Dan Hayes Founder of ACM

What is the point of “out of our seats and into the streets,” ACM’s motto? Simply put, we think God intended for the gospel to be lived and the gospel to be told primarily outside the four walls of churches. It has been said that “the church is the only organization that exists on earth primarily for those that are not yet a part of it.”

As we leave our comfortable seats to go into the streets, the love of Christ goes with us – Christ goes with us and He draws people to Himself.

Why is love the focal point of ACM?

With Christ, love is not an “afterthought to accomplishment.” In Atlanta today, there is an overemphasis on “doing” as opposed to “being.” We have been called a society that is an inch deep and a mile wide. It is easy to accomplish without having love. ACM intentionally seeks to keep Christ’s love front and center because we cannot take it for granted, and it is His love, not our activities, that changes lives.

We wrap all of our emphasis on lay people being leaders around their having love, not around their having good skills or techniques. I do hope we can help them with skills, but it is more important that they experience the love of Christ, because then they can give that love away. But if they have little experience of this love, no amount of skill will enable them to share it.

What has led so many Team Leaders and Volunteers to stay involved for such long periods of time, in some cases years, when most organizations’ volunteers last a few months?

Photo Albums: ACM Team leaders

You are right. The average volunteer tenure in many organizations is around nine months.

I believe the answer to your question is that our volunteers do not get involved in what ACM staff want them to do, but what they (the volunteers) themselves feel called to, led to, or interested in doing. They are not doing it because of duty but because it is fascinating, interesting, challenging, or fun to them.

If a man like Jim Watterson felt called to minister to an Antique Mart, why should we tell him to minister to “at risk” teens. People at antique marts have every bit as many needs as at risk teens, albeit different needs; and everyone needs the dynamic spiritual life which comes from a genuine relationship with God through Christ.

Thus our volunteers allow themselves to be gripped by an idea, an audience, a vision and by the love of Christ … and so they progress in ministry for a very long time.

Why is prayer so important in ACM’s Ministry?

In Christ’s Upper Room Discourse (John 13-17), from which ACM discerns its Nine Spiritual Principles, prayer is central to His disciples’ accomplishing their mission on the earth after the departure of His physical presence.

Therefore, in ACM, we feel the lay led, volunteer prayer team is our “molten core” of ministry. It is that which energizes all of our other ministries.

ACM began in 1996 with a 30 day prayer chain among 35 individuals I asked to pray daily for “7 Crucial Requests.” We now ask our intercessor team, led by Jo Shippen, to pray for certain ministries and certain issues on certain days of the month. We can generally chart the progress of our other ministries by the “activeness” of our prayer ministry.

In our Nine Spiritual Principles, we say each principle has a contemplative (inner) aspect. Prayer, of course, has a tremendous inner aspect as well. Prayer deepens us internally, opens up our internal universe, makes us deeper people, more loving people, more empathetic, and better able to help others.

How are faith and prayer related to ACM?

I Cor. 4:20 says “the Kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power.”

I believe the greatest power God gives us is the power to love … but it helps a lot if we expect Him to manifest this power. That expectation is what we call faith, believing God WILL do in us what He clearly desires to do: make us full of His boundless love.

Prayer is also an igniter of faith. When we pray, we acknowledge that God is our source and we are the recipients (not vice versa). As we do this, internally we become more expectant (full of faith) of God meeting the needs, receiving the worship, releasing His love, changing our lives and those of others, etc., than we would be if we were not praying. And the more our faith is stimulated, the more we want to communicate with God through that vehicle we call prayer.

You say, “God has already equipped Christians to do ministry,” what do you mean by that?

He has equipped us through “sending His Spirit into our lives, crying ‘Abba Father.’” He has equipped us by putting ideas and dreams and interests into our minds around which we can begin and develop ministries.

He has equipped us by giving us personalities, strengths, and weaknesses that uniquely draw certain others to Christ (one of our cardinal values is “every person can be a link in the chain that brings people to Christ.”)

We are equipped with at least 4,000 years of biblical and extra-biblical examples of how people have trusted and served God. We are equipped because Jesus has already “accredited us” to go into all the world (Mt. 28:18-20). All of this God has done; and as long as we live, He wants to hone, add to, and improve that equipping.

The bottom line is, we really do not have much excuse to stay in our seats … but we have every reason to go into the streets.

Where are there new potential ministries that might interest me?

For some of us, it is right in our jobs. For others of us, it is right in our neighborhoods. For others of us, it’s right in our hobbies and interest and avocations.

We just thought if it as something were interested in. We have never thought of it in terms of building a ministry there. We have never thought about being able to get out and do ministry in that way.

What are the first steps in initiating a ministry?

Expect God to give you an idea and a vision.
Number one, expect God to give you an idea and a vision. The method of faith for building ministries, expect God to give you a vision. Expect that God has other people to Help you.

Number two, expect that God has other people to help you. Other people have had this vision put in their heart too. You just don’t know them yet.

Thirdly, expect God to give you concrete ways to reach and love people. Underline the word concrete. Jim Waterson could have said I want to reach antique markets, but if he hadn’t said, we could shut it down for an hour and have a Sunday morning service upstairs in the warehouse in the room they‘ve got up there, I will go to management, I will ask if we can do this because after all, its Sunday. If he hadn’t done the concrete stuff, he could still be thinking about reaching the antique market, but it wouldn’t be happening. Trust He will give you concrete ways to do it.

And then trust he will enable you to take action. He will enable you to take action. This is how faith works. Trust that he will enable you to take action. This is not out of our seats and into more chairs; this is not out of our seats into the vestibule. This is out of our seats and into the streets. Trust He will do it.