Background of Vision 2023 - The Vision Document of COP
Source: The Church of PentecostThe theme for Vision 2023 is “Possessing the Nations: Equipping the Church to Transform Every Sphere of Society with Values and Principles of the Kingdom of God”. ‘Possessing or taking nations’ is an ancient military phrase, which meant replacing the rule or reign of a nation with that of another through conquest.
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Relating this term to the Great Commission inspires us to raise an army of Christians who, being filled with the Holy Spirit and fully equipped with the knowledge of God’s word, will engage and transform their societies with Godly values and principles, wherever they are and in whatever they do, in order to win many to Christ and transform them into salt and light of the world (Eph. 3:10; Col. 1:13; Mt. 5:13-16).
The values and principles of the Kingdom of God in this context entail teachings about Christ that define the Christian as the light and salt of the world, imbued with Godly attributes such as love, integrity, patience, hard work, honesty and faithfulness (Mt. 5:13-16; Php. 2:15; Ga. 5:22-24). This document seeks to throw light on the spirit and focus of the theme, highlighting the key elements embedded within the theme as well as the implementation strategies for achieving the vision. It highlights what we want to see both in the church and in society in five years’ time, the gap between our goal and the existing current situation as far as the church and society are concerned, what we need to do in order to bridge the gap between our goal and the status quo, the strategic positioning of
The Church of Pentecost in terms of our human/material and spiritual endowments and how we plan to leverage our current strengths and take advantage of existing and future opportunities in our attempt to possess the nations.
2.1 Overall Goal
Building on what has been achieved by previous leadership, we foresee a refreshed church that equips and releases its members into ministry as agents of 5 transformation wherever they may be. The overall goal is a church where members go to possess their nations by transforming every worldview, thought and behaviour with values, principles and lifestyles of the Kingdom of God and thereby turning many people to Christ. Guided by a very important statement made by Roger Helland that, “an unrestricted vision causes havoc and that churches must be strategic in what wars they fight and when they fight them”, we have carefully examined this vision in the light of our church’s overarching vision, mission, tenets, core values and practices.
2.2 The Gap Analysis
In spite of our church’s impressive achievements over the years, there is a lot more to be done. Our societies are still influenced by worldviews, thoughts and arguments which contradict the knowledge of God. Taking Ghana for instance, according to the 2010 Population and Housing Census, 71.2% of Ghanaians claim to be Christians. As evidence to this, churches including The Church of Pentecost are scattered along the length and breadth of the nation. However, in spite of the presence of these churches in our societies, Christianity has not yet impacted society adequately in a way that eliminates endemic corruption and the rampant social mishaps to reflect the huge Christian presence in the country.
A quote from a columnist published in the Daily Graphic (a Ghanaian newspaper) on 4th September, 2018, page 49 gives some credence to this reality. Crime today in our society is on the ascendency, marriages are collapsing, indiscipline in our society is at worrying levels, glaring despair on the faces of many but most of the perpetrators of the crime and or the victims are in their homes, markets, ghettos etc. who are to be reached in their locations in an effort to win souls for Christ.
It is not that God does not have the power to accomplish the redemption of the nations. His great love does not fall short of this goal. Rather, many churches’ lack of understanding of God’s purpose for the Church keeps the nations bound in darkness to false religions, lust for power, greed and all forms of evil. False teachings confuse many Christians and thus frustrate their witness. Faced with similar situations, Bible characters such as Moses and Elijah as well as Church and social reformers including Martin Luther and John Wesley, had a national focus. They were purposed on bringing their nations under the rule of God. These preachers were considered as God’s divine agents ordained to reform the nations, and “to spread scriptural holiness over the land”.
As a church, it is time for us to focus a lot more attention on the practice of being God’s representative on earth. The Church has to focus on being salt and light in this perverse world in order to transform the spiritual, social, economic and political fabric of the nations. We believe that the destiny of our nations is in the hands of the Churches.
2.3 Strategic Objectives
The transformation agenda of Vision 2023 demands the efficient and effective implementation of well-designed interventions in order to fulfil the requirements of the Great Commission. For this reason, the broad strategic objectives in pursuit of our goal of possessing/taking the nations and turning many people to Christ include the following:
a. To teach our members to understand the dual purpose of the Church (i.e. the is church is called out of the world to belong to God and sent back to the world to witness and to serve).
b. To equip our members with the knowledge of God’s word for ministry;
c. To create the awareness that whatever a person does in any aspect of life is an opportunity and a setting for ministry;
d. To deploy our members to transform society and take nations for Christ;
e. To further strengthen existing institutions and structures of our church and realign their activities to drive Vision 2023;
f. To undertake structural adjustments to get the church system freed from crowded programmes in order to release members to witness and to serve;
g. To strengthen existing institutions and structures to continually assess the effectiveness of interventions aimed at achieving the objectives of Vision 2023 (accountability).
2.4 Our Current Strengths
By the grace of God, The Church of Pentecost has defied all odds and grown globally to become one of the major players in world Christianity today. The church has a strong spiritual foundation, governance structure and effective leadership. Our administrative structures have been strengthened over the past years and are able to guide and guard us in possessing the nations for Christ. The church is present in most communities in Ghana and in other countries.
The majority of the church membership is youth (below 36 years), energetic and poised to take the nations. We have growing human and material resources around the world available to be harnessed for the Kingdom business. We also have very functional departments (ministries, boards, committees and training institutions) to facilitate the ministry of the church in every fabric of society.
Moreover, there is evidence that God has given The Church of Pentecost a leadership role in Ghanaian Christianity as well as in the Ghanaian society and we are gaining respect in world Christianity; thanks to the good leadership of predecessors. The size of our church and the resources we have been blessed with should become the means by which we can play a significant role to bring all nations under the influence of the values and principles of the Kingdom of God.
