Foundational Beliefs

WE BELIEVE the Great Commission is the mission. We don't believe you need months to craft a clever mission statement when Jesus already gave the church one in Matthew 28:19–20: "Go and make disciples." Furthermore, we believe it's not only an organizational mission, it's a personal mission given to every believer. The mission never changes but methods and strategies to accomplish it will, over time.

WE BELIEVE vision must stretch churches and leaders. We champion the "double impact in five years or less" framework because it is clear and helpful. We help leaders embrace the healthy tension that robust vision creates because it sparks innovative thinking and courageous decision-making. We also think it honors God. We partner with churches to set ambitious visions where faith is tested and the work ahead becomes clear.

WE BELIEVE future vision should be renewed on a regular basis because God's plans are always evolving. Mission is static but vision is dynamic and must be held loosely, and refreshed regularly. We guide leaders to plan vision renewal every one to two years because God often does immeasurably more than we hope or imagine when we align with His mission. We work with churches to stay nimble and responsive to what God is doing in each new season rather than clinging to yesterday's plans.

WE BELIEVE every church is a unique creation by God. We challenge leaders to not copy other churches' visions and strategies, and instead discover how God wants to accomplish the Great Commission through their church. These outcomes can be very unique between churches, even if two churches sit next door to one another. Churches are not competing with one another when it comes to the Great Commission.

WE BELIEVE the mission and clear vision create a "true north" from which to measure success. "Is the mission being accomplished?" and "Is the vision unfolding?" are the only pertinent questions. We push leaders to judge progress apart from personal preferences, feelings, or traditional church metrics. We challenge churches to ruthlessly eliminate activities that don't advance their mission and vision, no matter how comfortable or traditional they may be.

WE BELIEVE unity in leadership is a great weapon against Satan's schemes. Leaders must remain radically unified around mission, vision, and strategy. We facilitate healthy, objective conversations about the future while refusing to give into personal agendas and destructive undercurrents. We seek to build leadership cultures that are so unified the enemy finds no foothold for division.

Church Growth and Strategy Foundations

WE BELIEVE church growth is God's design and expectation. The Church was created to grow and leaders must be concerned about the depth and breadth of its impact. More and better disciples will create more and better impact. We push pastors to expect, plan for, and work toward consistent growth while knowing that, ultimately, it's God's job to grow the church. We help churches determine healthy ways to measure and monitor their growth and kingdom impact. All measuring and monitoring, while emotional at times, is a part of the process in discerning God's direction.

WE BELIEVE best practices exist and champion proven practices while rejecting one-size-fits-all solutions. We develop leaders who are lifelong learners, adapting ministry practices to their unique context and calling. We provide fundamentals and tools based on biblical principles that allow continuous evaluation, learning, and strategic improvement. Our tools help to "test and approve" what is right instead of relying on a blind hunt for the next solution.

WE BELIEVE your "Jerusalem or Antioch" are very important when it comes to the Great Commission. Global impact flows from effective local ministry. We guide churches to prioritize Great Commission activation in their immediate community and see global missions as the outflow of making more and better disciples at home base. We develop leaders who become stewards of both local effectiveness and global ripple effects.

WE BELIEVE the gospel contains ALL the power to transform lives and communities. Transformation power lives in the gospel message, not human effort or clever strategies. We remind leaders to plant and water faithfully while trusting God for supernatural increase. We help churches discern their seasonal assignments and execute them with both excellence and complete dependence on God's power.

WE BELIEVE in seeking balance to Great Commission execution and outcomes: more AND better disciples. Churches must pursue balance in attractional, communal, and missional strategies while focusing on those yet to be reached. In Acts, we see an attractive church, rich community, and a church mobilized and in action. We believe all of those aspects of the church are important while revolving around an undeniable focus and bias toward reaching people who don't yet know Jesus. A church will likely never achieve perfect balance but it must fight for strategic equilibrium as it seeks to imitate the strategies of the early church.

WE BELIEVE prayer and the Holy Spirit fuel the mission. Human strategies without divine power will accomplish little if anything that is lasting. We insist churches pray first, then plan and execute with complete dependence on the Holy Spirit's wisdom and guidance. We help leaders create prayer cultures that undergird every Great Commission initiative.

