Our Vision Equipping The Saints exists to help the church to function in its New Testament pattern as described in Ephesians 4:11-12. When God ordained the Old Testament tabernacle He designed it with the Levitical priesthood who would serve the people in their relationship with God. The Levitical priesthood which should have received Jesus with open arms instead rejected Jesus 1500 years later when he came as the long awaited Messiah. Now they were no longer worthy to represent God to man. When Jesus said, "upon this rock I will build my church," he did not deisign it upon the Old Testament, Levitcal order. The model for the New Testament church is spelled out for us in Ephesians 4:11-12. Each church leader was given the responsibility to train the saints in the area of his giftedness. So the evangelist doesn't just do the evangelism for the saints, but he has been charged with equipping the saints so they will know how to share the gospel with others about them. This way, everyone can be envolved in evangelism. If the church is to function on the Ephesians 4:11-12 model, then church leaders must function as trainers and know how to train the saints. Seminaries and Bible schools do not train their students to do this. Equipping The Saints entire purpose is to provide churches with the knowledge and tools to be able to train others effectively. Each of the tools provided by Equipping The Saints is designed to train the saints in all the areas needed to help them learn how to grow in their personal walk with Christ, know how to do effective personal evangelism, establish a new convert in their own walk with Christ, and train them to be able to disciple others so that they will continue the process with other untrained Christians and/or new converts. Equipping The Saints' vision is to bring every member of the body of Christ into their full function as a reproducing disciple. To this end, Equipping The Saints offers tools and training in various languages that help lay persons in the church fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Studies in John is designed to help establish a new convert in his/her relationship with God. It is also an effective tool for evangelism to bring a lost person to Christ. Equipping The Saints Discipleship Course is the basic training tool to teach a Christian how to be a disciple. It provides that Christian with the tools to win and disciple others by carrying him/her through a guided study course that moves one form a convert, to a disciple, to being a disciple maker, to finally being a maker of disciple makers. The Bible Survey is a tool that teaches all the major stories of the Bible and shows how they tell one story of fallen man and his redemption in Christ. Through this tool one can easily master the Bible or use it for evangelism to draw in non-Christians who may have an academic curiosity to understand the message of the Bible. Life of Christ Survey is a tool designed to help disciples put the life of Christ in its chronological order and to understand how Jesus' life and death can bring us our salvation.