Ministry Advancement Plan

The Lord is clear in His direction to us that, “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” (Prov. 16:9). We have been intentional about our plans for the upcoming year. We acknowledge that they require a significant amount of faith on the part of the church family if they are to come to fruition. We also offer them in humble submission before our Lord, although we have attempted to carefully plan, we desire for Him to direct our steps.

The Purpose of Fellowship Bible Church is…

• To exalt Jesus Christ,
• Disciple all people,
• And love others as He loved us.

While continuing to exalt Jesus Christ, and love others as He loved us, this year we would like to place a special focus on that second statement of purpose: To Disciple All People.

Disciple All People

Jesus commanded us to make disciples (Matt. 28:18-20). Our desire is to give our undivided attention to this command from our Savior. We believe that when we keep this command the Lord Jesus will be exalted, and we will have been intentional in our commitment to love others as He loved us.

In this plan you will discover changes to the way we have done things in the past. This is by design. As we evaluated what we have been doing as a church in light of Jesus’ command and our central purpose this year to make disciples of all people we had to acknowledge that there was room for significant improvement. Any change to our existing way of doing things has been intentional. We believe that the change allows us to more effectively move a disciple of the Lord Jesus from His present standing to fuller maturity.

Jesus Himself said, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.” (Luke 6:40). Fellowship Bible Church is committed to the training of disciples. The following pages present our plan to do so over the next several years.

“Disciples To Maturity” Defined

The mature disciple will be like his teacher, Jesus. Jesus’ life demonstrated the following qualities that we would expect to see in the mature disciple. Not only do we find them in Jesus, but we list them here that we might affirm them as a growth target. This is not an all-inclusive list, but these are qualities that we long to be growing and changing towards as we are conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

• A Sincere Faith: You have a growing trust in the sovereignty of God in the midst of difficult circumstances (Rom. 8:28-29; 1 Tim. 1:5).
• A Discerner of Truth: You can correctly interpret and properly apply the Scriptures in our world (2 Peter 3:16; 2 Tim. 1:5)
• A Communicator of God’s Word: You can effectively communicate God’s truth to both believers and unbelievers (1 Pet. 3:15).
• An Eternal Perspective: You consistently invest your resources in the eternal over the temporal (Matt. 6:33; Col. 3:2).
• A Compassion for the Lost: You are growing in your love for unbelievers in your community, extended community, and in the nations of the world (Matt. 9:36).
• Consistently spend time with God: You practice a consistent prayer life and personal Bible study (Dan. 6:10; Psalm 119)
• Life Change: You are growing and changing towards the character qualifications found for leaders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 (Rom. 8:29; Acts 6)
• Active Involvement in the Body of Christ: You are using your spiritual gifts and are actively involved in ministry by building up Christ’s Body (1 Cor. 12; Rom. 12; Eph. 4; 1 Pet. 4).
• A Pursuer of Reconciliation: You are quick to pursue repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation (Matt. 5:23; 2 Cor. 5:18; Rom. 12:18)
• A Biblical Problem Solver: You are not just talking about problems, but actively planning Scripture-based solutions (Rom 15:14).
• Demonstrate the Fruit of the Spirit: You are not controlled by the flesh, but controlled by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16-23)
• An Active Discipler of Others: You are actively committed to helping others grow in greater Christ-likeness (2 Tim. 2:2; Phil. 4:9).