Rhema Faith Ministries UK Churches

Making full use of our ministry By Discovering God’s Purpose 2tim 4: 5

 

Rhema Faith Ministries

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It is the time of Nehemiah for us; with one hand we build with the other we fight the enemy which is not flesh and blood.

 

DISCOVERING OUR PURPOSE

We know God works using his people. Not just a few leaders and individuals. Called and gifted leaders are there to help prepare the saints to do the work of God. Typically the role of the 5 fold ministry is to raise and equip believers in fulfilling the purpose of God in their lives. 

 

So in the past we have only tried one method and we have hardly been organized in getting this work done. The main and only thing we did was just focus on the church service and let the pulpit teaching do the work. From there people took and went on to do whatever they assumed was right to do. Regardless how good the teaching were, the results were little or had no effect. The reason was, there were no practical ways or working guidelines to apply the principles we learnt. So everyone went on to do whatever they assumed was right to do. There is a huge lack of togetherness and purposefulness which led into many openings for the enemy.

 

Therefore we decided to search and find where the source of the problem is. This we did by going back to the basis of the vision of the ministry. There we discovered our purpose. Rhema FM is an apostolic ministry, and we believe that the Lord has given the 5 fold ministry for equipping the church and to prepare the saints to do the work of the ministry [Ephesians 4: 8 –14]. This is where we began to discover our purpose as a ministry. And we realize that though we have been teaching we were doing very little work of equipping training and developing people. Teaching people and just expecting them to perform it will not bring unity and without unity there is no success. Let us examine the passage below.

Acts 4: 32 – 36

Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. 33 And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. 34 Nor was there anyone among them who lacked;

 

WHAT WAS THE SECRET OF THEIR SUCCESS?, CAN WE DO IT IN OUR DAYS? AND IF SO HOW? AND WHERE DO WE START?

• Let us start by asking what is it that God wants from us? What is that we call success today? Is it that we all become apostles and prophets and gifted people and exercise our gifts and prosper in spiritual knowledge and stop there?

•  Does God want us to become theologians and graduates of Bible school and become experts and stop there?

• Or is it that we come to his kingdom, and go to church, sing, pray live good, and continue to seek his blessing in our life?

None of the above is the will of God in our life. God desires fruit. There is one great responsibility that Christ Jesus has given us and we have one great purpose, and this purpose is not to become the best apostle or bible scholar or extremely financially blessed Christian. There is a responsibility given to every believer and every believer is accountable to the lord of that responsibility. 

This responsibility is:

• TO BECOME A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST WHO MAKES DISCIPLES FOR JESUS CHRIST.

All the other factors such as Spiritual gifts, financial blessings, healthy living peace and joy, is all to serve the purpose of making disciples for the Lord Jesus Christ. Not for self advantage and self exaltation, remember the bible tells us that we are bought by price, making it clear that we do not belong to ourselves anymore. But we belong to God who has a plan for our life and that the plan is of good end and success. God wants our success for us more than we want it for ourselves. That success is not to serve ourselves but to serve our purpose for our life.

 

MULTIPLICATION

Multiplication is the primary and fundamental blessing of God for mankind. The first thing that God wanted to see in a man was his multiplication. Hence the lord came to destroy the work of the devil who tried to fight this very purpose from the beginning that God had for mankind. The purpose is that man should multiply and be fruitful of his “own kind”. The same commandment has never changed and it stands as primary and at utmost significance. Today as

Christians we must multiply by bringing those from darkness in to light. Hence Genesis 1: 27 - 28፤ እግዚአብሔርም ሰውን በመልኩ ፈጠረ፤ በእግዚአብሔር መልክ ፈጠረው፤ ወንድና ሴት አድርጎ ፈጠራቸው። 28፤ እግዚአብሔርም ባረካቸው፥ እንዲህም አላቸው። ብዙ፥ ተባዙ፥ ምድርንም ሙሉአት፥ ግዙአትም፤ የባሕርን ዓሦችና የሰማይን ወፎች በምድር ላይ የሚንቀሳቀሱትንም ሁሉ ግዙአቸው።

Verse 28:

• Why did God bless them? So that they multiply, the blessing of God is a mechanism that helps our multiplication not self exaltation.

• John 15: 16 እኔ መረጥኋችሁ እንጂ እናንተ አልመረጣችሁኝም፤ አብም በስሜ የምትለምኑትን ሁሉ እንዲሰጣችሁ፥ ልትሄዱና ፍሬ ልታፈሩ ፍሬአችሁም ሊኖር ሾምኋችሁ። please note አብም በስሜ የምትለምኑትን ሁሉ እንዲሰጣችሁ why does the father give us all, that we may bear fruit for him. Also remember God planted a tree and expected a fruit from it.

