Imagine a world where Jesus Christ is honored as Lord in every nation, by every race and ethnic group on the planet…A world that sees the fulfillment of the ancient prayer urged by Jesus Himself: “May Your Kingdom come.”
Of course, at this moment we are far from seeing this dream become reality. But, the reality is no longer just a dream. God has given us the promise that it will come to pass and He’s opening new doors to get us there. For 2000 years, He has been advancing toward the goal. We now live at a time when unprecedented changes have provided unprecedented opportunities to realize the dream.
God’s chosen method of advancing the cause of His Kingdom is the planting of new churches. Tim Keller insists that “The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for the numerical growth of the Body Christ in any city…Virtually all the great evangelistic challenges of the New Testament are basically calls to plant churches, not simply to share the faith.” This is God’s cause done in God’s way.
Vision360 exists to accelerate the planting of new churches around the world that aim to transform their cities with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel has the power to do what no amount of money or education or governmental programming can do—change a person’s heart. But, heart change is only the beginning. Jesus proclaimed the “Gospel of the Kingdom” indicating He had something more in mind than just individual salvation. His reign as King is realized as every facet of society is brought into alignment with His revealed will in Scripture. His Kingdom comes. His will is done on earth as it is being done in heaven right now.
Now imagine an environment where global leaders emerge for this kind of Gospel transformation…where these leaders are covered and upheld in prayer, challenged to stay true to the authority of the Scriptures, skilled in the core essentials of launching and leading catalytic churches, empowered to leverage the latest technology for Kingdom purposes, and committed to a life of learning within the context of Christ’s global community.
The Bill & Vonette Bright Global Collaboration Center has been established to help foster this global environment. This dream of global transformation through the Gospel of Jesus Christ is advanced by: (1) Facilitating Global Collaboration Communities where key global leaders interface for the purposes of learning from each other and accelerating church planting. (2) Providing a two-way distribution platform for training materials accessible anywhere in the world and translated into 50 different languages. This makes training available for global leaders who otherwise would have no training and allows leaders in the U.S. to learn from the movement of God’s Spirit at the global level. (3) Instituting a “train the trainer” model resulting in indigenous coaches who will work with the church planting networks in global cities. (4) Developing the world’s largest repository of training materials for Christian leaders. This will include a two-week, ten-module core essentials course for church planters. (5) Interlinking Christ’s global community through online communities of practice that will enable sharing of ideas and establishing of relationships across cultures. It will also provide a real-time tracking tool to help verify ministry effectiveness. (6) Training Events: Global, national, and regional conferences, assessment centers, business leader symposiums, and monthly domain-leader roundtable discussions that are captured and distributed to our partners.
Finally imagine a future in which generations to follow live in a very different world. Churches have come alive: transformed by the Gospel, engaged with the culture, living out authentic love, multiplying at an exponential rate, and being the salt and light Jesus intended. A world transformed. The glory of Christ’s Kingdom displayed.
In short, ours is the continuing story of the Book of Acts: Leaders working across language and culture, tackling tough issues and solving problems together all based on a strong and clear understanding of God’s unfolding plan and purpose—turning the world upside down by presenting the Gospel with words and actions.
¹ Why Plant Churches Anyway? an unpublished paper by Tim Keller
[http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2003/oct/timkeller-whyplant.html]
-Gregg Heinsch
This is a very inspiring vision! I wonder how this very american/western business model works in a “third world” application where the education is minimal, and reading skills are not the learning style. (This is not a criticism, so please bear with me.) Our focus in Activation International Ministries is to go to the rural and less educated pastor and bring foundational Biblical training to those who don’t have the opportunity because of poverty or low level education. Have you taken in to consideration the hundreds of oral cultures in the world where people learn best by hearing and not by reading? I am very encouraged by this vision because I too share the passion and the call of reaching every nation, tongue and tribe! I wonder if there are ways we can compliment each others ministry? I would love to know more.
-Susan Shields
susan@activationinternational.com