Meeting neighbors at the block party - Archer United Methodist Church, July 2011

A Celebrate Jesus Mission team is made up of 6 to 15 Christians of ordinary skills and of all ages, living in community for a week.  The team partners with a Host Church and together they work to fulfill simple, yet powerful objectives in servant evangelism.  The team’s purpose is to share Jesus with people and help the local church where they have been assigned to fulfill the plans they made to reach their neighbors for Jesus.  These ordinary groups of people, by their boldness of faith and reliance on prayer, are used by God to accomplish extraordinary results.  

The Celebrate Jesus team serves in a broader context as well.  Individual teams focus on a particular local church, and as a result an entire geographic area is benefited by the mission. This broader partnership brings an intensity of prayer and enthusiasm that energizes participants in real Kingdom work.  Teams share the sense of God doing something in the mission, in their own lives, and beyond.  

Celebrate Jesus facilitates Christian evangelistic missions.  It features a three-fold emphasis:  

1. Missionary Teams are blessed and encouraged by reaching out and sharing God’s love during the week.  
2. The Host Church  is encouraged and given new perspective by joining the missionary team in a focused week of servant evangelism  
3. Those “Not Yet Churched” neighborhoods are lifted in prayer, showered with intentional acts of kindness and given opportunity for prayer, church fellowship and beginning their journey with Jesus. 

I. Missionaries (aka Team Members)

Each church will have a Celebrate Jesus team partnering with them.  Each team has two people in leadership positions:  the Team Leader (the evangelist) and the Team Pastor (the nurturer), neither of which needs be clergy, who work with their host church for several months of preparation before Mission.   They help provide “on-the-job training” to the visiting team.  The team working with the church will evangelize and develop relationships. Some tools used are servant evangelism, door-to-door visitation, intentional acts of kindness, sports, music, drama, worship, etc.  

No Experience is necessary  

The team members, coming from different backgrounds, denominations and spiritual maturity, bring a spark that is contagious and ignites a congregation.  God has stirred their hearts to come on mission and they come with servant hearts and an eagerness to be used by Him.  The team works alongside the church family, NOT FOR the church family.  It is the desire of Celebrate Jesus that the mission will bring a lifestyle change to the church and that the church will continue to use the skills that were learned during the week of mission to continue to share the love of Jesus Christ, proclaiming His gospel in word and deed.  

II.  Host Churches

A year-long process of prayer and planning culminates in a week of reaching communities around the churches who partner with us.  These partnering churches, called Host Churches, pray for the Lord to reveal who in their neighborhoods they should reach.  

The Host Church prays continually for her neighbors, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit to prepare hearts for the receiving of God’s love.

The Host Church will host team members who will join them for the week of mission. The team will sleep at the church (unless otherwise notified), be fed three meals a day and be provided daily showers.  

The Host Church prays and plans for ways to follow up on contacts made in the neighborhoods.  They create new ways to welcome, disciple and equip all the church family.  They implement goals that will still be in place a year after mission.  

III.  Not Yet Churched

We delight in the opportunity to be used by the Lord to help someone come to know Him. We also delight in being available to sow seeds, to be the one to water or the one to fertilize.  We realize it may take several contacts before someone comes to receive the Lord as their personal Savior. We are thankful the Host Churches are available and we implore them to embrace and disciple those new in the Lord.