The Vision of Cali, Colombia Church
Jaime Restrepo Notes
From John Denney, Superintendent
Southern California District, USA
They use the books produced out of Bogota. They are available in English. Cali Church has written new materials that cover the doctrinal section.
The vision has to be received in your spirit. Many pastors have taken G12 as a strategy but only as a model. The vision has to taken into your life in such a way that you live the vision. It becomes your life. It has to be more than a strategy or a technique. The vision must transform your life. If it doesn’t it won’t transform your church. This is the first thing.
The senior pastor has to be totally convinced of the vision. It has to start with the main pastor. Nothing goes beyond the senior pastor. The pastor has to be an expert in the vision and do the vision. The pastor has to do every step of the vision. He has to be totally involved. In this way he has authority to teach the vision to the other leaders. In vision, people do not do what we say, they do what we do. (example of him saying put your fingers on your chin, but what he does is put his fingers on his cheeks. Everyone followed his example rather than doing what he told us to do.)
We have to breathe the vision and we have to have the passion that those we are leading breathe the vision.
G12 Steps to Success
Different things that work together. Many churches have different steps to success. But it is how everything works together.
“G” means Government, not “group.” Gen. 1:28, God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful, increase in number, (multiply yourselves). The idea of God is to multiply, not simply increase. G12 is a model for multiplication. “Fill the earth, and subdue it” (gov). God gave man the government of the earth and all creation. Through sin, we lost it. God gave to Jacob twelve sons. Why did he do it? Because these twelve guys are going to be the leaders of Israel. The 12 patriarchs. God uses the number 12 to convey his government through the patriarchs. Elijah used twelve stone to rebuild the altar of God. God is symbolizing his government. God always uses twelve. When Joshua passed through the Jordan, they put twelve stones in the river bed. It represented the authority of God that was expressed in their passing over. When Jesus called his disciples, he chose twelve. These twelve began the multiplication. The symbol of 12 appears many times in Bible as symbol of God’s authority. Even 12 months of the year is established by God. A day is two periods of 12. It symbolizes God’s authority. If God did it by choosing 12, I’m not going to do it with three or six, etc. We need to follow the Lord’s example and use his model. A Government of 12.
--Illustration: Comparing two churches in seven years. Church A has a tremendous preacher and is a miracle worker. A man in S. Africa has crusades of 2 million. Use him as an example. He wins 1 million people each year.
Church B uses G12 and uses his first year to reach his 12.
First year, Church A has 1 mil. And church B has 12.
Third year A has 3 mil and B has 1728.
Fourth year A has 4 mil and B has 20736.
Fifth year A has 5 mil and B has 248,832
Sixth year A has 6 mil and B has 2,985,984
Seventh year A has 7 mil and B has 35,831,808
The principle is one of multiplication, not simply add. It makes a world of difference.
Why don’t we have a church of 35 mil after several years of working this vision. It is because it is Satan’s objective to destroy these kinds of churches. Adelberto was not even allowed to speak at the Central American Nazarene Conference. To keep Satan out you have to deal with the issues that people are dealing with. Holiness is a key issue for the vision, because sin in the lives of leaders is the biggest obstacle and Satan uses it to thwart this vision. G12 has a strong emphasis on holiness. The practice of holiness is supported by the g12 groups. They have high accountability and searching questions. The Bogota church is strong in holiness. The encounters really focus on the issue of confronting sin and getting the leadership clean. The spiritual character of holiness is the base for g12.
The contents of the G12 meeting: These are closed cells, leadership cells.
- Minimum of once a week.
- Change the place where you meet. Don’t make it just a meeting in the same room. Jesus taught his disciples in many different places. Change the environment once every two months.
- It must last at least ninety minutes. Jaime meets his g12 every Fri at 4:30 a.m to 7:00 a.m.
- Worship (15 min.) and prayer to inspire your people. (use cd if needed, 3-4 songs that edify and lift up.)
- Rhema Word: (30 min.) God’s message to the group. It is most important preparation. It must be a powerful word. Conclude this time with prayer.
