A Brief History of the AIM Journey

The history of AIM and the AIM Trainers material goes back many years to the early 1990s when our full-time ministry began. While I was a church planter in Vermont, I wanted to express the core values and practices of the church in a simple, easy-to-grasp format that people could remember.

1992 - I came up with four E's: the words "Evangelize," "Edify," and "Equip" at the points of a triangle, and "Exalt" in the middle. Everything we did revolved around bringing glory to God. Later I realized that this was a closed system, so I added "Extend" as an offshoot at the "Evangelize" point of the triangle to represent the planting of new churches. This worked well for us in helping people understand the functions of the church in a simple way.

1995, June - In preparation for overseas service, I attended Saddleback's Purpose-Driven Church Conference. Discovering Rick Warren's application of the five purposes of the church, I abandoned my 5-E diagram and adopted the Baseball Diamond model as we had planned to use Saddleback principles in our new work.

1996, February - Arriving in Tasmania, we began teaching Saddleback principles including the Baseball Diamond (in spite of the fact that baseball is not a popular sport in Australia). We started a new church and operated on these principles for the next three years.

1997, September 30 - As the newly-appointed leader of Tasmania's Baptist Union evangelism team, I produced a document outlining the idea of a zero-budget strategy for starting churches using small groups. I also proposed the name "Advance21" to capture the essence of forward movement into the new century. The team readily embraced the new name, but they were reluctant to embrace a strategy which did not follow contemporary church planting methodology. While this strategy was not actively employed, writing this proposal helped me to clarify a new way of thinking about how new churches could be formed in simple, reproducible ways.

1999, December - We traveled back to the US for our first stateside assignment of 8 months. I had become increasingly interested in leadership and learned much from personal reading by many authors. I also learned as much as I could about the phenomenon known as church planting movements and started to wonder if such a movement could occur in a Western context. During this time I became increasingly became dissatisfied with the traditional five purposes of the church, partly because of the ambiguity of the terms worship, fellowship, and mission, but partly because people struggled to remember all five elements. I began to wonder how much people could effectively apply what they could not remember readily.

2003, August - As part of my ongoing involvement in Advance21, I produced another paper called The Submerging Church. This was a more mature document as it addressed the phenomenon of church planting movements and how they are reaching vast numbers of lost people in many countries. I wanted to transfer these principles across to our current context in order to facilitate similar movements in the West. The document included a step-by-step plan for a zero-budget church planting strategy based on CPM principles. However, this was "postponed" by the Baptist Union leader because he considered it to be too controversial.

At this stage I wanted to create a mnemonic that accurately captured the essence of Scriptural mandates but also reflected values central to the movements where God is multiplying believers and churches in many parts of the world. Around this time, I discovered the strategy statement of North Point Community Church which was "to create environments where people are encouraged and equipped to pursue intimacy with God, community with insiders, and influence with outsiders." I recognized that these three points directly point to the core teachings of Jesus in the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:37-40) and the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20). While I liked North Point's statement, I felt the word "community" was too frequently confused with the generic term for a local neighborhood, and the word "influence" was not specific enough to address the priority of evangelism. My search continued.

2006, May - After months of thinking and considering many options, I developed the acronym AIM. At the time, this stood for Authentic Relationships, Intimacy with God, and Multiplying Influence. "Authentic Relationships" reflected love for one another, "Intimacy with God" was obviously the greatest commandment, and "Multiplying Influence" captured the essence of reproducing mission.

2006, June 3 - Having just created the concept of AIM, I shared it with a couples group that we were leading at the time. Three days later, volunteer worker Matt Williams helped me to present the AIM challenge to our youth group which was meeting at our home. I found that it was not only received very well, but that people were able to repeat it back to me with understanding.

2006, September 10 to October 5 - Judy (my wife) and I attended Strategy Coordinator Training in a city in southeast Asia. We studied with about 30 other workers from various parts of Asia and Europe to discuss Scriptural mandates, disciple-making methods, and the specific methodology of the phenomenon of church planting movements. We studied T4T, a disciple training method which was extremely effective in East Asia; the presenter was the man who created this method. From one training group in 2000, T4T had produced streams in one country which resulted in 30,000 new believers and 2,800 new churches every month. I spoke to the developer of T4T and asked whether it had been used in a Western context before, and he said to his knowledge it had not, with the exception of Saddleback Church, where he had trained their small group leaders in 2004 using T4T. I saw the amazing results of this method and wanted to know if it would possibly work in a place like Australia.

