We believe that an Empowered Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ who has fully internalized the gospel. They have been, and are being daily, more empowered by God. They have been born-again, have internalized their status as a new creation and a child of God, and are not only permitting but encouraging the Holy Spirit to sanctify every part of their being and life. They are confident of their salvation and are being healed of the wounds of their former lives. They are Holy Spirit-filled and are allowing the fruits of the Spirit to manifest in their life in the ways that they love their neighbors.

They live with moral integrity and constantly pursue righteousness, justice, and mercy. They are responsible and accountable for their character, their witness, and their actions. Their desire to become more Christ-like humbles them and they accept correction from brothers and sisters in Christ. They are being empowered by God in their purpose and calling. They have accepted the call to live in this world – and not of this world. They are harnessing and developing the spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit has uniquely given them and using them to fulfill their unique calling, to build up the church, heal the hurting, bring the gospel to the lost, and make disciples of Jesus. An empowered Christian is one who is becoming more and more daily, “all in.”

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The Revival we want to create is a Church and a community with growing numbers of “empowered” Christians. Perhaps a better word might be “Awakening” as in the Great Awakenings throughout church history. We want to see the church (as a whole) be on fire for God and look more like the first-century church! We want to see more in the Body of Christ reflecting the character, motives, actions, and heart of Christ.

We don’t use revival as a buzz word, meaning a movement of one particular denomination or style of Christian expression. Nor do we mean a specifically-charismatic-focused spiritual outpouring. In fact, many of the things called revival are spiritual counterfeits with false teachings attempting to replace the pre-eminence of God’s Word, the Gospel, and Christ-crucified with godless teachings and emotional or spiritual “experiences.”

We deny that everything in these types of movements has been all bad though. There has been both good and evil as a result of these charismatic-gift centered revivals. However, for the sake of clarity, when we say revival we mean purely the revival of spiritually dead people and societies into ones made alive by the Spirit of God!

Revival—means progress, improvement, rebirth, resurgence, regeneration, transformation, promotion, advancement, and revitalization—of people and cultures truly becoming God’s people and under His Kingdom influence. Our goal is to promote a massive shift away from the many deceptive beliefs and godless practices occurring in the church back towards worshipping God in spirit and truth. It will be a refocus back to the gospel of Christ-crucified that will revive those in the Church and bring everyone else far from God to healing and towards transformed hearts, minds, and lives.

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Yes, if you’re a member of our Disciple Makers Church

But if not, then no, because technically we’re not a church. Let us explain: We hope you personally believe in what we are doing, and hope everyone we work with gets involved and supports our ministry wholeheartedly and abundantly. Keep in mind also, that in one sense, WE (the people) ARE the church. So, yes, in a way we are part of your church, but not entirely. We aren’t a replacement for a local church.

It may be especially tempting to replace your local church with us if you participate in our discipleship building and other educational workshops where you learn and grow together as a small community of believers. This is because it is very much a church-like experience, perhaps even more so than what many churches do. This is very good in many ways but we don’t want you to become fixated on thinking about us like a permanent church solution.

Jesus healed, taught, spent time with, and trained disciples but then He sent them them out to keep growing His church. Because we can greatly fill the role of church in your life we can be a part of [your] church for a season. However, we hold firm that no para-church ministries (including ours) should be a replacement for a local church.

The local church is God’s chosen vehicle to transform the world. We want you to have a more rewarding, more fruitful, and more fulfilling walk with God. And we want you to worship God, learn and become a better disciple, and use your gifts, talents, and resources to help others within your local community of believers. Jesus created the institution of the church for a reason and all of these things have the most fruitfulness in the context of your local church family and small group community. We don’t want to replace this—but be a supplement to it and for it.

Through our life coaching, pastoral counseling, personal discipleship and other programs it’s our goal to help you work through personal issues and past traumas and help you identify and fulfill your individual calling, mission, and purpose. We want to empower you to be a mature disciple of Christ and leader and then send you off to invest yourself heavily into your calling and local church community. You’re welcome to continue to be a part of our ministry and help support what we’re doing but please not as a replacement for your local church.

If you’re near St. Petersburg, FL area and in need of local church learn more about our Disciple Makers Church which is a micro church/small discipleship group.

Or consider starting your own home church or micro church! We have a variety of relationships and resources we could refer you to. Contact us for more information!