This is a big question to answer because this Vision has reached all seven continents of the earth. Therefore, there has been so much church growth all over the world because the Lord has breathed life into the exponential multiplication of His Kingdom. This article will give a thorough explanation of all that God has been doing through the G12 Vision.
G12 means The Government of Twelve. It is a strategy for evangelism and multiplication. This strategy is based on a believer’s love for Jesus and therefore a compassion for the souls. It was birth out of the Great Commission found in Matthew 28:19-20.
The Vision is also about forming disciples after Jesus character. Jesus’ greatest desire is to see lives completely change through His Blood. He knows that the only way that lives are transformed is through the Power of the Cross.
Prayer is one essential principle within the G12 Vision. Nothing happens without prayer. In order to be successful in this Vision, every individual believer must pray. Each person must labor in prayer for every soul that will be won.
It is important to know that G12 is not a denomination. For this reason it has never express the desire of any one to leave their denomination. Instead, G12 supports denominations, other ministries and Outreaches.
G12 is a New Testament Christianity
Matthew 28:19-20 NKJV says: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…” This is the Great Commission. Every church is commanded to win souls and make disciples! A church that is not winning is hardly a church at all. In the Vision, we call this WINNING.
Pastors know the value of a three-day spiritual retreat. Many men in the Bible – Moses, Jonah, Paul - had three-day encounters with the Lord. Every new believer should experience the revelation of the cross and the power of the presence of God. We call this the ENCOUNTER.
We are called not only to win people to the Lord, but to make disciples. Discipleship is the process of forming the character of Christ in each new believer. Pastors agree that the process of discipleship includes continued training in the Word, life, and ministry. We call it SCHOOL OF LEADERS.
Acts 2:46 says: “So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart.” Scholars agree that the first church model in the book of Acts was house to house. We call it CELLS.
Everyone can do for someone else what was done for them. Giving away that which was given to you is part of being a Christian. Every Christian has something to offer. Every Christian can open a cell. Every Christian can win people to Jesus and help them to become disciples. According to this definition of leadership, “every believer is a leader of leaders.” We call this SENDING.
How did it Start?
The G12 Vision was birth in the heart of Pastor Cesar Castellanos, Senior Pastor of International Charismatic Mission Church (MCI) in Bogotá, Colombia. MCI is one of the largest churches in South America, with more than 200,000 members and more than 45,000 Cell Groups in the City of Bogotá.
Pastor Cesar Castellanos has been pastoring for more than 25 years. During his first 10 years of ministry at MCI Pastor Cesar was not satisfied with the fruit of his ministry. He watched members come to church for a season, then leave through the back door. He was not able to retain the souls he had won. Pastor Cesar sought the Lord for help to close this backdoor. He desperately wanted to please the Lord by maintaining and discipling the lives of the families that he was winning. The Lord led him to Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho.
Pastor Cesar has always considered Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho as his teacher and Pastor. When he visited Dr. Cho’s ministry in Korea, he was greatly impacted by Dr. Cho’s faith in God in the midst of great difficulties. In the face of those challenges, Dr. Cho built the biggest church in the world. Dr. Cho’s great faith inspired Pastor Cesar to use the same method of home cell groups at MCI. Later, God led Pastor Cesar to take Dr. Cho’s method to another level by establishing the G12 Vision. It is a very simple concept that God reveled to Pastor Cesar in His Word. Jesus dedicated Himself to train 12 disciples. MCI took the principle found in the Word and started to exponentially multiply in souls by 12.
G12 used for Restoration and Reconciliation
G12 Restores God’s Altar
When the people of Israel fell into rebellion and idolatry Elijah challenged Baal’s prophets to show the power of their gods to the people. The deity that answered with fire was the true God. This is how the process of restoring the altar began. “And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob…Then with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord” (1 Kings 18:31,32). Baal’s attempt failed, while God’s fire fell on the sacrifice that Elijah prepared. As a result, the people of Israel returned to God. Today, many people feel disappointed and discouraged by the bad testimony of religious leaders. This discouragement has destroyed and left their altar of God in ruins. All over the world, God’s altar is ruined just as it was during the time of Elijah. There is a need for men and women to be full of God’s zeal. The Lord is looking for people who are dedicated to exercise the power of the Blood of Jesus to win souls.