The T4T framework is based on the "three-thirds" principle where the first third of the session is devoted to reporting, problem-solving, and worship; the second third introduces the new lesson; and the last third is a time for practicing the lesson and rehearsing the gospel message. I quickly came to the realization that this framework fits perfectly with the AIM pattern that I had developed several months earlier. There was no doubt in my mind that this was a God-inspired idea whose time had come. AIM would become the foundational framework for everything we do, including disciple training groups as well as churches.

Hearing much about the importance of obedience to Jesus and accountability in church planting movements, I revisited the AIM acronym. I felt that the phrase "Authentic Relationships" was too weak, so I changed it to "Accountability to One Another." I also changed "Multiplying Influence" to "Multiplication of the Kingdom" to reflect the centrality of the Kingdom of God.

2006, October 9 - Having just returned from SC Training, I felt that T4T held much promise for the future of Australia. I reasoned that while it may not work in a Western context, no one would know unless we tried it! So I printed out the original T4T materials and started marking it up with ideas for an Australian version. I wanted to add elements specific to the secular context of Australia (for example, the influence of consumerism). I also wanted to write a segment on the Kingdom of God as T4T didn't address this at all. I was very excited and optimistic about this method and I wanted to start teaching it immediately! One the keys to a movement is a genuine and undying passion to make it happen -- and I would not rest until I could put it into action and make it happen.

2006, October 10 - I studied the T4T principles sheet and use it as a reference in developing this method. I also worked on the lessons, completing one variation on Lesson 1 which goes through the Four Spiritual Laws as a review. In spite of being away from home to attend a Strategy Forum, I spent much time throughout this month developing a new implementation of T4T. Eventually, I came up with a new outline of the lessons which focused on six expressions of God, and I realized at that point that I would be rewriting all the material. To differentiate it from T4T, I called it Training Faithful Trainers (TFT).

2006, October 30 - I went to visit Steve, a local pastor and one of my closest friends, to share with him and his wife, Marg, a vision for training trainers. In early November I approached him again to make concrete plans for starting a disciple training group using TFT. He seemed enthusiastic about this method as it touched on many themes he had been addressing in his church, so we made a plan to start a small training group this month. A few days later at an Advance21 forum, I had a chance to share a vision for training disciples, sharing our faith openly, and holding one another accountable to obeying Jesus.

2006, November 20 - Judy and I went to Steve & Marg's home to hold our first TFT training session. We began with just the four of us with the idea that we could train many others if we start with a few trainers. I presented the introduction and it went well, but Margaret was visibly uncomfortable with the idea of sharing the gospel with lost people. This surprised me because I thought personal evangelism was a part of her lifestyle.

2006, December 4 - Judy and I visited Steve & Marg again to teach TFT Lesson 1. Marg, who expressed nervousness last time about going out to share the gospel, had shared with her friend Kate and with 2 other people. She reported with great enthusiasm, saying that she wanted to share the gospel with many more of her unbelieving friends. With the Christmas season fast approaching and much on their schedules, Steve & Marg decided to postpone training until after the holidays.

2007, January - Having begun TFT training, Judy and I began to realize that Australians--whether believers or not--have many preconceived notions about Christian faith which may not be accurate. Judy suggested that we should develop a short training method to help people "unlearn" certain things that could be barriers to them becoming effective disciples. At this point I began by making a list of what I considered to be the primary misconceptions of Christianity in the Western context, and I came up with about 18 items under several headings. Then I began to search the Scriptures to find what the Bible says about each of these items, and while I found answers throughout the Bible, every misconception was addressed in the book of Acts! At that point I realized that I needed to teach the book of Acts as part of this "unlearning and relearning" process for established Australian believers.

Despite starting TFT just 2 months earlier, we were unable to get the original group restarted because of Steve & Marg's heavy involvement in their local church. This was deeply discouraging to me, and at this stage I began to really count the cost. I knew this was going to be a big project for me. While I had a glimpse of the positive effects of this method in Marg's life, I also anticipated the possibility of people not being committed to the journey. On top of that, many people could be resistant to this new method. I knew there would be setbacks and that I would be tempted to give up. I made a commitment to myself and to God that I would work on this wholeheartedly for the next 12 months and that I would not give up under any circumstances, no matter how difficult it became or how badly I wanted to quit. I had reached a point of no return.

