Our work in the Upstate will be purpose driven and relationally based. The five primary strategies will consist of the following:

Researching: In order to penetrate and saturate every neighborhood, street, institution and business with the transforming love, truth, grace and power of Jesus Christ, it is incumbent upon the Body of Christ to obtain and maintain an accurate and current picture of itself and its context. Without a current and objective picture, churches in the Upstate cannot accurately evaluate their effectiveness or gain insights into what is required to finish the Great Commission task in this area.

Praying: This is targeted on the needs uncovered from the research in the Upstate. Our prayer should be focused on the spread of God’s kingdom in every county expressed by the vision of seeing every man, woman, and child here having the opportunity to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Networking: This obviously begins in the research stage and is encouraged by the needs the research will uncover. It is vital because the work will rise and fall on the ability to identify leaders in whose heart God is placing an accountability to reach a whole region. In addition, it will help us foster strategic partnerships between different groups in the area that have similar specific visions, i.e., hospice care, schools, internationals, etc…

Training: We will offer training in such areas as: Mobilizing a church for Evangelism/Mission, The purpose of the Church, and Leadership and Strategy. This will not only help the churches to become more fruitful, but it will also create trust and add to our ability to mobilize the churches to work together to reach our region. We will do this most frequently through our Renovation Communities.

Mobilizing (Evangelism & Church Planting): In this stage we encourage a leadership team formed from the target groups to review the research material and agree on the strategies with their corresponding goals that will: fully mobilize local churches, penetrate their geography in the Upstate, build effective retention systems for discipleship, multiply new churches, and participate in world evangelism.