This strategic template is based on emerging stories of some City Vision partners and from what we hear from several emerging and established neighborhood-taking ministries around the country and the world. It recognizes and seeks to limit the effects of many of the barriers or limiting forces previously mentioned. Before I describe the phases, I want to write a bit about our use of the word occupation . It must be a key ministry thrust. Also it must make sense to the front-line grass roots people and be fully embraced by them.
Occupation is a military word.
It suggests nerve, persistent intention, energy, and focus as it points to what it means to wrest from an enemy and secure a specific territory. We do not choose the term because we have pro-military leanings. We choose the term because we are at war with a persistent, well dug in Enemy who must be identified and rooted out. We choose the term to capture what is needful from our human efforts for the Kingdom of God to flourish in holistic, life spanning ways in the ordinary lives of everyday people who live in any particular location. We encourage you to think about whether God has planted your neighborhood ministry or church in its particular location so that that neighborhood can be taken and occupied for the Kingdom of God.