The SIAFU Guidebook

14 The SIAFU Network Guidebook

The mission of the SIAFU (pronounced see-AH-foo ) Network is to establish a viable, effective network of urban Christian men and women whose goal is to inspire each other to take full responsibility for one another’s lives and well-being. As soldiers of Christ, urban Christians must stand up for our marriages and families, for our churches and congregations, and for our communities to advance the Kingdom of Christ in the city. Why is SIAFU needed? It is necessary because we must find new ways to assemble together in order to empower one another to befriend and mentor each other to reach unchurched family members and friends with the Gospel. Furthermore, we can use these gatherings to disciple new Christians to live the Christian life, and to challenge one another to serve as faithful stewards and servants in our respective Christian churches. A local assembly is an outpost of the Kingdom, wherever the Lord may have placed that church. Through SIAFU, we hope to work together as churches and disciples in order to identify, train, and release godly, spiritually qualified laborers who can start new ministries, plant healthy churches, and reach lost urban neighborhoods for Christ. As you ponder the arguments and applications set forth in this guidebook, it would be helpful for you to keep in mind the principle of reversal. Simply stated, it testifies that in the Kingdom of God, everything is upside-down to how it is viewed and signified in the world. The ethic of the Kingdom requires that you understand life from a new perspective, from God’s vantage point, as it were, and comprehend the possibilities for change and transformation through his eyes, and not your own. This book makes a case that mobilizing urban disciples is the only way that the cities of the world can possibly be evangelized and transformed. They and they alone must rise to the occasion and respond to the grace of God with surrender and passion to see God do new things in the city. This is not a novel idea; rather, this principle of God working with the least and lowly is well documented in Scripture. For instance, the Word declares that it is the poor who shall become rich, and the rich shall become poor (Luke 6.20-26), and the law breaker and the undeserving