2.5 Strategic Approach
Vision 2023 is an attempt to challenge the church to leave the building. We must move beyond seeing Sunday services as the arena for serving God. If we hope to make a difference in a hopeless world, our people must go and the church must send to take the nations for Christ (Ro. 10:13-15; 15:20,21, Jn. 20:21).
I do not mean to imply that ministries taking place inside church buildings are wrong. People teaching Sunday schools, leading Bible study or singing in the choir meet the needs of the body of Christ. It is just that these internal ministries are not sufficient to fulfil the Great Commission completely. If the work of the Church is what is done within the institution (Local Church), only a small number of members will ever have the opportunity to do the work God has birthed the Church to do on earth. We will therefore adopt a three-pronged approach as our strategy to take possession of the nations in the short, medium and long term. The strategy includes:
(i) equipping members of the Church with the required resources;
(ii) sending our members out as channels through which God’s divine resources will flow to meet the needs and the helplessness of our society and transform it;
(iii) Strengthening and re-aligning existing institutions and structures to serve as implementation units and also to provide the enabling environment for the achievement of Vision 2023. Details of our three-pronged strategy are described below.
2.5.1 Equipping the Church to take the nations
The Church has never been the focus of the Great Commission. The Great Commission is expected to happen outside the Church. But the Church has always been the most important tool for carrying out the Great Commission (Mt. 28:18- 20; Ro. 10:13-15; 1 Ti. 3:14, 15). It is the primary vessel God uses to train and equip His people for ministry (Eph. 4:11-16). The Church is therefore to train Christians to be Christ-like and to embody Him and His principles, so that in everyday life we may operate from a Godly 8 perspective. That is why we preach, teach and worship. When Christians change the goal of the Church and make it a place of conservation and escape rather than equipping and sending (Jn 20:21), we are working against the Great Commission.
We may be holding God’s workers instead of deploying them to transform the society and take nations for Christ. We have to equip them to join Jesus in the incredible mission of disciple making (Lk. 4:18, 19; Eph. 2:10). The purpose of equipping the Church is for doing ministry. True ministry is not limited to the fivefold ministry or pulpit ministry. For example, in The Church of Pentecost with worldwide adult membership of 2,226,488 and total clergy of 2,386 (according to our 2017 statistics), one can conclude that if the work of the ministry is left with the clergy alone, about 99.9% of our church population will be rendered redundant. The purpose of pulpit ministry is to help people discover their God-given abilities and be equipped to be effective in their own sphere of influence. We need to be intentional about the purpose of every believer - being like yeast and influencing the contexts in which they find themselves until they have transformed it to reflect the glory of God (Mt. 13:33).
Understanding the priority and purpose of the Church is necessary for equipping Christians and sending them to affect the spiritual and moral darkness in our societies. If our members are well-equipped and intentionally released into the nations, the spiritual and social capital we have inherited and the material resources we have at our disposal are likely to touch the communities of the world, bringing a great multitude under the rule of the Kingdom of God.
2.5.2 Transforming Society
The church has a double identity. On the one hand, we are called out of the world to belong to God, and on the other, we are sent back to the world to witness and to serve (Tit 2:14, Jn. 17:15,16). A strong church is the one that looks at human life holistically and does not separate the secular and the sacred. We therefore need to revise our theology so that our members in all spheres of life will see their role as agents of transformation in our societies. It is only then that we can expect our members to serve God and humanity with whatever they do (1 Co. 10:31).
In this way, every sphere of the society such as the family, government, politics, business/economy, education/science, media/culture and sports become settings for ministry. In order for the glory of God to fill all the earth, it is necessary that the truth and the principles of His Kingdom become pillars on which all of society rest (1 Tim. 3:15). Every member of the church will therefore be encouraged to see him or herself as an agent of transformation in every sphere of his or her involvement in society. The slogan “I am an agent of transformation” will be the watchword. The Church in the book of Acts gathered to magnify the goodness of the exalted King, but they understood by the influence of the Holy Spirit that their task was to leave the building. Their lives were so radically transformed by the gospel that they did not see their faith as connected to a place.
As a result, the Church grew exponentially. It is therefore the objective of Vision 2023 to equip and send our members to position themselves in their spheres of influence and to be channels of love through whom God’s divine resources will flow to meet the needs and the helplessness of our society. This would happen only if we intentionally equip people to be true witnesses in every institution, living out and standing for the values and principles of the Kingdom of God in those spheres of life – thus possessing our nations. We have to penetrate other people’s worlds as Jesus penetrated ours: the world of their thinking, the world of their feeling, the world of their living. This costly entry into other people’s worlds however is not to be undertaken at the cost of our own Christian integrity. We are called to maintain the standards of Jesus Christ untarnished.
2.5.3 Strengthening and Re-aligning
Church Institutions and Structures Over the years, the church has developed a formidable institutional and governance structure made up of functional departments, ministries, boards, committees and training institutions to facilitate the ministry of the church. Our efforts to possess the nations will however require that our institutions and structures are further strengthened and their activities realigned to drive the Vision to its fulfilment. There is also the need for freshness in the spiritual life of the church (CoP). This freshness, among other ways, can be achieved when the church structures are freed from crowded programmes. This will help release the members to effectively minister to God, to each other, to the society and to the church. The Monitoring and Evaluation Unit will be strengthened to play a coordinating role in the following areas: in observing implementation schedules and delivery of outputs and the evaluation of the effectiveness and impacts of planned interventions aimed at achieving the objectives of Vision 2023 document.
Source: The Church of Pentecost
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