• Why should we multiply? So that we may subdue, there is no subjugation with out multiplication

Remember the Bible says: Deuteronomy 7: 22 “22፤ አምላክህም እግዚአብሔር እነዚህን አሕዛብ በጥቂት በጥቂቱ ከፊትህ ያወጣቸዋል፤ የምድረ በዳ አራዊት እንዳይበዙብህ አንድ ጊዜ ታጠፋቸው ዘንድ አይገባህም። 

 

• That God didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Canaan at once lest the beasts of the land multiply and overcome the children of Israel. This shows us that multiplication is the primary way for conquest. The more the children of Israel multiplied the more their conquest was guaranteed. 

 

This should not be difficult to understand. So let us now come back to discover the very purpose of God for our life in Christ Jesus. This purpose is in Mathew 28: 18 – 20. ኢየሱስም ቀረበና እንዲህ ብሎ ተናገራቸው። ሥልጣን ሁሉ በሰማይና በምድር ተሰጠኝ። 19-20 እንግዲህ ሂዱና አሕዛብን ሁሉ በአብ በወልድና በመንፈስ ቅዱስ ስም እያጠመቃችኋቸው፥ ያዘዝኋችሁንም ሁሉ እንዲጠብቁ እያስተማራችኋቸው ደቀ መዛሙርት አድርጓቸው፤ እነሆም እኔ እስከ ዓለም ፍጻሜ ድረስ ሁልጊዜ ከእናንተ ጋር ነኝ።#

 

One thing we can be sure is that Jesus is always with us whenever we are busy making disciples. And to make disciples we have to be discipled ourselves. We now have concluded that the ultimate purpose of God in our life is Discipleship.

 

Discipleship doesn’t come easily as we sit and wait. It comes when we have subjected ourselves into a discipline of the discipleship life cycle. Those who were with Jesus went through three and half years of learning and experiencing discipline before they went to do it by themselves. The multitude that came and followed Jesus outside this discipline where never given the key to the kingdom; it was the disciples who were given the key to the kingdom. 

 

Mark 4: 10 – 12 ብቻውንም በሆነ ጊዜ፥ በዙሪያው የነበሩት ከአሥራ ሁለቱ ጋር ስለ ምሳሌው ጠየቁት። 

11-12 እንዲህም አላቸው። ለእናንተ የእግዚአብሔርን መንግሥት ምሥጢር ማወቅ ተሰጥቶአችኋል፤ በውጭ ላሉት ግን፥ አይተው እንዲያዩ እንዳይመለከቱም፥ ሰምተውም እንዲሰሙ እንዳያስተውሉም፥ እንዳይመለሱ ኃጢአታቸውም እንዳይሰረይላቸው ነገር ሁሉ በምሳሌ ይሆንባቸዋል። 

 

There were many people, who believed in Jesus and whom Jesus has done many things for. None the less, they never were called disciples. Why because, even though they were good people they never committed themselves through the simple disciplines of following. Understanding the secrets of the kingdom of starts from being a good follower, this will eventually make a good leader.

 

Today many people do not want to follow but want to lead. Before you lead you must learn to follow. For this reason we have taken time to design a working principle or a frame work of being a disciple and making disciples. 

 

Defining our vision & mission 

 

Brief Introduction:

 

Making disciples starts from our home town and community from those that are close to us.  The purpose of any local church is to reach its community. And the purpose of a ministry is to reach a Nation or the world. These two are interrelated interdependent and interconnected. 

 

We must understand that from the past until now many amazing revelations and deep things of God have been taught here in Rhema among ourselves. Once at the beginning of 2003 God spoke to us saying Rehoboth, though we enjoyed seeing the great results of that promise unfolding, during which in the same year we saw the planting and growth of our churches in Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester, Portsmouth Leeds as well as the abundant marriages flourishing; never the less the same pains and draw backs remained lingering among us.

 

But the Lord continued to speak the same thing through out the years, saying we will multiply, he will do a new thing. At the same time He spoke of pruning his house. But one event of all the time stands out very clear. Never in any of the years that God spoke to us concerning his promises, have we ever seen it so clear as we have seen it in the year 2006. During this year God spoke clearly and specifically mentioning three things. 

 

• Rhema shall grow and flourish, and who ever touches her, will be touching the apple of my eye. 

