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 Living Stones exists to partner with your church as you seek to train men and women in leadership and for leadership. We see ourselves as catalysts - praying that the things we offer will serve you well as you develop leaders in your church.
We’ve chosen the biblical image of living stones because it depicts what Christ (The Living Stone) is doing - building a spiritual house. In 1 Peter 2:4-10 the living stones are people in local churches, fully alive in Christ, becoming passionate worshippers and witnesses. Peter says, we are being built - in other words we are not the builders - Christ is. We are merely partnering with Christ in the process of building his Church.
We would love to partner with you to develop servant-hearted leaders in your church. So many leaders we talk to, long to be more intentional in the training of their own leaders, but somehow the busyness of church life crowds out all the good intentions.
Our sincere prayer is that through our in-depth training modules, our seminars, conference, and the leadership resources we can offer, that you will become even more focused on training up your existing and emerging leaders.
The aim of this brochure is to introduce you to the range of ministries that Living Stones offers with the goal of cooperating with Christ as he builds mature disciples and servant-leaders.
Here’s how we state our mission:
“Living Stones is a church-based ministry that exists to partner with churches who want to develop servant-hearted leaders through a life-on-life mentoring approach to leadership development. Rowland Forman
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Vision, Mission and Values |
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VisionAn abundance of well-equipped church leaders for God’s harvest
Churches intentionally training their own high potential leaders in partnership with Living Stones so that God produces an abundance of godly, well-equipped servant-hearted leaders for his harvest. Mission To mentor servant-hearted leaders by providing a church-based whole-life and customized leadership development programme
Living Stones is a church-based school that exists to mentor servant-hearted leaders through a whole-life and customized leadership development program in partnership with local churches who wish to develop their own leaders. Values God-Centred, Church-Based, Leadership Development - We value the glory of God as our highest goal
- We value a passion for knowing Christ and making his disciples as one of the main reasons we are left on this earth.
- We value the centrality and transformational power of the inerrant, infallible Scriptures.
- We value prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit as the impetus for a life that glorifies God.
- We value the local church as the primary vehicle for accomplishing Christ’s purposes in this age and for training servant-shepherd leaders.
- We value theological and pastoral training that is in-ministry and in-mission (both locally and globally).
- We value mentoring as one of the most effective ways to bring about life-transformation in Christian ministry.
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Here is our attempt at a definition of a church-based approach to training:
Church-Based training is developing all believers to maturity and many to leadership in the local church, under the authority of local church leadership, through an apprenticeship on-the-job approach, with other churches, for Christ's mission of multiplying churches worldwide to God's glory.
“In the Church” : The Power of ContextThe training takes place in the life and ministry of the local church, which is the visible expression of the body of Christ (Acts 13:1; Ephesians 1:22-23). The church is the body of Christ, the family of God, the temple of the Spirit. The church is the hope of the world. God is at work today in a direct way through local churches. “Under the Church” : The Power of Responsibility The training takes place under the authority of the leaders of the local church (Acts 20:25-31; Hebrews 13:17), who must give account to God for the training of godly leaders and for the maturity of the church's members. In developing leaders in a local church, we are working with people who have God-given responsibility for that church or for a specific ministry in that church. In Acts 20:28 Paul told the elders of the church in Ephesus that they were responsible for the flock over which the Holy Spirit had made them overseers, and responsible for the local church that Jesus Christ purchased with his own blood. In the churches we serve, God will hold us responsible for how we use what we learn to improve the church's ministry. This direct accountability to God gives church-based leadership development an energy that is missing from most classrooms.
“Through the Church” : The Power of Community The training takes place through a non-formal, in-ministry, life-on-life approach to maturity and leadership development (Acts 11:25-26; 2 Timothy 2:2). This kind of leadership development involves much more than just offering courses. It is a process built into the very fabric of a local church's life and ministry. This is not a form of a Bible institute that operates alongside the church and meets in a Sunday school classroom. Rather, church-based people development occurs in and through the real-life, ongoing ministry activities of a local church. It includes life-on-life mentoring in the context of authentic community.
“With other Churches” : The Power of Partnership
Churches need both autonomy and interdependence, as in the first century (Acts 11:22-24). Rarely does one church by itself have all the necessary resources for developing leaders, but we can and should work together locally and globally to develop qualified leaders for the local church.
“For the Church” : The Power of Mission The training takes place for the sake of the lost and for the multiplication of the local church worldwide (Acts 13:1-5; 14:21-18). We are not just learning for the sake of learning – which can lead to pride and sterility. We are developing leaders for the sake of reaching people for Jesus Christ in our community and for the sake of multiplying churches around the world.
“To God's Glory” : The Power of Worship Ultimately our goal is to develop people for the purpose of bringing glory to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Romans15:5-6; 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12). When you are serving Almighty God, it changes your perspective. We should develop leaders, not just because it is an effective way to run our ministries, or even because it is the right thing to do; but because we want to bring honor and glory to our God. |
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