Friday, September 05, 2008

Who We are and Where We are Going It is essential that you know who we are and where we are going. The more you know about this church the more comfortable you will feel; the sooner you will find your place of ministry; the more quality ministry you will experience. Why did we start this Church? After walking with God in effective ministry for eight years I faced emotional and physical destruction. In 18 months I had seven operations and began what would be a 4-½ year struggle for my life. After going through a divorce, backsliding and leaving the ministry for a year, I could not escape the call of God on my life. Although I had continued to win people to Jesus, I had considered myself unworthy of fulfilling my call. It seems God had other plans. I had been successful in ministry, but had grown to hate the politics and religious game playing that went on behind the scenes. I realized that I would only re-enter the ministry if I could build a church free from all of those destructive traps. In 1982, I opened the doors to Impact Ministries in Huntsville, Alabama. We initially functioned as a ministry that was active in teaching and evangelizing in America and around the world. In September 1983 we began the first class of Impact International School of Ministry. I saw that seminars were not enough to train leaders and set them free from the religious paradigms that had ruled their life for so long. It would take regular, concentrated, systematic training. Since then we have trained leaders all around the world. As we won the lost we found that churches in Huntsville were not equipped and in many cases not interested in helping the people we were reaching. After years of prodding by the Holy Spirit and my wife, in November 1984, I finally responded to the call of God to start a church in Huntsville, Alabama that would be a different kind of church. Impact’s History Since that time we have experienced very positive growth and effectiveness. The church initially met in my living room and dining room. Once it reached around 100 people in regular attendance we had to make a move. Because we were active in missions projects and world evangelism, the people agreed to hold off on building a building. So, we moved into a tent on my front lawn where we stayed for nine months. (Nine very hot summer months and very cold winter months.) Needless to say, we lost those who were not pioneering in nature. Then for several months we met in various locations throughout the city. In 1988 we built the first phase of our building plan. We have remained in that building until the present time. In 1999 we purchased the adjoining property and began a building project. The new building will house our offices and a new auditorium. The present building will continue as an educational building and be used for special functions. The plan that God gave me for this ministry was very backwards from the way I would have planned it. When we began He said, "I will establish you around the world, then across the nation, then I will establish you here in Huntsville." That was the plan that we worked. For years we won hundreds of thousands of people to the Lord all around the world every year. Books and tapes have been distributed to hundreds of thousands of third world leaders. We have trained pastors and leaders all across America. In 1998 the Lord gave me the release to make the public announcement, "It is time to build the local church." I had spent the previous two years fulfilling my commitments around the world. But the time had come. I had seen God do exactly what He promised. I had spoken to crowds of over 20,000. Our ministry had influenced entire nations. All across America doors were opened, our School of Ministry Graduates were pioneering new churches, but now we were ready to reach Huntsville. The following will help you know where we are going: Our Mission Statement Impact of Huntsville exists to reach the lost, the backslidden, the unchurched and the unproductive, make them whole through the love of God, to equip and launch them into a place of personal ministry while living their dreams. Our Philosophy of Ministry Sickened by the abuse of twentieth century religious politics, we are committed to building a ministry that exists to build people. We will never use people to build our ministry. We believe that success comes when everyone around us is successful. We do not want you to give up your dreams to fulfill this church’s vision. We want you to live your dreams while serving together with us to fulfill the vision of making people whole through the love of God. Our Vision Statement We believe we are called to build a church of 10,000 active disciples that will be a launching pad into the entire world. We intend to model to the world that a strong, effective growing church can be built by building people. We want to shatter the religious control that causes people to throw away their dreams to only serve the vision of an egocentric pastor. Why our services are different Everything we do has a purpose. Because the needs and the learning styles of people have changed so much in recent years, we have designed our services to be effective at reaching this generation. This environment, the type of music, the format of the services everything we do is designed to make us more effective. We refuse to be tied to tradition if that tradition is making us ineffective at reaching our community. We have an agenda in every service: *We want every person who attends our services to experience the love of God through the preaching, the worship and every aspect of the service. *We want every service to provide an opportunity for Biblically-based, free expression of Worship and Praise. *We want our people to become true worshippers of God. *We want everyone to have fun in the presence of God. *We want people to experience personal acceptance from our staff and our members. *We want people to hear messages that add value to their daily life. *We want people to see that God and Christianity are very relevant to daily life. *We want people to know that Jesus is the only route to the abundant life. *We want this to be a safe place for our members and guests to bring their family and friends to meet Jesus. If we’re the kind of church you’ve been looking for, check out the "Why would I want to Join Impact?" page. Get on board. This is a chance to make your life count, grow in God and avoid all the religious games.