• Haggai 1: 4 “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?”

• Revelation 22: 11 He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still.” And rid the evil one from your midst.

 

You see from the above three points, the bottom two showed what we are lacking as a church. One was telling us that there was evil always lurking in our church which kept destroying what we try to build, and this evil was divinely revealed to us  as the Jezebel Spirit, which we began to wage war against. 

 

The second weakness we had was failing to build the house of God. The very basis of building a house for the Lord is building up spiritual stones that will be used to build a house for the Lord. 1 Peter 2: 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  In this section we saw that we were lacking purpose, we kept doing the same things we were doing and were getting the same the results we were getting. Meaning the only thing we did was teaching people from the pulpit and regardless how powerful the teaching, the results remained the same.  

 

One of our common mistakes is that our strength was dissipated. Everyone is running his own way doing what he thinks is right. There was no synchronization and there was no purpose and no set guide lines and orders which restrained people form being self willed. And we realized we need to bring this together. And the way to do it is that everyone to focus on the common purpose we all have as a church and ministry. We decided what we needed to do now is to join hands together.

 

Joining hands together and consolidating our strength:

 

It is not what we have individually but we can do together that matters:

 

1. We must be purposeful, not throwing the Gold in the midst of swine. Our teachings must find the perfect environment to be delivered, where people can take them and apply them in their life in a biblical manner. ‘NO MORE RUNNING ON YOUR OWN PATH’. It’s not what we have individually but what we can do together which makes the difference. What is in us individually must be a contributor of the great working purpose of our church. Let us avoid trying to achieve something by ourselves. But let us think of what we have individually is only good enough when it becomes a contributing factor to the corporate purpose that we all have together. 

 

1. Our purpose must focus on the great commission and winning the lost. So we must focus on producing and mobilizing believers to become disciples of Jesus Christ and fishers of men. 

 

We took on from there and decided what we need to do if we want to find success and fulfill the ministry that God has given to us. 

 

[Put first things first.] Prepare your work outside and get it ready for yourself in the field; and afterward build your house and establish a home.

 

So there we started to work on four things needed, and these are:

 

1. Discover and Define our purpose

2. communicate our purpose 

3. Focus on our purpose. Bring all that we have to fit into the purpose by categorizing.

4. Implement our purpose, design a working process to help implementing the Purpose

 

We will achieve these all four stages by simply following an essential biblical principle for unity. And these are the three steps of unity. 

1.0 coming together (the start) 

2.0 keeping together (the continuation)    

3.0 working together (the success)

 

Vision & Mission

Vision: 

Our vision is to prepare and mobilize workers of the kingdom for the coming harvest. A great harvest and revival is on the way as we know through the word and as it has been throughout history. God has given us a kingdom. Jesus said “ I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father has appointed unto me” [Luke 22: 29]. Whenever we are kingdom minded then we can have an impact around us. As a result we can become a living testimony to a world around us and live a mark in history. This can only be if we are people who live in line with the word of God, and produce people who would live according to the word, making it their standard in their lives. Thus we do not walk as pleasing to men but God; that we may produce people for God through God. To raise people who would grow in the love of God, walk in truth and live by purpose. Hence we carry the banner which says "obey my voice and do them according to all which I command you, so shall you be my people and I will be your God" [Jeremiah 11: 4]. On this foundation we build, not according to an earthly wisdom but according to the living word of God. 

 

Our Mission: 

At Rhema Faith Ministries we recognize that God anoints and uses all His people for His purpose. And we, according to the vision that God has given us, are working towards building up a united community of believers who would take a stand for one purpose. Thus as our mission statement says "We fellowship together with one mind, one heart, for one purpose, to discover and reveal Christ Jesus". We believe that if our purpose is to make Christ the center of our being, we can easily find ourselves with one mind and one heart regardless our differences, for there is no division in the body. 

Only this can enable us to become a people who would reach the lost with passion for Christ, that we may be able to fulfill and complete the great responsibility laid upon us, to go into all the world and make disciples for Christ, beginning from our community. To raise and prepare people who will stand for truth and live for Christ according to his word and promises not only for their personal benefits, but instead reaching the lost without compromising the truth of the gospel. Not in worldly wisdom but through the power and the never changing love of God.

 

Our Goal is Healthy Growth

 

Our objective is to be a healthy  growing church. Not by transferring members from one church to ours but by winning and discipling the lost for Christ. We make this our aim and take the challenge of truth than false figures and statistics.

 

What is Growth?