G12 Brings Reconciliation
It is not by chance that the last book of the Old Testament ends with the explanation of Elijah’s ministry. It says, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:5-6).
I am confident that now is the time. In these last days, God is going to pour out Elijah’s anointed mantle upon the earth. The anointing of Elijah will descend on many Christian leaders in the world and cause them to make family restoration a priority. God wants each leader to be His hands by bringing peace to the families that are on the brink of collapse because of the loss of spiritual values.
G12 is about Following Jesus
Jesus invested the majority of His time training His twelve disciples. He had limited contact with the multitudes and did not spend a lot of specific time discipling or teaching them. When He was with the people, Jesus would supply their needs, heal their sicknesses, deliver them from bondages, and minister to them. However, He did not spend time forming their character. It is easier to disciple twelve people than the thousands who heard the “Sermon on the Mount.” Jesus’ focus was to break religious patterns, change religious form, and reproduce His character in the lives of twelve men.
Jesus never was conventional. He did not find his twelve at a theological school or a seminary. Jesus found them through prayer (Luke 6:11-12). You cannot use reasons such as sympathy, intellectual capabilities, oratory skills, natural abilities or talents to select your twelve. The Holy Spirit should speak to you and show you who has a faithful heart. In the same way that a sculptor shapes clay, Jesus took twelve men in His hands and began to form their character. Jesus spent three and a half years teaching, cleansing, and sharing eternal truths that would prepare them to completely depend on the Holy Spirit and live in the same manner that He did. Jesus’ twelve are part of the foundation of our Christian faith. The best example to a senior Pastor is the work that Jesus did in the lives of these men. He won them through prayer, consolidated them, discipled them, then sent them.
G12 is Relationship Based
Jesus spent most of His crucial time with His twelve. It is most important to meet once a week in small groups that spend focused time on strengthening relationships. When you meet, you should be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and put aside all other distractions and allow the Holy Spirit to strengthen and minister to the team. Jesus had a consistent and permanent relationship with His twelve that enabled him to discern when something was out of order. Having a consistent relationship with your disciples will allow you to know them intimately and will enable you to minister to them continually. All leaders take their disciples through a process of inner healing and deliverance where chains of religious patterns and demonic oppression are broken. A person who is not ministered to cannot minister to others.
Choose People Who Are Fruitful
Jesus spent all night in prayer before He chose His twelve. We should take His example and choose people that the Holy Spirit sanctions. Do not choose your twelve because you are a long-time friends. First, a leader should look at their fruit. The first step is starting a cell. The leaders that work the hardest and are faithful to open twelve other cells in a year are the ones qualified to be part of the twelve. Leadership should not be given to anyone because of sympathy, but because they have truly earned it. From the beginning, your goal should be to have a team of twelve who are the type of people that produce fruit, understand the Vision, and have begun to multiply.
Everyone is a Soul Winner
Jesus chose men who He was confident would follow His example of being a soul winner. A team of twelve should clearly understand how to evangelize and win souls. Each leader must be trained to be a soul winner. This is the goal of the Vision; that every believer becomes a leader. Sometimes a person has a natural ability to win souls. Other times a leader is challenged to minister to a disciple until evangelism becomes a part of their nature. Either way, every disciple of Christ must first individually conquer the challenge of making winning souls a lifestyle. Then when they become a part of the team of twelve they can contribute to the team’s effort of winning the multitudes. God will bless the team with strategies for planning evangelistic meetings and events that win great numbers of souls at one time.
Work in Homogeneous Groups
In the church there are different networks: Men, Women, Youth, and Children. In these networks the message is tailored to reach their specific needs. The goal is to motivate and strengthen each group to achieve their dreams. Each network is arranged in a specific manner. Men minister to men, women minister to women, youth minister to youth and there is a team formed to empower children to minister to children. We have made the decision to organize the children’s network by ages 5-7,8-10, and 11-13. This way we are able to specifically share an appropriate message for each age group.
