Our focus are “outsiders” and our way of getting close to them is “today’s culture”.

To identify the needs of our target group and to establish a clear direction and focus for our strategy, we have organized focus groups with our target audience (“outsiders” aged 20 to 40). Fascinating tips about how to focus our strategy emerged from these groups.

Given that this is an ongoing process, we can simply communicate some of the early conclusions:

1. Global Strategy
We aim to meet our vision through the creation of comfortable environments that promote the perception of ICG as a community based on personal relationships (rather than liturgies) and as a place where people feel they can grow spiritually. To implement our strategy, we are currently developing “growth itineraries”.

2. Key Benefit
Our “key benefit”, that thing that distinguishes us from others and serves as the base of ICG can be defined as:

a. Growth
We offer “outsiders” an answer to their deepest questions.
ICG aims to be an ideal environment for people to grow and discover the responses to their spiritual and daily needs.

b. Together
We do this in community.
We strive for our growth to occur in community, so that, by taking care of each other, we follow God’s command to serve one another.

3. Our “claim” is “Growing Together”
We believe that the ICG experience has two fundamental bases:

a. Growth:
I. We believe that, if we are honest with ourselves, in all human beings there is a feeling of spirituality. We believe that if we ask the right questions, a significant number of those in our target group will be interested in beginning the path of growth and searching that leads to Jesus and the way of life he modeled for us.
II. For ICG, growth also means stretching ourselves: knocking down walls, conventions, traditions…. We are intensively focused on searching for new and better ways to make the gospel real for our target group. What worries us much more than making a mistake along the way is following the same old patterns when these simply don’t work. So, day after day, we continue to stretch.

b. Together:
For ICG, the idea of a Christian community is fundamental and basic. It is an integral part of what ICG is. We don’t understand Christianity without community, caring for one another, learning from one another. We believe that sharing time together helps us grow in our walk with God. God is with each of us, so by being together we can see the work of God in each other.

4. Our strategy, on a practical level, is based on:

a. Sunday service
The development of a Sunday service that integrates non-believers in the service and also provides believers with an ambience where they feel inspired to trust God with their daily lives. Our true focus on Sundays, however, is ‘outsiders’. They are the ones that lead us to think about the best way to orient our service, and they are the ones we want to live the ICG experience: a culturally relevant evangelical experience with a strong sense of community. Together, we live the gospel in a modern way. We are convinced that the first impression is key, and we know that one complaint many non-church-goers often have is the lack of warmth they see in traditional services that depend on liturgies. From the first moment, we want these ‘outsiders’ to feel accepted and to feel that they are part of a community that lives out their faith in a contemporary way. From the ‘insider’s’ perspective, we aim for complete transparency and lack of embarrassment.

b. Conectados
Small groups we call ‘Connected’ are the place where we can grow together. We meet in small groups of, ideally, no more than 10 people in order to grow spiritually together. It is the true concept of church, on a very personal level.

c. Environments
Development of spaces and environments that encourage integration:
We believe that the way a message is delivered is nearly as important as the message itself. That’s why we think that by concentrating on the ambience, we can make the message itself be understood even better. One of our next steps will be establishing ‘growth itineraries’ based on the ‘From the foyer to the kitchen’ strategy developed by North Point.