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One Degree Ministries
What is One Degree Ministries?One Degree Ministries is a
ministry of Asian TheologicalSeminary in Manila, Philippines.
One Degrees mission, vision, and main objective are summarized
as: Growing leaders and communitiesfrom one degree to another. One
Degree works with pastors and communities and has a track record
ofproducing interesting results such that established churches
double, triple, and quadruple in size. These out-comes are achieved
by participating with the living God as we allow him to transform
us from one degree toanother, 2 Cor. 3:18 NRSV.
What is unique about One Degree?The short answer is its the
biblical perspective weoer. We oer a biblical perspective that
starts with the already present nature of the kingdom of God.
Onereason for starting here is thats where Jesus started. A study
of the Gospels shows that when God the Fathersent Jesus Christ into
the world, he was sent to announce the good news of the kingdom of
God (see Luke4:43, 8:1, and Mark 1:38.). Another reason for
starting with the kingdom of God has to do with the fact thatmany
pastors and leaders recognize little of it. Now you might ask how
can that be? Well, it appears manychurches and educational
institutions simply have neglected it. A possible reason for this
neglect is many
people view the kingdom of God as only existing in the future or
as an abstract idea. Yet, in the Gospels andthe book of Acts the
kingdom is dramatically displayed as an already present
realitywhich will be fully re-vealed when Christ returns.
When we introduce the kingdom of God we work hard to emphasize
the already pres-ent nature of it. Our thinking runs as follows:
According to Scripture once weve been born again, we haveentered
through the doorway of Christ, and are now enabled by the Spirits
power to see and experience thekingdom of God, (see John 3:3, 5).
And, if this is the case, if we are born again to an existing
kingdom reality,
then we should be experiencing some normal manifestations of it.
We suggest these manifestations can occureither in us, through us,
or around us. But if we are not seeing or experiencing the normal
manifestations ofthe kingdom of God, then something is wrong! For
howdo we know the biblical message is real unless we seeand
experience some manifestations of it? How do weknow God is alive
unless he makes himself known to us?
The thing we are trying to do is to create a paradigm shiftfrom
a mere theological concept about the kingdom to a
lived reality within the kingdom.
Once the leaders begin to arm from their own experi-ence that,
Yes, God is alive and he is at work in them,we proceed to expand
their knowledge of how the king-dom actually works by showing the
if / then characterof our relationship with God, (see John 15:4-7).
We do this by opening Scripture and highlighting the normalways God
interacts with his people. A consequence of revealing the if / then
characteristic of our relationship
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with God is that a number of pastors will confess their sins.
Apparently they are confessing because the Spiritis powerfully
working to convict them of their disobedience and they are seeking
to realign their lives with theways of God.
A discovery weve made along the way is that when a leadership
team wakes up to thealready present kingdom reality and aligns
their lives according to Gods pathways, then God responds bymaking
himself known to them in surprising ways. And next we frequently
witness more people ocking to
these communities of faith because they want to learn more about
this new life. In other words, the churchesstart to grow in
numbers.
From here we go on to introduce and develop further aspects of
the biblical perspective by speaking about:the Fathers everlasting
plan; creation; our being created in the image of God; our love of
darkness; our livesas new creations and in dwelt human beings, etc.
Once the church starts to grow, we also broaden our focus
by providing master level executive skill training. In this
phase we help and encourage the pastors and leadersto acquire
better communication, strategic planning, and pas-toral care skills
to name a few. Our assumption is that growinga church isnt easy and
so our aim is to help the leaders acquire
the best possible knowledge and skills sets. And so in a
nutshell, that is what makes One Degree Ministries unique.
Another way we are unique is our leadershipteam is comprised of
11 experienced pastors who are servingas volunteers. We dont pay
these leaders. Their salaries comefrom their growing churches.
Organizationally these pastoral leaders each work with a small
group of pastorsto teach, train, coach, and mentor them through the
whole One Degree process. Currently, these leaders areworking with
30 to 40 pastors. And as these pastors grow and transform from one
degree to the next we addthem to our expanding leadership
structure. And as a result of this ministry growth, the One Degree
team of
leaders have recognized that we are actually creating a
movement.
Thank you for your interest in and support of One Degree
Ministries.
Sincerely, Bob Harris
September, 2011