• Growth is natural

• Growth belongs to God and is performed by God

• Growth cannot be predicted according to the expectation of men but can be accommodated. “ enlarge the place of your dwelling”

 

How can we achieve our goal?

Through Health and Nourishment

 

Health:  How do we keep heath? 

 

• By consolidating leadership: Every minister must cooperate and be willing for this to come about. 

• To encourage the manifestation of believer’s gift to be active in a healthy and non-selfish manner. Not focusing on the person but on Christ in the person. 

• To illuminate believers to guard from unhealthy characters such as: 

• Competitiveness. 

• The race for who is the greatest.. Let everyone minister esteeming his brother and his grace better than his own.  in what you don’t have your brother is better off.

• Selfishness… self seeking is evil 

• Gossip

• Lust covetousness and worldliness 

• Rebellion  

• Uncooperativeness 

• I don’t agree so I am not going to cooperate, if there is an opinion difference God will bring it to unity at one point if we continue in submission.

• To stay away from Pride and pursuit Humility 

 

Focusing on our purpose as a local church:

 

For this reason we said as a church we must be able to accomplish and plan a way where we can safely implement the 5 biblical principles: God's purposes for His church should be the dominant consideration in decisions about what the church does and how it organizes itself. A study of the Bible shows God's purposes for the church into five overarching purposes anchored in two passages of Scripture. The Scripture passages are the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. The five summary purposes that come from these passages are: The Word (Nourishment), Worship (Magnification), Fellowship (being part of a family Membership), Ministry (serving one another according to the grace), and Evangelism (Mission). These five purposes are expressed in a diagram below. 

 

 

 

Evangelism: winning the lost

 

To know the city we are in and how we can affect it and expand from there.

 

1. Why are we in London and in this particular area of London 

1. Where do I evangelize?

2. Why are we not witnessing and evangelizing

3. Could it be Lack of purposefulness and lack of focus

4. Could it be other aspects such as Transport, distance, peoples working hours etc. (this can be overcome by the means of cell group we will see how)

 

1. What are our obstacles and difficulties we face here in UK or Other country?

2. How do we overcome our obstacles? 

 

1. What are the types of people that we can reach best? 

 

1. What kind of society is it, 

 

1. How can we appeal to them best, and in what way can we appeal to them.

 

1. How do we reach them? And what are the means and ways of reaching them. 

2. How do we target them and where do we find them. For example Hospitals, restaurants, community centers, on the streets, personal evangelism etc.

3. How do different ministries and people in the church work together to achieve our goal? For e.g. what part can the worship team play, what is the part of the prayer group, what does the help ministry play in this? How can outreaches be organized etc?

4. How do we evangelize with in our cell group? 

5. How should celebration days be organized for evangelistic purposes?

 

If we keep asking these questions we will be able to find out something and it will also help us direct our prayers to be specific and fruitful.

 

Targeted evangelism. Targeting is actually a process of determining who the visionary can best reach first and most effectively, but welcoming all and expecting target groups to multiply as the church grows. What makes a hunter a good hunter is not only his shooting ability but finding and knowing his target? This takes prayer perseverance and patience.  When Rick Warren did this study for the Saddleback Valley in Orange County, CA, he summarized a profile as a character known as Saddleback Sam, a typical person in Saddleback.

 

Evangelistic Service and Events: to arrange a service where people would feel comfortable to bring those whom they have been longing to invite to church.  

1. evangelistic Sunday service announced in advance 

2. Celebration days etc..

 

Discipleship: Follow up:

 

Once we win them to Christ through our evangelism, it is good to ask simple and logical questions such as:

1. How do we keep them? 

2. How do we facilitate for them? 

3. What have we been doing so far? And has that procedure worked for us? Has it been fruitful in the past?

4. What working process or order can we implement to achieve the desired fruitfulness? Remember a working process is important.

5. How do we close the back gate behind us to stop people that come through the front door and leave through the back door? 

6. What was the reason for people not staying? The lack of follow up. 

 

Our plan is, once we win people for Christ through our evangelism programs then the next step will be to introduce them in to next stage, which is “Growth ”

 

But before we do that as soon as a person receives Christ, we have to make sure that he gets a call with in two days and a home visit within a week and another home visit depending on necessity. During a home visit the person will happily share to him through personal testimonies about being a new creation without being imposing and boring. And will immediately report back the outcome of the home visit to head of “Growth”. 