Evangelism and Discipleship Foundations

WE BELIEVE everything must be biased toward "The One" in order to achieve balanced Great Commission outcomes. Churches must shape strategies, vision, and execution toward reaching those who do not yet know Jesus. It might be counterintuitive, but this focus helps a church maintain a balance of more and better disciples. We challenge leaders to constantly fight the natural church drift toward inward focus and member preferences. We help pastors keep the people who don't yet know Jesus at the center of every decision, every dollar, and every ministry initiative.

WE BELIEVE grace creates the environment where truth can transform lives. Churches must lead with grace while remaining anchored in biblical truth. We guide leaders to create environments where people belong before they believe, knowing that grace-filled spaces produce the deepest life change. We help churches emphasize grace without compromising truth.

WE BELIEVE evangelistic focus is a great way to create deep disciples. Focusing on the people who don't yet know Jesus produces incredibly committed and mature followers of Jesus because a follower must realize the church is not there to serve his or her needs alone. Followers are challenged to become more selfless in a "One-aware and activated" church. We help leaders show followers that the Church exists to be on Jesus' mission of seeking and saving the lost.

WE BELIEVE evangelistic potential is exponentially larger than churches imagine. Every church's relational reach extends far beyond weekend attendance to hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of relational connections. We help leaders envision and expand their church's evangelistic impact through these relationships by equipping every believer to live a "One-aware and activated" life. Even a small ministry or church plant has tremendous potential to reach people who don't yet know Jesus through relationships.

WE BELIEVE conversion growth is growth that matters. Churches must plan for growth primarily through reaching people who do not yet know Jesus as Savior and Lord. We challenge leaders to prioritize conversion growth versus shuffling believers between congregations. We also challenge leaders to eliminate erroneous thoughts of church competition because of proximity or unfounded concepts of cultural saturation.

WE BELIEVE discipleship happens through fundamental activities that never change. While every discipleship pathway is unique, the fundamentals remain constant across cultures and generations. We guide leaders to engage people in gathering for worship and preaching, life-changing relationships, and increasing surrender through sacrifice and service: the biblical strategies of the early church. We help churches partner with God in individual transformation through these proven, biblical pathways.

Stewardship and Resources Foundations

WE BELIEVE leaders are temporary stewards of God's eternal church, and responsible to pass it to the next generation in optimal condition. We challenge pastors to lead with the urgency of those who must give account for their stewardship. We help churches make decisions from a stewardship mindset rather than an ownership mentality. The Church is forever the bride and body of Christ, but it's only temporarily in our hands.

WE BELIEVE attention is sacred currency. Attention has become a precious commodity in our distracted world. We challenge leaders to treat every moment of captured focus as sacred ground for pointing people toward Jesus and leading a "One-aware and activated" church. We help churches use the four commodities of life and leadership, time, money, energy, and attention, with laser focus to lead His Church and advance the Great Commission.

WE BELIEVE every resource matters and every leadership decision is zero-sum: there is no innocent "yes." Every dollar and minute spent in one area cannot be spent elsewhere. We push leaders to make strategic trade-offs that maximize Great Commission impact. We help churches evaluate every opportunity, program, and initiative through the lens of "One-awareness and activation." Every square foot, dollar, and minute matters for eternal impact. We help churches use their God-given resources with the intensity of stewards who know there will be an account and that eternity hangs in the balance.

Coaching and Training Foundations

WE BELIEVE self-discovery is far more powerful than consulting. Self-discovery creates lasting transformation while consulting creates temporary dependence. We begin with honest, team-based conversations and assessments, not consultant-based evaluations. When we start our work with our opinions and insights, we sometimes create distraction, division, and discouragement rather than breakthrough, ownership, and clarity. We believe deeply that team-based, Socratic, reflective tools and processes help build resilient plans to accomplish the Great Commission.

WE BELIEVE churches are better together, collaborating rather than competing. Church leaders must collaborate and learn from one another from the trenches of ministry. No single local church can accomplish God's mission in the world alone. Every gospel-centered church should have a plan to take spiritual ground in the name of His mission. We must collaboratively link arms to make this happen at a world-changing scale.

WE BELIEVE the goal of every engagement and resource is to foster independence, not dependence. Our aim is to equip others in a way that does not create dependence on us. Thus, we provide tools, training, and resources for churches to operate without us. Our aim is to see churches adopt the Radical Alignment System as their model for the purposes of collaboration and synergy. We seek to activate the Great Commission in as many churches as possible, leading to increasing impact generation after generation.

WE BELIEVE we are stewards of this growing movement, but not the only ones. It's in the hands of any and every Intentional Church. To God be the glory!