Ministry Objectives

The Mibu ministry is an indigenous church planting effort. That means that, as much as possible, we strive NOT to simply duplicate western church traditions and forms, but to cultivate an environment through biblical teaching that allows the Mibu people to worship God in ways that are culturally appropriate to them. It also means that we aim to leave behind a church that is not dependent on continued expat missionaries in order to function. We are working ourselves out of a job essentially.

Probably one of the biggest practical implications of wanting to see these ideals worked out is that we incorporated an exit strategy into the plan from day one. That means that everything that is written into our strategy had our final days in Mibu in mind and were working toward that end. Of course we need something to measure that by so that we can evaluate where we are at on the timeline. We need to be able to tell how we're doing and know when it's time to implement each successive step of the church planting strategy.

There are four 'pillars' of church health that use to do just that. These four pillars are what we evaluate the church by as we evaluate the growing health of the church and the needs for the moment. We call this a Mature Church Model. This model is reflected in the following diagram.

Each of these pillars represents an element required for a church to be a healthy church. Some details of what each of the pillars entail are listed below.

1. God's word for the church
1. The access the church has to scripture
2. The way God's word enters and engages with the lives of people
3. The level of authority the church ascribes to God's word
4. The way the church goes about interpreting God's word
5. The church's capacity to make use of God's word
2. The identity of the church
1. The church's understanding of who it is
2. The bonds which unite the church as a body under Christ, the Head
3. The composition of the church membership
4. The origins and continuity of the church
5. The way the church relates to others
3. The life of the church
1. The nature and quality of the church's spiritual life
2. The church's awareness of the overall purpose for its existence
3. The specific functions the church takes on
4. The way the church goes about establishing forms for itself
5. The fruit that results from the life of the church
4. Discipleship in the church
1. The church's view of its relationship to Christ
2. The ability to help people make personal and practical applications of truth
3. The value given to purposeful, Christ-aimed relationships in the church
4. The encouragement of members to function in areas of engiftment, including shepherds of the church
5. The existence of strategies for equipping those involved in the outreach of the church

In aiming to see a church with the above characteristics we recognized the necessity of all communication happening in the Mibu people's own native language.

more to come as time permits...