2007, February - I began to set aside TFT development so I could concentrate on the new method which would use the book of Acts as the primary text. Because this method involved "unlearning" and starting over with principles from Acts, I chose to call it Reboot. At this time I also began to develop an initial outline for training national Strategy Coordinators. Unfortunately, I would not complete TFT for another six months.

2007, March 27 - I completed the outline for Reboot and began writing the material. The problem was not coming up with material, but reducing the vast number of ideas and concepts down to a manageable amount. I felt there was so much to teach people, but I realized that I needed to keep it succinct.

2007, April 12 - I talked with Anne, a lady with missionary training with whom I had worked many years ago, figuring that she may wish to be the first to use the Reboot method. I shared the vision of Reboot with her and she was quite enthusiastic. However, because of schedule conflicts, we had to wait until the end of May to start a group. Two days later, I shared about disciple training with Andrew, a man I had led the the Lord several months earlier, but he made no commitment to participate.

2007, May 9 - While Anne was unable to start right away, Jillian was ready to go with it. A long-time co-worker and family friend, Jillian opened her home for the first-ever Reboot session and invited her friend Brenda to participate. They were enthusiastic and optimistic about what God could do through people committed to multiplying disciples!

2007, May 29 - We had our first Reboot session with Anne at her home on Hobart's eastern shore. She had invited Christin and Cherelle, local ladies that she had met recently, to participate in the training. A few weeks later, Anne used what I had been teaching her and started a new group in Richmond, Tasmania with two ladies. This was an exciting development as it was the first instance of a second-generation training group.

2007, July - I started a Reboot training group in Longford, Tasmania, two hours north of Hobart. This was the first training group outside the capital city area and consisted of 2 couples who were part of a house church in that small town.

2007, August 2 - Having trained our first people in Reboot (and often completing the writing of the next lesson just before teaching it), I completed the final formatting of Reboot. This brought many hours of work to completion, and I was glad to have it finalized. Ironically, this was the day our strategy leader, Tom Whaley, contacted me asking if I would be willing to do a presentation on Reboot for our upcoming best practices session in Japan. I agreed.

2007, August 3 - I met with Steve, the local pastor with whom we had held our first TFT training last year. Steve envisioned starting a "church within a church" by having a special gathering on Sunday evenings and incorporating either Reboot or TFT (and probably both) as the primary training material in the new church. He had hoped to start in October, but unfortunately this never happened as some people in his church were not supportive of the new initiative.

2007, August 4 - After a six-month hiatus in developing TFT due to concentrating on Reboot development and training, I resumed work on TFT. At this stage, I had brought only Lesson 2 to completion. I taught this lesson to a new believer, Phil, and his two young sons.

2007, August 7 - I presented a best practices presentation of Reboot in Narita, Japan. As a result, several other missionaries expressed interest in this method and offered to translate it into Japanese so it could be used in their context. The translation was later completed and posted on the jesus-follower.org website.

2007, September 26 - Judy and I started a Reboot training group with Loraine and four other ladies, all of which were from the same Baptist church in our local area. One participant was the pastor's wife, and we met in her home.

2007, September 27 - This evening we held the first TFT group with 8 people, three of which were new believers. The 17-year-old son of one of the believers was saved that evening as a result of our gathering, and it was exciting to see God at work right there in our midst!

2007, October 9 - Jillian and Brenda, the first two people trained in Reboot, began a TFT group incorporating Jayne, a new believer from the local area.

2007, November 11 - I started a Reboot group with Matthew and Nathan, two single men from opposite ends of the greater Hobart area. This was our first all-male Reboot group. I wondered if this would work because they were both quiet-natured guys, but the interaction was much better than I had expected. The three of us developed a strong sense of partnership during this journey.

2007, December - During my visit to the US, I was asked to speak at a men's breakfast at Manchester Baptist Church (MD), to share what we are doing in Tasmania. I decided to train them using the entire Reboot Introduction session, hoping to garner their interest in continuing this process. On December 30 I met with Roger, a member of that church, to teach him about the Reboot method and prepare him to continue training the men. Unfortunately the training never occurred.

2008, February 29 - During my trip to South Australia, I shared an overview of the Reboot disciple training process with Andrew, a pastor in Adelaide.

