We believe that the Sovereign Lord has called our community into being to serve as an extension of the ongoing redemptive work of Jesus Christ and an expression of his body, the church. The concept that Proclaim! International is a missionary community is fundamental to what we are and do.
Since the very beginning, from the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the gathered believers in Jerusalem and the church, the body of Christ was visibly constituted (Acts 1:8; 2:1-4), God has raised up evangelists, apostles, prophets and others (Ephesians 4: 11.12) to serve his cause in special ways, especially in the proclamation and spread of the gospel and the building up and extending of the church to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:16-20; Luke 24:45-49; John 19:21-23) In the New Testament and post-apostolic period, some formed themselves into bands of itinerant missionaries or apostles to preach the gospel and establish new churches.
The divinely inspired impulse to reach out with good news has always been energized by the filling of the Holy Spirit, the mandate of God’s word, the experience of transformed life and the burden for the lost. In every age and wherever the redeemed community is found there are those who experience a special burden and call to take the gospel into the streets and marketplaces and across cultural and linguistic frontiers. Those who have been so called and empowered for such a task have often found common cause. This is the essence and heart of what we call a missionary community. Such communities are born when there is alignment of vision, passion, burden, sense of call to ministry and theological confession. This alignment may produce a conviction that God has not just called numerous individuals to a similar ministry, but that God has called a community into being where vision, passion, burden, ministry gifting, experience, spiritual growth and renewal are shared. So it has been with Proclaim! International.
If God truly calls communities of missionaries into being, then we believe he expects these communities to act, make decisions, practice true spirituality, maintain moral accountability and discipline, handle resources, appoint and dismiss leaders, exercise servant leadership, and maintain integrity in communications and all other areas in a manner that brings glory to God and is consistent with his character and the truth he has revealed in his word. We do not presume to fully understand everything about the shape and life of such a community, but with genuine humility we are seeking its formation based principally on the models and precepts found in the Word of God.
At its Gathering in Aeschi, Switzerland, on November 23, 2003, Proclaim! International joyfully and formally constituted itself under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ as a missionary community. Its first authoritative acts as a community were to approve Operational Guidelines for its governing body, the International Council, and affirm its leaders.
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