Throughout the book of Acts, we see churches becoming hubs where laborers were released, received back, refueled, and sent out again. This movement was so effective that in Acts 19:10, it says that all of Asia had heard the gospel. And they had not just heard about Jesus but about Jesus and His church - people on fire for God, embodying the values of the Kingdom, and corporately expressing those values to rightfully distribute the gospel. This is the way that the world will be won today, by the church being the church, carrying and imparting Kingdom values.

For the original disciples, it was the simple values of knowing Jesus and making Him known that allowed them to endure persecution, to have joy in suffering, to experience power in their ministry, and to see the world changed. John said, “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life…we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us” (1 John 1:1-3). This wasn’t a religion of dead works, but a people who had experienced the real God with their hands, eyes, and ears.

More than a great desire to see the world won to Christ, our focus at Antioch has always been to live from the inside out. What we have seen, heard, and touched are the things that we proclaim to you and to the world. Because we have met Jesus and found the life-giving power of His Kingdom, we want to reproduce His values in the lives of people everywhere so that they too can know Him and make Him known…until the whole world hears and knows. And just like the early disciples, we desire to be known as a people who have been with Jesus.

“God wants to be known in all the earth. He wants to rightly distribute Himself so that all can hear and all can know. The way He has chosen to do that is through the church. We follow in the footsteps of thousands who have gone before us, but it is our time, it is our hour to see the coming of the Lord, to be a part of God’s dream of answering His heart’s cry.” (Jimmy Seibert – The Church Can Change the World)