Each & Every An Outreach Initiative for Berean Baptist Church Situational Analysis • Our calling—at the core of Berean’s mission is Jesus’ command to make more and deeper disciples. The command is directed to all those that would choose to follow him and the scope of his command is “to all the world”, “to all creation”, and “to the ends of the earth.” (Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8) • Our strengths and weaknesses—in general Berean is more skilled at strengthening believers than making new disciples. We have more momentum towards service and volunteering than we have for outreach. We have had some recent encouraging developments in the areas of BNC and Somali outreach. • Our attendance plateau—our lack of recent numeric growth underscores the necessity for continued evaluation and fresh efforts as we corporately and individually seek to make more disciples. • A spiritual plateau?—many in our body are not experiencing deepening relationships with Jesus to the degree they could because their walk with Jesus does not include personal disciple-making. • Our changing GO team—changes in Berean’s outreach leadership and outreach structure require us to seek for new ways to effectively promote outreach, equip believers, and send out laborers. Proposed Goals • Communicate anew Berean’s efforts to help see disciples made from among all peoples and for all disciples of Jesus at Berean to be personally invested in making more disciples. • Mobilize Berean’s leadership to provide lift to GO’s strategic partnerships and our local disciple making efforts. • Develop and implement a comprehensive equipping strategy for personal disciplemaking. • Establish and track measureable benchmarks for success o Every one—100% of Berean’s regular attenders engaged in disciple-making. Engagement is marked by personally participating in global or local outreach efforts or experiential training in disciple-making. Engagement could also be in a group context (see plan details for “Every one”, 4.a.). o Each ministry—ministry leaders, elders, and pastors participating and each ministry playing a role in incorporating outreach into body life. o Involved New Believers—reach or exceed a 10-13% threshold of new believers among our teens and adults whom are involved in our ministries. Involved New Believers are individuals who have begun a relationship with Jesus Christ in the past 4-5 years and who are actively connected at Berean.
Initiative plan details 1) Conduct a GO campaign called Each & Every. a. Communicate our efforts to help see disciples made from among all peoples in the world. i. Our geographical scope—highlighting our outreach partnerships in 5 continents (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa). ii. Our missional scope—highlighting the HIV/AIDS crisis (Malawi/Africa), church planting/family outreach (Mexico City/North America), unreached people groups (Hui/Asia), aiding those in poverty (Rio, Manila/South America, Asia), youth outreach (Spain?/Europe), human trafficking (India/Asia). (Others?) b. Communicates our desire to see all disciples of Jesus at Berean personally invested in making more disciples. i. Beginning at the GO weekend in November promote our mission trips, highlighting those that we are using to represent our geographical and missional scope. ii. Work with ministry, ABF, and small group leaders to help them develop a plan for engaging as a group in sending. 2) Mobilize Berean’s leadership to provide lift to GO’s strategic partnerships and our local disciple making efforts. a. Modeling—key leaders model the importance of personal participation by annually (biannually?) going on one of the strategic mission trips. b. Spokesperson—the key leaders are the “up front” faces and spokespersons for each particular trip. c. Momentum—participation in these trips will increase as the body follows the example of our leaders and as our leaders naturally recruit from their spheres of influence. 3) Develop and implement an equipping strategy for personal disciple-making. a. Cultivate experiential disciple-making training opportunities for efforts we already do (Berean Neighborhood Care outreaches, Collision (youth) outreaches, Vacations Bible School/Summer Jam counselors, mission trip trainings, Somali outreach, Kids Closet, etc) b. Create new training opportunities that will allow us to equip more of our body, like Berean visitor follow up (?), VBS community promotion, ABF and small group outreaches, etc) 4) Establish and track measureable benchmarks for success. a. Every one—track annually within all ministries the number of individuals engaged in global, local, and personal outreach efforts or experiential training in disciple-making. Ministries submit their evaluation of the past year’s effectiveness, plans for the next ministry year, and the quantitative number of those that engaged in outreach or training in the past 12 months. Individuals could also be considered engaged if they are actively part of a group that corporately sent out mission trip participants. Example—an ABF takes on the challenge of sending at least one individual from their group to each of the 6-7
strategic partnerships. The ABF participates in praying for those individuals, supporting them financially, and hearing them report back after the trip. b. Each ministry—conduct an annually evaluation by each ministry where effectiveness incorporating outreach into their ministry efforts and how well they promote disciple-making in our body life. c. Involved New Believers—track annual the number of Involved New Believers in each ministry and compare the number as percentage of reach or exceed a 10-13% threshold of new believers among our teens and adults whom are involved in our ministries. Involved New Believers are individuals who have begun a relationship with Jesus Christ in the past 5 years and who are actively connected at Berean.