fulfill an apostolic role.

The term "apostolic" is used to clarify the seed-planting or foundation-laying role of our missionary staff (1 Cor. 2:5-10). This is in contrast to the pastoral role that will be filled by national believers.

We believe that the role of a missionary parallels the New Testament ministry of the apostles of the churches. This is not to be confused with Apostles of Jesus Christ, which refers to the special ministry of the Twelve chosen by our Lord. We understand that the apostles of the churches were commissioned and sent out to proclaim the Gospel and make disciples of Jesus Christ. These new disciples were gathered together to form local churches under the leadership of men who were trained by the apostles. The principle role of both types of apostles was clearly that of laying the foundation for vibrant, growing churches. This is in contrast to the ongoing ministry of pastoral care, which we believe is best and most appropriately developed by the local church leadership.

Confusion concerning the role of the missionary has led to unhealthy dependency patterns. A rediscovery of the apostolic nature of the missionary task is essential if we are to successfully initiate indigenous, reproducing churches.

B. Church-planting as opposed to church-transplanting:
One of the greatest challenges that missionaries face is how to separate the essence of the church from our own cultural expressions of the church. Experience has proven that when we transplant cultural expressions of the church, we create unnecessary barriers for rapid church expansion. This is the root cause of much of the cycle of dependency that exists in our mission fields. Such churches are often characterized by an inability to sustain themselves or reproduce without external support systems.

Effective church-planting requires an understanding of both the Biblical nature of the church (the seed) and the culture (the soil) into which it is being introduced. Our goal is to plant the essence of the church in such a manner that the church can be an authentic expression of the New Testament ideal, while also reflecting styles and forms that are meaningful to the members of the target culture.

The seed we are seeking to plant is a spiritual community that is capable of nurturing, protecting and reproducing itself. We call these spiritual communities Basic Church Units (BCU's).

The Basic Church Unit is an organized group of baptized believers led by a spiritually qualified Shepherd, affirming their relationship to the Lord and each other by regular observance of the Lord's Supper, committed to the authority of the Word of God in doctrine and practice, gathering regularly for worship and the study of the Word, practicing mutual ministry, and turned outward to the world in witness.

As the seed (a spiritual reproducing community) interacts with the soil (the target culture), new churches are formed. These churches follow three basic models:

1. The family model: the church is the spiritual family (sometimes known as a cell, flock, household of faith, etc.), which remains the center of organization and life. They may choose to come together regularly with other spiritual families for corporate worship and the celebration of ministries. Leaders should meet regularly for training and coordination, preferably under the supervision of an area-wide overseer.

2. The congregational model (multi-family): the church is the sum total of its spiritual families. Although the spiritual families retain their importance as the center of primary spiritual care, their identity and structure are found in their union into a larger body.

3. The satellite model: the church is the congregation plus its satellites. An existing church creates satellites by sending out teams to reach particular groupings of people, organizing them into Basic Church Units that continue to have a relationship with the mother church.

C. Teams organized for maximum effectiveness:
GBIM missionaries are grouped into area church-planting teams, whose main goal is the creation of reproducing spiritual communities (BCU's). The ACT Strategy serves to guide our staff in the development of Ministry Action Plans that are consistent with the vision and values of GBIM.

It is important to clarify that ACTS is a principle-centered strategy in the sense that it outlines the what and why of our work, leaving the specific implementation (who, when and how) to be decided in each ministry situation.

It is the responsibility of the Team Leaders to guide Church-planting Teams in the effective implementation of the ACT Strategy. They accomplish this through training the members of the team in its concepts and implementation, ensuring accountability, leading in the multiplication of small groups, and tracking the results.

D. A principle-centered strategy that guides our apostolic church-planting teams:
nstead of adopting "successful" methods from his native culture, the apostolic church-planter must develop his methodology from the starting points of the apostolic nature of the missionary, the essence of the church and the culture in which the church is to be initiated. To aid in this process, we have developed a

Seven Step Process for Church-planting:
An introduction to the Seven Steps Process for Church-planting

The Seven Step Process simplifies the planning process and enables the church-planter to focus his energies and resources in those areas which will produce maximum results. The order of the steps is important because it insures the development of the church in a manner that is consistent with our principles and goals.