2008, March 3 - I started using TFT to train a group of people at Lisa's house. One week later, while we were practicing our personal testimonies, Kerrie expressed that she had no story -- so we led her to Jesus right there!

2008, March 20 - I made arrangements with a furloughing missionary to start a new Reboot training group in Kingston, but this group never got off the ground.

2008, April 19 - On this day, we held our first training group with Congolese participants. We taught the session in primarily in Swahili due to their limited grasp of English.

2008, May 13 - During my one-week trip to my home state of Maryland, I organized a new Reboot group at my parents' church, Grace United Methodist, in Hampstead. Eight people attended including their new pastor, and I taught the introduction session. I handed the reins to one of the participants who was committed to continue the training, but the pastor insisted on taking the lead. Unfortunately, he ditched the material and taught Acts without modeling the "three-thirds" principle. The group disbanded after a few weeks.

2008, July - We hosted a mission team of seven young men from the University of Mobile, Alabama, and Ben trained them in Reboot--one session per evening! The purpose was to familiarize these young students with the approach we are taking to train people in Australia. This was the first fast-track training, and while it was successful in terms of the presentation, it did not provide enough time for "unlearning" and "relearning" to take place.

2008, September 11 - I began a Reboot training group with 6 participants in Penguin, 3 hours drive north of Hobart.

2008, September 29 - The aimtrainers.org website was created to host AIM training materials.

2008, October - Christin, one of the first people I trained last year, initiated a Reboot training group with several ladies in her circles of influence.

2008, December - Several Chinese people in Sandy Bay expressed interest in Reboot training, wishing to start as soon as possible. Because of my planned travel to the US during January, I decided to wait until February to begin. Upon my return, they had lost interest and the group never formed.

2009, January - During my three-week stay in Maryland, I organized another Reboot group in Upperco with five participants. We were able to cover only three sessions, but the participants were enthusiastic about this experience together.

2009, February 25 - Jim, a student and staff member at Worldview Centre in Launceston, Tasmania, helped to organize a new Reboot group at the school.

2009, April to August - After working to develop a method for training national partners in strategic principles and CPM methodology, I trained nine participants (seven from Tasmania and two from Sydney) over four full weekends of study and practice. During this time I taught them about the history of T4T in Asia and the adapted methods of TFT and Reboot which we are using in Australia. Each participant prepared a Strategy Plan for engaging a population segment and began to execute their plan. I fully documented this project in my D.Min. project report entitled, Raising Up Strategy Partners for Australia.

2009, July 17 - I started a Reboot training group with Julie and two students from the University of Tasmania.

2009, July 27 - I began TFT training with Josh. This was the first time I trained any person one-on-one from start to finish.

2009, September 20 - I commenced a Reboot training group with Lewis and two other men. Lewis was a 77-year-old man living in Sandy Bay who expressed interest in evangelism and making disciples, and he quickly became very active in sharing the gospel and training trainers.

2009, October 15 - On this day, I started Reboot training with Tim & Anna and two other couples. Due to my time constraints, we ran the training on a weekly basis.

2010, February 3 - During our nine-month stateside assignment in the US, I used Reboot to train a group of 8 people at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Rohrersville, MD starting on this day. At least six people are saved through the witness of trainers in this small rural church--impressive, considering they had not baptized anyone in about a year.

2010, September 2 - Just before leaving the US, I taught the introduction session of Reboot to some members of our home church, Northwest Baptist, in Reisterstown, MD. Chris, one of the participants, continued training others while I mentored him via the telephone each week.

2010, November - With the partnership of Phil, a relatively new believer, I began training our first all-teenage Reboot group. This was an experiment to see if a group of 4 young boys aged 13-16 could handle the challenge, and I was very pleasantly surprised at their ability to handle the material--especially the book of Acts. In Sydney, I led a Reboot training workshop.

2011, January - I completed a revision of Reboot with a complete rewrite of the Introduction session. I formatted versions of Reboot and TFT for use in the USA. This month we also started the largest Reboot group to date with 16 people, in Lauderdale, Tasmania.

2011, February - We hosted a mission trip to western Sydney with four people trained as Strategy Partners, to assist in reaching people and starting new work.

2011, March - Two of our Strategy Partners, Erik and Jillian, helped to create a revised AIM Pattern for Field 2 outreach groups. This has become an essential part of our strategy with persons of peace in the "house of peace" strategy.

Ben Armacost