- You must always talk about the vision and the importance of the g12 group and your personal goals and your goals for your men. Be constantly challenging your people. In the meeting evaluate progress and effectiveness. (30 min.)
--Jaime asks his g12 projects in four areas: academics, family, financial and spiritual. Don’t just talk about the ministry. - Pray. Jaime likes to pray for each one. “prophecying” over them about the great things that God is going to do for them.
- Administration: Evaluate. Do this openly in the group. Go from one to the next. Tell me how many you have in you cell. How many people in your cell came to worship service. How is your g12 team developing. Check on the progress of each one. Have a secretary take notes. Goals are recorded and updated.
As the g12 levels grow, first you think as a son looking to a father, second you think as a father, third you think as a grandfather and so forth.
Steps to Success: Matthew 28:19-20
Send (Promise)
Disciple_(Teach)_____
Consolidate_(Baptize)
Win_(go)__
1. WIN: Go and Make. . . two verbs. These two words have to change your church. This challenges the traditional view of the church. . . inside the walls. Action verbs. . . you have to go out and win them and bring them in.
Methods for win: Jesus Film, Evangelism Cube, Each One Win One or Each one win 3 or 12. There are many ways to evangelize. We don’t compromise on the three steps, but there are many ways to accomplish each step. Ex: Business leaders breakfast. “Conquer” Event (compassion). . . Impact a community.
--Pray for three (Each one Reach Three) prayer card. Thousands of these cards. People write down three names of unsaved people that they pray for. They emphasize these in the cells. Everyone in the cell writes three names of people down that are having problems. But, they are not Christians and really have no one to turn to. The cell starts praying for these people in advance of a “conquer” event. And we are going to try to bring all of these people to this event. You can do the same thing throughout the church.
Daniel chapter 9 & 10. This is an example of the intercessory prayer of Daniel. Daniel prays for the sins of the people as if they were his own sins. Teach the people to pray for their list the way Daniel prayed for the people every day for thirty days before the event.
--The open cells is the key to “Win” These are easy places, non threatening.
2. Consolidate. This could be the most important part and is probably the most difficult.
Assimilation. There are four steps to this process. (Consolidation is based on how the Holy Spirit provided for Saul in Acts 9.
- Invitation after the message, bring to the prayer room and review and affirm their decision and discuss assurance and pray again the sinners prayer.
--Acts 9:10, Saul’s conversion: Ananias was sent to Saul (after his conversion) to confirm his conversion and restore his sight.
The consolidator needs very specific instructions about the convert. He also needs to give very specific instructions to the new believer. - In the next 48 hours the consolidator’s team of disciples makes telephone call. One of the purposes of this phone call is confirm a home visit. God sent Ananias to the home where Saul was.
- Do the home visit. When you look at Jesus’ ministry, he went to their homes. He went to where they are. Home visitation is very important. The visits are done by pairs before the next Sunday. One hour visit max. Often there are other people there. Try to arrange a new cell meeting there with those present. In these home meetings, don’t take a Bible with you. It tends to put up a barrier. Be informal, casual, connect with the people and be friendly. Brief message or blessing and word of prayer.
- Assignment to a person or group to take responsibility for the new believer. First option is that the consolidator takes the responsibility for that new person to join his/her open cell. If distance is too far, you have a list of your cells that you can network to make sure that the person gets connected with the appropriate group. A third option is open a new cell in his house. If the believer does not get connected with the cell, then the consolidator is responsible for making sure that the nb gets to church every Sunday until a cell takes responsibility for him.
- It’s a major purpose of the open cell group leader to make sure that all of his people attend an encounter, including the pre-encounter and the post encounter.
Next: Pre-Encounter-- Four Lessons that you give at the church by the pastor. The information in the Steps to Success book on this subject has been changed a bit. The Nazarene Church takes the main ideas of the four lessons but teach Nazarene context. The pre-encounter has to be very attractive because it is the event that whets people’s appetite for the Encounter. It prepares their hearts and helps people be more dedicated in the Encounter. The retention results of those who attend Encounter after having done the Pre-Encounters is much higher. The goal is to prepare people to move toward leadership. Without the pre-encounter they only retained about 25%. But once they added the pre-encounter process (they have only been doing two sessions but will be adding two more) the retention increased to about 40%. Jaime has developed two dramas.
