SCP DNA
OUR mission
To give every man, woman, and child, in our geographical spheres of influence, the repeated opportunity to see, hear, and respond to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Core Convictions
Whatever God is going to do in the world, He is going to do through all Christ’s people, the Church.
Whatever God is going to do in the world through all Christ’s people, He is going to do primarily through a decentralized structure.
Whatever God is going to do in the world, He is going to do through leaders who empower His people in their giftedness as their first priority.
Whatever God is going to do in the world distant from any local church’s circle of accountability, He is going to do through the resources of churches that are telescoping, or being globally intentional, in joint venture with the Holy Spirit and with indigenous leaders.
SCP CHURCH CHARACTERISTICS
Being target-driven
A target-driven congregation is committed to the evangelization of every man, woman, and child in its own specific geographical area—its circle of accountability. It accomplishes this mission as every believer in the church lives out the gospel incarnationally, giving individuals around them repeated opportunities to see, hear, and touch the good news through the lives of God’s people and thus respond to the gospel.
Measuring our effectiveness as leaders of God’s people
In order to live the gospel incarnationally, the church must be growing believers in Christ spiritually, as the Antioch church clearly did. Growth can be measured in various ways, but SCP recognizes five non-negotiable threshold values by which church leadership can measure whether God’s people are growing individually into instruments of His glory for His mission: they must be growing in personal relationship with God through His Word, telling their personal grace testimonies to others, growing in their spiritual gifts, developing spiritual fruit, and stewarding their lives and assets for God’s glory.
Empowering God’s people
The leadership of an Antioch church empowers the people of God to do the work of the ministry. The primary strategies for the evangelization of a church’s circle of accountability must depend on facilitating God’s people, not on the activity of exceptional leaders. The call of leadership is to identify, invest in, and develop the abilities, giftings, and passions that God has personally given to each one of His people.
Being Laterally Postured
A laterally postured church is organized toward the decentralization of its people so that its focus is not on its own growth, but on multiplying incarnational groups of believers throughout its target area.
Cultivating interdependent leadership
A healthy church, like the one in Antioch, will reflect healthy leadership. This means that it will have more than one leader, that those in leadership will be diversely gifted, and that the leadership team will be mutually dependent on one another for the accomplishment of God’s mission for His people.
Relating to other churches
Since God has one body and one mission, an Antioch-type congregation will intentionally partner with others and be humbly related to others for unity in the church and the carrying out of its mission.
Being globally intentional through telescoping
“Telescoping” is a term SCP coined to indicate a posture of missions directed at facilitating indigenous leadership in locations distant from a church’s circle of accountability. Telescoping congregations seek to reproduce the principles foundational to the extension of God’s mission in the world through the multiplication of God’s people in a locale culturally different from their own.