 

Growth

(Headed by Sosnios and other 2 or 3 assistants)

 

Providing a simple path of discipleship is vital. The path from converts to reproducing disciple produces the best results when people are introduced to God's purposes for their life through processes that are simple, logical, and linear.  To introduce converts to become members, and members to progressively deeper steps of commitment and maturity.

 

This is a very important part of discipleship. With out progress and development one can not reach the disciple status. And if we want to make disciples we ought to see them develop and progress through various stages, and see them through reaching their discipleship. For this reason we have designed and set a target of when and how we can achieve this result. This we did according to Mathew 28: 18 – 20

This division (“Growth”) covers from the day a believer is born up to being rooted in Christ and bearing fruit. Every stage of the person’s progress will be monitored and analyzed. The total target date to become a covenant person or minister is 21 month (1year and 9 month) up to 30 month (2 years and 3 month). Having said that this is not a rule it is just a target. But we expect to meet the target, in prayer and labour. The only way we can know that we are purposeful people is by having a set target and working towards the goal. Remember it is our labour that God rewards by fruit. 1Corinthians 3: 6 – 8 እንግዲያስ የሚያሳድግ እግዚአብሔር እንጂ የሚተክል ቢሆን ወይም የሚያጠጣ ቢሆን አንዳች አይደለም። 8 የሚተክልና የሚያጠጣ አንድ ናቸው፥ ነገር ግን እያንዳንዱ እንደ ራሱ ድካም መጠን የራሱን ደመወዝ ይቀበላል። The Five stages are explained below.

 

The five main Stages of Growth:

 

Aims: is to meet the requirements of the five main stages of Growth.

1. Preparing teaching materials and other written materials to help all of us understand our purpose and help us focus on our purpose.

2. Raising people who will be committed to teach and bear fruit. This we do according to 2 Timothy 2: 2 And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.  እንግዲህ፥ ልጄ ሆይ፥ አንተ በክርስቶስ ኢየሱስ ባለው ጸጋ በርታ። 2 ብዙ ሰዎች የመሰከሩለትን ከእኔም የሰማኸውን ሌሎችን ደግሞ ሊያስተምሩ ለሚችሉ ለታመኑ ሰዎች አደራ ስጥ።

We will only be interested in people who are truly committed to see this through with us, not lazybones and proud I know it all. Having said that we will make provision of meeting where we will communicate the purpose and monitor the progress. We will support, uphold and challenge wherever and whenever necessary.

 

1. Organizing special days and retreats to take people through

 Experiences and encounters. (Jesus took his disciples through times of experience other than his teachings. E.g. the transfiguration on the mount, the crossing over on the sea, the sending of two by two, the feeding of the 5 thousand, and countless healing and deliverance times) 

 

The Five Stages from Start to completion: The whole package

These teachings take a person from birth to maturity: 

 

Who is Christ - stage 1:

This has been prepared by Tesfaye and looks into the scripture revealing the identity of Christ according to the word. This teaching is conducted as an interactive bible study where the groups of people can ask and as well as attempt answering questions. These teachings total six sessions.

 

In Him (In Christ) – stage 2:

These teaching have been prepared by various ministers and teachers in RFM London to give the believer understanding of his salvation in Christ. These teaching endeavor to cover the following topics and are classed as the milk of the word. 

 

Your Salvation benefits and identity:

1. Behold all things are new. You are a new creation and  ‘The new Birth’ 

2. Your are the Righteousness of God through Christ (Redemption)

3. There is no Condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus

4. Saved by Grace through faith and not by works.

5. You are loved by God, you are  a child of God, You are under grace not under the law, you are  God's chosen possession, you are  God's workmanship, you are  forgiven, you are  free from sin and condemnation, You are blessed, you can be holy and blameless, you are  accepted, You have peace with God, you have direct access to the throne of grace, you belong to God's people, you are  citizen of heaven, you are  a pilgrim on this earth,  you are  God's temple, you are  chosen and called by God,  you are  sent by God and anointed, you have the authority of Christ, you are  seated with Christ, you are  an ambassador of Christ.

Bird’s Eye view of “From Adam to Christ” he gave the earth onto Men.

