(Click on the above heading to get this page as a PDF file.)
Mission Statement: Agape Restoration Society is a Christian volunteer ministry that aims to restore orphans, widows, poor and disabled people to fullness of life; to restore this diakonia-ministry to the Body of Christ; and to provide a Christian community for independent living in moderation.
Agape Restoration Society has been functioning since 1998 in the U.S. as a fund of WaterStone, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. We have worked in Russia for 10 years with disabled children and adults in their homes in the provinces and in the Moscow area providing rehabilitation, care and equipment. Since 2002 we have also trained hundreds of Americans and Russians to perform the diakonia social ministry that Jesus, the Apostles and the Early Church performed to “the poor, lame, maimed and blind” and to “widows and orphans,” using six courses of our one-year “Practical Ministries” course in English and translated into Russian. This is an online interactive course, and we have also taught it on-site in Russian at a Christian university and two seminaries in Moscow.
The ARS concept consists of training a team of workers in a given local church to do diakonia social ministry right along with evangelism and church planting. After our workers demonstrate the agape-love of Christ to a disabled or elderly person, they are able to share the Good News with that person, his or her family, relatives, neighbors and friends: there is instant credibility, and a home Bible study group is born! After several home groups are started, we share with them the next phase of our concept:
Building Agape Restoration Centers (ARCs). These centers are non-profit “housing cooperatives” that can be built on a minimum 2.5 acre (100m. by 100m.) piece of land, although more is desirable to let residents cultivate garden plots without having to travel. The ARC is a cross-shaped structure with a large, 56 ft. by 56 ft. (17m. by 17m.) multipurpose hall in the middle providing that local church a place to worship and for other activities (see floor plans). As shown in our drawings, the arms of the cross will contain 30 to 36 wheelchair-accessible living units on two floors that are connected by ramps, and the second-floor living units each have a “loft.” The living units share a modular design so that the plans can easily be adapted for more smaller, or fewer larger living units as demand is determined before construction begins. “Shares” can be sold on six-year loans to reduce interest.
Individuals or families purchase “shares” that give them the right to reside in their living units, and the church purchases “shares” that give it the right to use the clergy office, altar area and sacristy on the first floor, and classrooms on the second floor. Use of the multipurpose hall and balconies for worship and common meals, and the cafe, exercise and workshop rooms is determined by a schedule that cooperative members will agree upon.
All adult members of the cooperative must also be members in good standing of the church in a given ARC. All members of the church, however, do not need to be members of the cooperative: most of the members of the church should be healthy and able to serve. To become members of the cooperative, they must have a resident family member who 1) is at least 55 years old, or 2) has a disability, or 3) is an adopted or foster child, or 4) who volunteers to work at least 3-4 hours/week in the center.
The steps toward starting a new Agape Restoration Center are as follows:
This concept is feasible: we borrowed the above steps of gathering reservations, subscriptions and shares from Realife, Inc. (www.realifeinc.com), which has built over 25 similar housing cooperatives in the U.S. upper Midwest. You can find many other Christian independent living communities in the U.S. by searching on the Internet. At our website www.Agape-Restoration-Society.org more information is available, including a twelve-page article in PDF format with larger scale drawings of the ARC, and our social ministry courses. You can also download my latest book, The Ministry Driven Church, as an e-book or order a printed copy of it there.