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Metro Praise's strategy is as simple as "One, two, three - Connect, Mentor, Send!" This simple, yet effective strategy is found all throughtout the New Testament. "Connect, Mentor, and Send" describes how God uses disciples within the local church to make and reproduce new disciples, thus accomplishing Jesus' Great Commission, to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I (Jesus) have commanded you". In otherwords, "disciples making disciples".
Here is how we "Connect, Mentor, and Send":
(1) Connect: Connecting people to Jesus and the church
Metro Praise connects to the world by preaching the Gospel. When someone accepts Jesus and or desires to be apart of our church we take them through our "101 Discipleship Class" by having them read and study our book called "Welcome to Your New Life: Seven Steps to Spiritual Growth". This class is done one-on-one with a leader from the church. We then teach all believers to connect to God and the church in the following ways:
(a) Connect to God through a Spirit-filled born-again relationship: Colossians 1:21-23
(b) Remain Connected to God and bear fruit in holiness, spiritual giftings, and ministry: John 15:1-8
(c) Get and stay connected to the church through discipleship and fellowship: Acts 2:42-47.
(2) Mentor: Mentoring disciples to make new disciples
Metro Praise believes that Christians and believers in Christ are all called to be "disciples", which means "a devoted and disciplined follower of Jesus Christ". We call this step "mentor" because it involves being trained and devoloped by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God through the Elders and Deacons of the church.
During this stage the disciple is brought through the "201 Discipleship Class" by attending a year long training class with our book called, "Disciples Making Disciples - 12 Lessons in Christian Leadership". This class meets every week and is lead by the pastoral elder of the church.
In this time the disciple is mentored in prayer, fasting, holiness, ministry, servanthood, Bible study, evangelism, family devotions, confronting & answering other religions, Scripture memorization, worship, and they are also held accountable to God and the church.
Therefore, we believe for each person to be mentored as Jesus mentored the twelve disciples, each person must be:
(a) Teachable: 2 Timothy 2:1-2
(b) Accountable: 1 Corinthians 4:8-21
(c) A Servant: Philippians 2:19-22
(d) Hungry for more of God: John 6:66-69
(3) Send: Sending trained disciples into ministry as Deacons and Elders to make new disciples.
Metro Praise believes once a person has been properly and effectively trained as a disciple they are now qualified to be a leader in the church. We therefore believe that every believer should be a leader. As a leader the church appoints and ordains them to be either a "Elder: a public leader of a ministry". Or as a "Deacon: a helper and assistant to the Elders in a ministry." This example can be found in 1 Timothy 3:1-13 & Titus 1:5-9.
Once the leader is sent out into ministry they will remain accountable to the other Elders and Deacons of the church and will be given a ministry to work in. Therefore, the newly sent disciple must always remember to:
(a) See the Lord: The leader can never forget to see God in all that they do, they must guard their heart, family and devotional life with God - Isaiah 6:1-9.
(b) See the Harvest: The minister must always pray see to the harvest all around them and bring the lost the Good News of Jesus Christ - John 4:34-38.
(c) See the Need: The Elder or Deacon must always commit to seeing the needs of the people and doing all they can to meet those needs - Romans 10:14-15.
(d) See their Ministry: The disciple must always follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus did, and know their place in the church and the work they are called to do - 1 Corinthians 5:17-21.
Metro Praise believes that by doing ministry through this strategy we will make a 100,000 disciples here in Chicago and plant 50 churches here and 500 around the world.
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