Topics of Pre-Encounter: Can be used pretty much the way it is presented by G-12 authors.
First Session
1. Opportunity of Encounter, Jer. 29
2. Opportunity of Reconciliation, Luke 15, vs. 18
3. Opportunity of Restoration, Rom. 5:8
4. Opportunity of Provision, John 1:12
Second Session—Benefits of the Cross
1. Power of Redemption
2. The Cross
3. Justification, Adoption, Regeneration, The New Birth
The Third Day—Benefits of the New Born.
1. Life in the Spirit
Fourth Day—Understanding Spiritual Warfare
1. Growth in the Word, Spiritual Armor, Prayer, etc.
--Help people understand that when they prepare to go to Encounter they can expect spiritual attacks. (Two dramas to help people deal with obstructions to commit to the Encounter.
There is something that Cali church has added that is not in the G-12 material, Guides and Leaders Preparation. Leaders and Guides do different things. Leaders lead the conference. Guides take care of twelve people that are participating in the Encounter. This is because there are topics in the conference that need to be discussed and shared with someone. Guides and Leaders have seven preparation meetings before the Encounter. The focus is on leadership development, holiness life and doctrine. You cannot have any sin in this group of Guides and Leaders. The Holy Spirit cannot flow in the Encounter if the Guides and Leaders are not spiritually prepared. The team has to be at its best. Some of the individuals will either get right spiritually in these sessions or they will withdraw from being a leader because they realize how important holiness is and they don’t want to hinder the unity of the team or the flow of the Holy Spirit.
Encounter
--The Jewel of the Crown in terms of the steps to success. The Encounter is very important. You have to get to the highest level spiritually for your leaders for that time. You have to start two months in advance working with your leaders: Preparation for “Guides” and “Leaders” for Encounter. All of the teaching for the preparation for the guides and leaders is holiness. They meet very early in the morning, from 5 to 7. The guides and the leaders that go to the encounter are those that bring the most fruit to the encounter. There are twelve messages in the encounter. Pastor 5, Jaime 3 and others by g12 people. Encounter is for the three days. The preparation of leaders involves them confessing anything that might hinder the HS in doing His work in the encounter. There needs to be a very high spiritual level.
Topics of Encounter: Most topics are 45 min of teaching and at least 15 minutes of prayer ministry.
- What is an Encounter? The life of Joseph, Moses, Jacob, many examples of people who have an encounter with God. (Fri, 7:00 pm) In the Bible, many important things happened in three days.
- Sat. a.m.: Jesus. . . Hero of Heroes. (speak against idolatry)
- Dealing with bad self esteem: Mephibosheth (deal with things that wound a person’s spirit.)
- The Importance of the family in your life. (Use story of Joseph) Deal with dysfunctional issues.
- Importance of Forgiving others. . . problems of resentment. (Brief review to start with to touch on Forgiveness from God and Forgiving myself.) Resentment is poison that you drink expecting that another feels the pain.
- Cross Revelation: Play Passion of the Christ video (brief excerpts). Follow with teaching on the benefits of the cross. Jesus took on the curse of sin. Isaiah 53. Wounds= Healing, Crown of thorns=he took our poverty (Gen 3), Nailed to the cross (Col 2: ) to take our guilt and oppression, the nail through the ankles. Spear thrusting the side=water and blood came out together, the heart has exploded. He takes our emotional hurts. Jesus heart broke for us. The blood of Jesus=cleanses your sins away. And the blood of Jesus give you authority against the demons and all of the powers of darkness. (This is one of the longer topics.)
- Saturday night: “The Love of the Father” The prodigal son, Luke 15. After teaching on this topic you have a party to celebrate God’s forgiveness. Get cake and candles, party hats, party noise makers, balloons, confetti. Have a great party (Sat. night) Saturday dinner and evening is dress up night. Give gift, a special letter that Jesus sends them. Silence covenant, no speaking after leaving the party. Only listen for the Holy Spirit and talk to Jesus.
