Print this page

Neighborhoods Alive is a great plan to Reach whole Neighborhoods

Arcade Church
3927 Marconi Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95821
(916) 972-1617


At Arcade Church, Sacramento, CA, there is a new enthusiasum for reaching the neighborhoods around where their church is located. There are literally 10's of thousands of people and thousands of homes near by. Read the plan and strategy that they have laid out for themselves.

An Outline

Neighborhoods Alive!



OBJECTIVES

1. Build a model to launch a worldwide ministry to:

a. Reach the lost for Christ.
b. Claim for Christ and saturate specific, definable geographic areas in prayer, evangelism, and discipleship; one neighborhood at a time.
c. Provide platform for church members to bring the Love of Christ out of the church building and into communities surrounding each participating church, consistently demonstrating God?s love and building active ministry relationships within church neighborhoods.
d. Mature the church body and deepen their relationship to Christ as they are given a vehicle to obey His commands. (But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. 1 John 2:5), as they,

i. Are given the opportunity and structure to move from passive to active spiritual involvement.
ii. Exercise their spiritual gifts.
iii. See prayers answered.
iv. Experience the joy of seeing others come to Christ.
v. See people transformed.

e. Provide an accountable structure for effective discipleship (Why isn?t there a Discipleship Explosion?)
f. Put EE teams in front of more non Christians open to hearing the gospel.
g. Encourage greater participation in EE.
h. Promote co operation and a team approach to evangelism within the body.


PHASE 1 The Arcade Neighborhood Revival Strategic Task Force

Beta Test Task Force

1. Design, develop and refine effective structure to use as a model for replication to:

a. Entire church (Neighborhoods within 10 mile radius)
b. Additional pioneer churches
c. World

2. See 36 Arcade neighbors (in first campaign) come to Christ and be assimilated into the church.

3. See 36 church members (in Beta phase) participate and deepen their relationship with Christ.



4. Strategy:

a. Saturate the neighborhood in prayer for 40 days. Each prayer task force member will pray daily, pray corporately at least once a week, and prayer walk the neighborhood at least twice during the 40 days.
b. After the 40 days of prayer, each home will be visited with a gift of a prayer plant. Attached to the plant will be a card that says ?God Still Answers Prayer?. As the plant is presented, we will offer to pray for specific needs of the family receiving the plant. If they accept our offer, we will collect their names and carefully take down each prayer request. After asking permission, we will take a picture of the family (or family representative) in front of the home holding their prayer plant. After returning back to the church, the picture will be mailed to the home with a letter reaffirming our promise to pray. The picture will also be attached to the prayer request card so that the Prayer Force Member will have a visual reference when praying.
c. The family will be prayed for each day for three weeks.
d. After three weeks, the evangelism task force will again visit each home to see how God has answered the prayers (?Have you seen God doing anything in response to our prayers??) and seek to present the gospel. Those that accept Christ will be turned over to the discipleship task force for spiritual nurture and assimilation into the body.


5. Structure

a. The Beta Task Force will consist of Three Sub Task Forces of 12 members each:


Prayer Force

1. Provide prayer covering for each activity. Both in advance and while other teams are engaged in ministry.

2. Co ordinate with other church prayer ministries (Fresh Encounter and others) for maximum prayer coverage.

3. Activities

a. Commit to spiritual cleansing as outlined in Returning to Holiness by Greg Frizzell. (Both prior to and during prayer campaign.)
b. Pray for recruitment of all ministry Force members.
c. Bring all Force members together for prayer walks.
d. Commit to individual daily prayer for each project.

i. In general starting 40 days prior to each neighborhood launch.
ii. Specifically as prayer requests are collected through plant visitation.

e. Commit to weekly corporate prayer. (Leadership to encourage, train, and monitor on ongoing basis).

1. This can be held during a Sunday morning class time.
2. (NOTE ? Need an effective method of holding prayer team accountable).
4. Prayer for project to begin 40 days prior to first prayer plant visitation.
(NOTE: Need list of specific requests to suggest as important to include in prayer coverage.)

Evangelism Force

1. Four teams of three EE trained evangelists responsible to follow up on prayer plant visitation requests. The focus of each team is to be available and actively seek to present the gospel to every neighborhood resident using EE Questionnaire or natural segue into gospel presentation (Evangelism Phase)

a. Evangelism Team leader to co ordinate supply of plants, cards, prayer request forms, and digital cameras.
b. Evangelism Team administrator to:

i. Catalogue prayer requests.
ii. Build and maintain neighborhood database.

1. Who is at what stage of ministry contact:

a. Visited, received plant.
b. Prayer request card logged ? Forwarded to Prayer team.
c. Follow up visit completed ? schedule for next visit.
d. Prayers answered and prayers in progress
e. Gospel presented ? result.
f. Handed off to discipleship team.

2. Activities

a. Commit to spiritual cleansing as outlined in Returning to Holiness by Greg Frizzell. (Both prior to and during campaign.)
b. Participate with all Force members in pre launch prayer walks.
c. Participate with Discipleship team in Prayer Plant Visitation.
d. Seek permission from each resident and Present Gospel to each resident who gives permission.
e. One member of each team who leads a resident to Christ to co ordinate and accompany discipleship task force member on 7 day call back.
f. Hand off new believer to Discipleship Force.
g. Active prayer for all phases, participants, and neighbors. (Welcome at Prayer Force?s corporate prayer meeting.)


Discipleship Force

1. Committed, mature believers dedicated to leading each new believer into a lifestyle of spiritual growth resulting in maturity and assimilation into the church body.

a. Discipleship Force Leader will be responsible for assignment of each new believer and the structure for instruction. Classes verses one on one instruction will be at discretion of the leader, however a Discipleship Force member should always be assigned to develop one on one accountability, nurture and encouragement.

2. Activities

a. Commit to spiritual cleansing as outlined in Returning to Holiness by Greg Frizzell. (Both prior to and during campaign.)
b. Participate with all Force members in pre launch prayer walks.
c. Participate with Evangelism Force in Prayer Plant Visitation.
d. May take the form of a new believer?s class on Sunday or weekday evening.
e. Consistent, persistent, but gentle follow up and relationship building. (No one slips through the cracks. If one DF member runs into an impasse, another member will take over )
f. Active prayer for all phases, participants, and neighbors. (Welcome at Prayer Force?s corporate prayer meeting.)
g. Encourage other Force members through scheduled contact as we wait for the harvest.


To dialogue with the author and strategist, email Greg T Garrott


Kinds of onsite prayer activity being used.

Waymakers
PrayerWalking - great for children, youth and adults

PrayerDriving (apply prayerwalking to driving) - great for high school, senior citizens, short & long haul truckers.

PrayerBiking (like prayerdriving) - great for the athletically ambitious