Each step represents a new level of ministry which is added to the previous levels and should grow naturally from the preceding step. At the same time, it is imperative that the church-planter continue work in each of preceding steps. Failure to do so will cause the source of new contacts to dry up, jeopardizing the future growth of the new work.

Faithful implementation of the Seven Step Process will inevitably produce a situation in which the church-planter is unable to do all the work. This will force him to turn over areas of the ministry to new believers. He must learn to view this as one of the most important and positive moments of his ministry, being willing to live with the frustrations, tensions and problems that all such transitions inevitably produce.

The apostolic church-planter finds his identity in the multiplication of his convictions and vision in the lives of new leaders, rather than in centering people, programs, activities around himself.

The Seven Step Process is a set of guiding principles. The church-planter should be continually on the lookout for or should develop methods and materials that are faithful to the purposes of each Step. By doing so, he will create a "menu" of options which can be employed according to the circumstances and needs of differing situations. Even if a certain method proves effective in one church-planting situation, there is no guarantee that it will be effective in another. Through prayer, the Holy Spirit becomes our guide as we seek for Him to lead us to more effective methods and materials.

Of course, simply following the Seven Steps will not guarantee that the new church won't be dependent on the church-planter or his successor. It is critically important that all methods and materials be genuinely "user friendly" in the culture where he is planting the church. The effectiveness of methods and materials is directly proportional to the number of "generations" of new Christians who use it effectively and without direct missionary involvement. Since this cannot be measured until the third or fourth generation of new believers, the church-planter must track if multiple generations of believers are able to comprehend and utilize his methods and materials.

A Brief Summary of the Seven Step Process:
The Seven Step Process

Step One: Contact Discovery (Finding the spiritually sensitive)
Goal: Determine the most effective means of identifying receptive people. The church-planter will pray each day for his contact list and organize his agenda to plan encounters with non-believers.

Step Two: Process Evangelism (Presenting the authentic person/work of Christ)
Goal: Guide contacts to a personal relationship with God by leading them through the process of discovering the true person of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 2:2), and leading them to true repentance and faith in Him (Acts 20:21). The church-planter will lead contacts through a series of encounters with the Bible which will enable them to comprehend who Jesus is and how to become a believer in Him.

Step Three: Discipleship (Developing Growth Disciplines)
Goal: Form the habits with which a believer can build a fruitful Christian life. The church-planter will encourage new Christians to cultivate an intimate relationship with God by means of Personal Growth Disciplines. Discipleship groups will center around the development of patterns of mutual discipleship (accountability), which helps avoid the creation of unhealthy dependency on the church-planter.

Step Four: Spiritual Community (Forming Spiritual Families)
Goal: Create spiritual families that provide identity and promote mutual ministry under the care of a spiritual parent (or shepherd.) The church-planter will gather several discipleship groups into a larger group or several groups, so as to form spiritual families.

Step Five: Leadership Development (Identifying and training potential leaders)
Goal: Discover and develop men and women capable of implementing the different levels of leadership needed for the proper functioning of a local church. The church-planter will begin to divert more and more of his energies to developing these emerging leaders, through specific training programs.

Step Six: Corporate Worship (Celebrating God's presence and power)
Goal: Discover greater identity, strength and diversity of ministries by joining with other Spiritual Families in Corporate Worship. At this stage, the church-planter will avoid public leadership roles, allowing the emerging leadership to develop and implement Corporate Worship.

Step Seven: Organization (Establishing structures for sustained growth)
Goal: Establish the corporate structures necessary to ensure the preservation, growth and reproduction of the Basic Church Unit. The church-planter will work together with the emerging leadership to prepare believers for commitment as members of the new church, developing the minimum structures needed to insure that the church functions properly.