The Basics of the books of the Bible: The OT (The Law, History, Poet, The prophets), The NT (The Gospel, Epistles, Revelation)

 

Elementary/principal and fundamental - stage 3 

1. Devotion life “The Authority of God’s word”

2. Foundation1 ( Faith, Repentance (repentance from dead works, such as culture religion, law, lust) Baptisms)🡪

3. Leading to Water baptism 🡪 (with in three to four month) 

4. Witnessing stage one (this is because the earlier people start the quicker they will develop the life)

5. Foundation 2 (Laying on of hands, resurrection, eternal judgment)

6. Encounter (this takes place at a retreat organized a number of times every year this includes)

• Healing

• Deliverance 

• Filling of the Holy spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues

1. The Kingdom and the Local Church 

 

The target time limit for this Stage is 6 - 9 month

 

Responsibility/Establishment stage (Intermediate stage) - stage 4

• Here they will begin to learn their responsibilities in the Lord and establishing teachings, this is the intermediate sage

1. Righteousness and holiness

2. Prayer and fasting (level 2, further into deeper  relationship)

3. Commitment and faithfulness and Honesty (character development)

4. Giving and receiving 

5. Fruitfulness (the fruit of the Spirit)

6. Multiplication (witnessing  praying for souls soul winning )

7. Spiritual Warfare (introductory)

8. Discovering your Spiritual gift.

 

The target time limit for this Stage is 6 - 9 month

 

Leadership/priesthood (Strong food and meat stage) – stage 5 

1. This is a stage of leadership and ministry:

2. Multiplication (soul winning and follow up a deeper understanding)

3. Leadership (leading people, cell group leading)

4. Ministry (getting involved in other ministry sectors in the church, school of ministry taking an intensive teaching)

5. Spiritual warfare (getting deeper into the battle front)

6. Called not only to believe in Christ but to suffer for his sake. (sacrificial life)

7. Covenant (becoming a covenant person and minister)

 

The target time limit for this Stage is 9 month - 1 year

 

If we can take 60% of the people we bring to the kingdom through this stage for a starting target. That will be a good target and from there we can work to perfect it. We all must have realistic expectations. 

 

Having said all these, we understand that just taking the person through these teaching is not sufficient to help a person maintain a healthy growth.  To successfully take a person through these series of teachings and experiences, it is important that we have got hold of the person. Other wise if he is a person that comes and goes it will be impossible to disciple him. So we have designed a division called life together (cell group) which will focus on the person on a personal basis.

 

Life together (Cell group) (Headed by  Local Home cell Leader  and 2 or 3 assistants)

 

The aim of cell group is to help ‘Growth’ to be successful, by making sure this convert is around and interested to see himself grow in the Lord and become a disciple. This is how it works. ‘Life together’ will be totally dependant on our cell group structure and the aim is to get the person involved into a home group and then, we will allocate a special person to see him through the Early stages Growth. The special person is there to make sure and achieve the following three different GOALS namely.  

1. Essential

2. Attachment

3. Oversight

Essential: The responsibility of the person here is to plant the new person in a cell group. And make sure that all his needs are being met. For e.g. Praying for his healing, sharing his burden, encouraging him and comforting him.  When a person joins a cell group he will find the following: 

1. The Word of God (the bread of life and foundation) 

2. Worship (for people to connect with the Spirit of God)

3. Fellowship (the love the breaking of bread together, meeting needs)

4. Ministry (laying on of hands, healing, deliverance, benefiting from each others gifts etc)

5. Evangelism (outreaching, targeting people and praying for them then fishing them)

 

Attachment: the responsibility here is to make sure the new believer loves and enjoys the church and the fellowship. It is important that new comers know how we do things in our church. This will help them feel at home during the church service. Not only that, the person will also help encourage regular attendance of the new believer. This person will call regularly just simply to say hi and that he is there if he needs help. E.G you will call on a Friday and ask how his week has been, and if God creates an opportunity to minister do so if not, close your conversation by saying to see him on Sunday. And when you see him before the service or after, make sure you go and have time with him and introduce him to others, take him out with you when you go to restaurants after church service etc. It is important that the person is flexible and joyful. 

 

Oversight: the responsibility here is to make sure and encourage the person to take the Growth teachings. This can be done two ways; 

• If the person is able to teach then he will teach the newcomer himself using the handbook.

• If not then he will closely follow the person to see if he has taken these teachings. 

 

When teaching a person it is important to follow the guide lines of the teaching materials so to help us deliver rightly and the appropriate dose.  It is important that the head of ‘Life together’ monitors and analyze the progress of each follow up to help them see that the work is being done. 

 

Life together in our home Groups       Maturing in The word         Reaching the Lost

 

The Five principles and Values 

 

Monitoring and dealing with Areas we fail

It is good to know the reasons when something fails by identifying the underlining problem. So that we can work on the things that are lacking and need improvement or even adjustment. To enable us to do this, we will setup and design simple questionnaires to ask as to why failure occur. The questionnaires go through making sure if the above stages have been followed up and implemented properly. This will help us to discover weaknesses and strength in order to consolidate or correct. 