As the Pastor is strengthened, the twelve become an extension of his ministry. The twelve work in harmony as a team in the Vision by ministering to each person’s needs through building cells. Everyone has a place so there is not need to worry about competing for a position. This causes a relationship to of care, respect, and a special bond with each team member.
How does the G12 Vision Work?
The G12 Vision has 4 steps: Win, Consolidate, Disciple and Send. Together these steps form the Ladder of Success.
WIN
First, a leader must pray for the unbeliever and invite them to participate in a cell group. There are different strategies on how to win a person to the Lord. However, prayer is the emphasis in all strategies. Through prayer God causes a person to be affected by His Word. Then the new believer becomes part of a cell group and is prepared for an Encounter by attending Pre-Encounter classes. These classes must be attended in order for the new believer to have a true Encounter with Jesus.
CONSOLIDATE
The next step is focused on the new believers attending an Encounter. The Encounter is a 3-day retreat that separates the new believer from their daily life routine in order to meet God. The main purpose of the Encounter is for the new believer to receive the Revelation of the Cross. After the encounter they start to be true disciple.
DISICPLE
The Encounter causes them to fall so deeply in love with Jesus that they have a burning desire to serve Him by becoming involved in the Vision. Immediately after the Encounter the new disciple attends Post Encounter. The purpose of Post Encounter is to reaffirm their new life in Christ and to empower them with victory as new Christians. When the new believer goes through an Encounter their lives are drastically transformed. However, the environments that they return to are still the same. They need tools that will help them to build a relationship with the Holy Spirit, overcome temptation, maintain their deliverance and continue to grow in Christ. Post Encounter is the way this is accomplished. This prepares them to be trained to become a leader.
The School of Leaders is the next step in the Vision. In Exodus 18:17-20, Moses’ father-in-law instructed Moses to be responsible to the teach the the twelve tribes of Israel, “the way to walk and the work they should do.” School of Leaders does just that. It is three levels of doctrine and seminars that empower the new disciples to be fully successful in the work of the Kingdom.
SEND
The goal of the G12 Vision is that each believer becomes a leader. During a period of12 months, the new disciple goes from being an ordinary person to a leader of twelve. Each leader is sent back into the culture to Win Souls and Make Disciples. When this is done by correctly applying the entire G12 Vision, whole cities will be transformed.
Choosing the Twelve
In the beginning, everyone in the church is in a cell. As each member goes through the steps of The Ladder of Success, they can become part of a team of twelve. All cells meet once per week. Each person’s goal is to take their cell group and transform it into a team of twelve leaders. The cell is an open group where anyone can come. As leaders are formed, the cell leader begins to have a separate meeting. Only twelve leaders can become a part of this group. The G12 meets once per week and focuses on mentoring and ministering to each leader.
G12 Meetings Are a Learning Center
For three and a half years Jesus met daily with His twelve to impart into their lives and teach them new things. It is very important that each leader meet with the team at least once a week. In the G12 meeting, the leader should share practical teachings that will encourage and strengthen them. Sharing with the twelve each week creates a personal mentoring relationship. As a leader, your responsibility is to have a rhema word for your group and facilitate friendships that are based upon accomplishing the purpose of God together.
12 Advantages of a G12 Meeting
- Each leader follows the vision of the Pastor by making disciples.
- Each leader motivates his disciples to grow and truly work for God.
- Everyone is motivated when the Vision is correctly implemented.
- It allows everyone to work in the ministry.
- It gives the leader an opportunity to share goals with the team.
- It fulfills the purpose of God.
- The leader trains the disciples to minister to their disciples.
- Friendships are formed.
- It allows everyone to understand and speak the same language.
- The leader works hard to see his disciples become successful.
- It strengthens the ministry and unifies vision of the church.
- t creates an atmosphere that encourages growth based on hard work and trust in each other.
G12 groups help to:
- Strengthen the unity of the church.
- Strengthen the vision of the church.
- Establish a working and honest relationship with each team member.
- Create an atmosphere that encourages growth.
- Strengthen ministries within the church.