The Advance Initiative Must Die

The Advance Initiative was created because there’s a need. There’s a need for Indian Americans to step into the world of church planting and give themselves to seeing gospel-centered, multiethnic churches started so that lost people might be saved and Jesus might be glorified.

But The Advance Initiative must die.

From its first day, our dream for Advance is that soon would come the day when it no longer needs to exist. Success for us would be that so many Indian Americans in our generation would have given themselves to gospel-centered, multiethnic church planting that our sons and daughters would grow up believing that church planting is normal, obvious, and a real ministry opportunity for them. And when that happens, there’s no need for Advance to stick around.

You see, for that to make any sense, it’s important to be clear on what Advance is a and what it isn’t:

We’re not a church-planting network. The heart behind Advance is not to be it’s own church planting network. For the person considering church planting, there are plenty of healthy, thriving networks and organizations that can give you the resourcing, tools, brotherhood, and encouragement you need.

We’re not a denomination. We’re looking to partner with existing denominations, not start our own. Our hope is that Indian Americans would get connected to the numerous evangelical denominations that already exist. Our hope is that they would serve under those denominations with a dual desire – to specifically reach our second-generation brothers and sisters as well as anyone and everyone with the gospel.

We’re a foyer. It’s probably the best way to describe us. We want to see folks who don’t even have church planting on their radar in the door and on their way into the world of planting churches. Our desire is to see hundreds of second generation Indian Americans move from point A (exploring church planting) to point C (connecting with a healthy local church or network to partner with). Our hope is to be point B.

A foyer. That’s what we’re hoping to be.

Our prayer is that the Lord would use The Advance Initiative to lead many in our generation to be swept up into what He has been doing for centuries – building His Church through the planting of local churches.

And so the day we’re looking forward to is when the foyer is eliminated. As odd as it sounds, we can’t wait for the The Advance Initiative to die.