Unifying Essentials




 PREFACE

The OC Global Alliance is a partnership of interdependent boards that seeks to more effectively fulfill the mission of the Alliance by working together under a common agreement.

The historical roots of each member of the OC Global Alliance can be traced to OC International with it’s over 50 years of history. Due to OC International’s value that each missionary team identifies with its own local context, OC International has encouraged the use of a relevant name for its local manifestation. For this reason many different names have been used for OC International’s teams and national board partners.

At some point the OC Global Alliance Guidance Team may wish to change this name. But for these initial draft documents we will retain our OC roots by keeping the name “the OC Global Alliance.”

 

I.   STATEMENT OF FAITH

¨   We believe the Bible is the inspired, authoritative Word of God, inerrant in the original autographs.

¨   We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

¨   We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.

¨   We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

¨   We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit, by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

¨   We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

¨   We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

¨   We believe that the Great Commission of Jesus as documented in Matthew 28 drives our mission and ministry.

 

II. VISION, MISSION AND STRATEGY

 

VISION

Healthy churches working together to reach allnations.

 

MISSION

To mobilize godly and effective churchleaders to reach all nations

 

STRATEGY

Using research, motivation and training, 
we mobilize churchleaders to reach their nations and beyond

 

III. VALUES

Our six core values define what we are and distinguish us as a mission. 
The priorities which flow from these values encompass what we are and how we approach ministry. 

 

TEAM

We will seek to place missionaries in OC Alliance teams rather than alone or on other non-OC Alliance teams

 

FAMILY

We will seek to keep family in a balanced and healthy position relative to our ministry.

 

PARTNERSHIP

We will seek to make effective partnerships a high value in all our strategies, planning and activities. 

 

 MULTIPLICATION

We will seek to multiply our effectiveness by developing all our ministries so as to mobilize others
to accomplish the basic mission and functions of the Church rather than doing those ourselves

 

SERVANTHOOD

We will seek to take the posture of a servant as we come along side church leaders.

 

FREEDOM TO INNOVATE

 We will seek to value a culture of creativity and innovation to accomplish our mission in a changing world. 


 

IV. OPERATING PRINCIPLES

 

The following operating principles expand the above values even further into our every day processes of ministry. With these principles guiding us, the desired unity of the members of the OC Global Alliance will be advanced as we work together toward the accomplishment of the mission God has entrusted to us.

 

SERVANT LEADERSHIP

We believe that God has called us to be servant leaders on all leadership levels in the mission. We believe that a servant leader must seek the right balance between serving and leading. The servant leader serves his followers by ensuring that they are selected, prepared, fitted and sufficiently resourced to accomplish the Mission. The servant leader leads his followers by ensuring that the organization’s people, team by team, are doing the best things, not just good things.

 

While the servant leader has authority he does not behave in an authoritarian manner but rather from a servant’s posture. While the leader must serve his followers, he realizes that their actions are ultimately his responsibility before God and to the organization, therefore he leads accordingly.

 

PEER ACCOUNTABILITY

All member boards of the OC Global Alliance consider themselves as peers. In order to provide for the accountability of all member boards to the OC Global Alliance, we will use the mechanism of peer accountability. The OC Global Alliance Guidance Team will appoint peer accountability teams which will act as its representative in determining compliance with the OC Global Alliance’s Unifying Essentials. These teams will provide, on a scheduled basis or as needed, audits of the member boards and their operations to determine compliance with OC Global Alliance’s Unifying Essentials. The OC Global Alliance Guidance Team will take action on the audit report of the peer accountability team as necessary to bring the audited board back into compliance with organizational standards.

 

BILATERAL PARTNERSHIPS

The primary role of the OC Global Alliance is to provide the framework within which OC Global Alliance member boards may exchange resources through bilateral agreements. The primary tool for bilateral agreements for member boards is the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). No MOU will violate the basic framework and standards established by the Unifying Essentials but will rather reflect the values and principles established by the OC Global Alliance. 

 

INTERDEPENDENCE

We share an attitude and spirit of interdependence through the sharing of our resources, ministry models, expertise and personnel.

 

TWIN CITIZENSHIP

We believe that for the OC Global Alliance to function well each member board must understand and faithfully practice the principle of “twin citizenship.” Each member board begins as a citizen of its own nation. Getting in step with the heart of God for one’s own nation is a clear Biblical responsibility. However, by joining the OC Global Alliance each member board is declaring that the commitment to its own nation will always be held in a creative tension with the needs of the second place of citizenship; the OC Global Alliance and the global harvest field.

 

INCLUDE NOT EXCLUDE

We believe that the goal of the OC Global Alliance is to build bridges rather than walls between the member boards. To include is our goal.

 

CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

We believe that God wants every human being and every human institution ordained by Him to strive to reach its God-instilled capacity. We therefore believe that the goal of the OC Global Alliance should always be to allow and encourage every member board to strive to reach its full potential. We believe that just as we employ this concept internally as an OC Global Alliance, we will continue to make this a primary ministry aim for those we come alongside of in the nations where we minister.

 

LOCAL RELEVANCE

We believe that the OC Global Alliance should be driven by principles which are locally applied. As the OC Global Alliance provides clear principles for how we relate and minister, we believe that the maximum benefit of those principles will only happen when those most knowledgeable and understanding of the local context put them into action.

 

DECISION MAKING

We believe that decision making at all levels of the OC Global Alliance must be done in a paradigm of ministry effectiveness. Any given decision should be made primarily to enhance and advance the effectiveness of the overall ministry.

 

EFFECTIVE MINISTRY STEWARDSHIP

We believe that for ministry stewardship to be truly effective, it must be guided by planning and measurement. While we understand that all our planning takes place within the greater arena of God’s plans, much of which we cannot fully discern, we are created in the image of a God who plans. We therefore will employ planning as a foundational element of stewardship.   We believe that the measurement of our progress against our plans is a necessary follow-up element of stewardship.


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