- Sunday morning (coffee) session at 7:00. Break silence. Topic on Sunday a.m., the Believers’ Enemies: Resist Satan, the flesh and the world. Use video on subliminal messages, movies, etc. Show clips of how the world uses these things in an evil way. There are also very open and direct messages that glorifies evil, violence, death, immoral sex, gambling, club dancing, etc. (pornography is dealt with in a separate topic.) After each session you have people come forward who need ministry. (breakfast)
- After breakfast, topic is sexuality. Separate married men from single men. Pornography, masturbation, adultery, fornication, internet, incest, homosexuality, victims of rape and sexual harassment, sickness that results from immoral sexual behavior. Discuss the issue of demonic spirits that are associated with some of these behaviors.
- Passing from the curse to the blessing. Deal with idolatry one more time. Change life from old to new. Cut from the past, generational sins. Confront all of the curses. Prayer time will be 45 minutes to an hour.
- “Your Best Friend is the Holy Spirit,” Baptism with the Holy Spirit: Entire Sanctification, Heart cleansing, empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
- The Vision, enough information to challenge them go to post encounter and Leadership School.
Post Encounter (from G-12 book)
12 meetings:
1. How to leave the old life.
2. How to talk with God.
3. The Social Life
4. The Word, fount of life
5. Sexuality
6. The Church, House of God
7. Balanced Life
8. Water baptism and obedience. (Have baptism service the following Sunday.)
9. Music (worldly) and its influence in our life.
10. How to know the will of God.
11. Sanctification, base for a victorious life.
12. The Vision is explained in pretty good detail and the people are challenged to continue with Leadership School.
2 activities, one at the beginning and one at the sixth session
Conferences are at the church one hour once a week.
Post encounters have to start immediately, next day, after close of encounter.
--Jaime takes an hour and a half so that there is fifteen minutes for sharing.
--Post encounter is the stage at which they see the highest level of drop outs. Its important to be very creative at this level. The first session is an activity, a party, testimonies, word from the pastor. Have some of the church leaders share about things they dealt with in their lives when they were in the same stage. Pastor’s time is to encourage, motivate and inspire. He prays for them. The second week you start the topics of the groups. Post encounter sessions is a good time to try out some of your “guide” level leaders to do some teaching. But the leader (pastor) has to be there to show that this is important. When you finish the post encounter stage you have finished the consolidation step.
Discipling
This step starts with Leader School.
1. First level—each level has 12 lessons (3 months, 11/2 hrs. per session)
--These three levels are being given to us in Spanish. In the first lesson of this level special information about the Church of the Nazarene is presented.
Seminary cells and consolidation
--After this step there is the Timothy interview. Cali Church has added this step. During this interview you bring the student and the g-12 leader of that student together. Before this, a g12 leader just under the pastor meets with the students g-12 leader and discusses his strengths and weaknesses as to possibly being a cell group leader. Then the interview happens with the student and his g12 leader to discuss where he is. If he is ready, he begins an open cell. When the individual begins the cell group you are accomplishing the “send” stage of the ladder of success.
2. Second level
24 lessons that the new cell leader will be teaching to his cell group.
You get two photos of this individual for a Nazarene ID card. It shows that he/she is a cell leader.
Jaime is just starting a program to initiate the new cell leaders in a special ceremony.
Second Level leaders’ schedule. His schedule is not increased. He simply moves from an assistant cell leader position to a leader position and leader school is level 2 or 3.
3. Third level
Internship—Practical experience in evangelism (a project, several get together to complete an evangelism project.)
Seminary—Theological training for those who are called to go on to pastoral training.
The G12 Leader’s Schedule: 1 level
1. G12 meeting (member only)
2. Open Cell as an assistant (evangelistic) (weekly)
3. Attend Leader School Level 1 (weekly)
4. Attend Worship on Sunday (leader school could take place as their Sunday School.)
