Winning the World

136 Wi nn i ng the Wor l d: Fac i l i tat i ng Urban Chur ch P l ant i ng Movement s

C. Impact on our missional perspectives on church plant movements: Selectivity and Dogmatism

1. We may allow our convictions about models to interfere with our ability to hear the facts, and/or become dogmatic regarding certain models unnecessarily.

2. We may confuse particular experiences with certain models as universally applicable and effective.

3. We may ignore some models because they tend to go against our vision of the Church, or their failure to harmonize with our own viewpoints about what we believe the mission of the Church to be.

4. We may allow our personal interests to make us blind to models which may in fact hold great promise for us.

D. Biblical evidences

1. The Principle of Identity : Affirm your connection to the historic faith and the biblical Story of God, beginning with Abraham, Israel, and finally in the Messiah, bring all thoughts captive to Messiah, 1 Pet. 2.9-11 (ESV) – But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. [10] Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. [11] Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

a. We are a part of the one, true covenant people of God who has embraced God’s promise of eternal life in the