 

Why should we go through all this effort and labor? Because God promised to reward our labor. No labor no fruit, no reward. The hand of the diligent shall rule, we will endeavor to show diligence as it is a vital character of a minister. This is our way of showing that we are serious about God’s purpose in our life. We must also watch out that we don’t spiritualize everything and just sit and expect the spiritual side to reach out. It is  how well we organize it; will serve as the vehicle to carry the spiritual to its destination. Not only that this whole set up will also keep all of us in check, but it will also serve as a reminder as to what needs to be done.

 

How do we measure all aspects, evaluate and analyze them?

 

• Prepare a questionnaire that asks questions if all the process in the frame work have been implemented properly. A survey type Questionnaire: for 

1. Evangelism

2. Growth 

3. Life together

4. the five principles

 

The questionnaire here are for monitoring purpose to see if things are going as planned or have been neglected or even to high light methods that have repeatedly failed to work.  

 

This way we will build people up to bear fruit, and also those who come in will have a good example to follow. But this requires us to be focused and be committed. I can tell you it will never work if we all have different ideas and we want to pursuit them. 

 

What is our policy to those who are already Believers but new to Rhema?

What should we do when other people join us leaving other churches or move here from another country or city? We must understand that at least there will be three types of people here. 

• Those that are genuine 

• Those that have no substance but are church nomads on whom you can never rely on.

• The rebellions; those who go from church to church disrupting and disturbing. Whom you are better off not accepting them.

1. How do we view that, what are the points we need to consider.

• When people from a totally different way of working join us, how do we communicate our purpose to them? How do we get them in? 

• What level of commitment should we expect from them?

• Should we entertain the transforming of believers from one church to another as a means of health and growth?

• If we do not want to entertain it, how do we get our message across and communicate it.

1. How do we show them what we expect of them? Because it is a lot easier to go forward with new believers than those who transfer from other churches. As they often refer back and say this is not how we use to do it, the question is if you are going to keep looking back why did you leave in the first place? We need to have a defined purpose set for every one to see and understand. Other wise every one wants to implement their own perception. For example in our cell meetings when the cell leader was unable to attend another person who recently joined began to teach them. Not long after he also left the church, what are the types of people who should lead our congregation? 

2. What have been the outcomes of such people in the past, whether good or bad? 

3. What are the experiences and the pains that people go through when they move from one church to another? How do we deal with their pains and how do we keep ourselves from the same hurt and pain. 

4. What mistakes must we correct and what methods must we abandon and what new methods must we implement?

 

Please Add The Procedures Of What The Pastoral Team Will Do When One Believer Leaves Another Church And Wants To Join To Be Come A Member

 

Defining the purpose of all supportive ministries: 

What is the purpose of the Music Ministry, Prayer Ministry, Help ministry, etc. This will typically look at what we have at the moment and see how we can bring it all together into a visible and working framework. This is more like auditing our assets. The main focus here is to bring all that we have to start serving our purpose directly or in some other way.

 

Defining the purpose of our Services

 

1. What is the purpose of our Sunday Thursday and other services? How do we facilitate the five principles in our programs:

1. For a long time we have been working in organizing services and conferences. In other words we have been serving our services while our services should be directly serving our purpose. Now we would like to turn that around and focus on to see if the five principles are running well in our meetings. 

2. The other aim here is to have a well organized church service and discipline. It was the discipline of the house of King Solomon that captivated the heart of the Queen. And this house was built by wisdom. That well disciplined and organized service was built by the wisdom of God as the bible says a house is built by wisdom. 

1. Our time keeping 

2. The ushering service (the discipline)

3. The announcements

4. Understanding each programs and stages in the service, like the program leaders purpose, the worship leaders purpose the choirs purpose, the delivery of the word, and knowing who to follow (the leader of the congregation)

 

1. What is the purpose of chapels? What is the vision, for example conducting an extra service for people who are far way?

• Special event s such as graduation day and thanks giving days must be organized well.

Pulpit policy:

1. Those who stand at the pulpit must be characterized. This is because anyone who stands there is seen by the sheep as someone credible and follow examples of. Anyone who stands there with out a trusted character is like a terrorist who has broken through security gates. The leaders have responsibility of controlling the activity of what goes on the pulpit.

2. No members of the church are allowed to carry out any meetings such as prayer or teaching meetings which is not known to the leadership.

 

Defining the purpose of our Cell group :

Most of all what is important is how do we all of us together achieve this result that God wants us to bring. How all the different colors line up together to show the beauty of our cloth? How do we fit the right skills in the right place? How do we explore the diverse godly desires, passions and gifts of people and benefit from them all? Diversity is good if there is a common factor to bring them together as one. Which means that one body will have many different ways to reach out. But the question remains how do we achieve this? 

 

The Cell group is a wider and much bigger way to facilitate the 5 main principles. Additionally it is the best place where the gifts and ministries of many people manifest and become evident. You could call it a place of opportunity where people will have a better and easier access to exercise God’s purpose in their lives and also access God’s blessing in their life. 

The five purposes are: 

1. The Word of God (the foundation and life source)

2. Worship (the way we connect with the Spirit of God and maintain relationship)

3. Fellowship (the place comfort and strength)

• Fellowship should consist, Spiritual, Social  and emotional needs,

• Introduction to ministries

• Social fellowship

• Quiz

• Day outs

• Sports day 

• Sharing various skills

• Unmarried fellowship

• Married fellowship

• Youth fellowship under 25

• Women fellowship

• Men fellowship 

• Parent’s fellowship, kids outings and etc………..

 

1. Ministry (The area where we will provide our service to the Lord, let my people go that they may serve me)

2. Evangelism (making it our life style to express the love of God)

 

The imperatives of Training

 

Training sessions will help us achieve best results in communicating the purpose of our church to our people. Various sorts of informal and equipping training will be provided in various formats, as well as small informal meeting reporting of developments and changes. Also training packages will be prepared and a typical package would have a DVD video + booklet. We will try to get packages for

1. introduction to our purpose

2. Introducing Follow up

3. What is ‘Growth’ and ‘Life Together’? How does it work?

4. Cell group (studying the and experiencing the 5 principles and exercising them) How to target evangelize (Looking at ways of evangelism. How did Jesus do it?) 

5. Updates of  new things or reminders

 

It is important where we find a training time that consists: 

1. activities being set up in groups  

2. video clips and group discussions as well as teachings and lectures

 

Using Mission statements slogans and proclamations:

 

This is a very effective way of getting the message across, it is a lot harder for people to remember a whole series of teachings, but by using a visual and easy to remember statements we will be able to remind people continuously of our purpose. 

E.g.

• Constrained by the Love of God we are committed to make a difference for one taking one step at a time. (this shows people that they have the potential to make a difference for some one through love)

• The possibilities are endless, transforming possibility, into reality 

• Together as one serving and fulfilling the purpose of God  

• Together with one mind one heart and one purpose discovering and revealing Jesus Christ

 

Implementing our purpose

 

After introducing and communicating our purpose, we do not expect it to take of just like that. We understand that bringing people into a discipline or way of working is a time consuming process. So the brief plan is that we have designed our purpose to be flexible, which means we can add or subtract from it as and when needed. While we can alter and amend the ways on how methods work, the basic foundation and principle of discipleship remains the same.

 

The plans for our implementation is as follows:

 

For GROWTH: the first 6 – 9 month we will solely concentrate on: preparing materials introducing and training (we understand that during the preparation and studying of the teaching material people will also learn things that they can teach and pass on) We will select able men who will help out in the preparation of the seminar, if possible both in Amharic and Tigrigna, and send it abroad that it may be typed up and sent over to us where we will package Any better suggestions on this is more than welcome. Once we have the typed up study material is ready, we will use special seminars and retreats to introduce the study of the three stages, with a PRIORITY focus on the ELEMENTARY STAGE. This will also be recorded on DVD to be produced as a material.

 

For LIFE TOGETHER : we have had an introduction seminar that took place about multiplication. What we will do to that is use the Sunday after service program times to train people up for Cell leadership. Our main focus will be to: Turn our Bible study groups into a cell group, turning people into becoming cell leaders than just conducting Bible study. The Bible study is only one of the 5 principles but certainly the most important of all.  We will make use of the meetings after our service on Sunday to in introducing the cell vision.

 

Categorizing:

 

Categorizing is one of the primary works that we need to setup. Knowing who is at what level and who can do what will help a lot. For example how many people in the church are at the stage 1 of Growth? By grouping people like that we will be able to know where to start and how to start. The best thing to do is to start as clear cut as possible so being smaller in number is not a problem at all, if not an advantage. 

 

Apostle Zewdie Gebreselassie 

Rhema Faith Ministries UK.