Missional Community series | Post #17
Full steam ahead with our Missional Community series (nothing if not thorough, right?!).
This is a story of a Missional Community at a church in Washington called Missio Lux and one of their MCs called Seeds of Hope.
Seeds of Hope is a Missional Community that pulls together an extended family in Washington to identify, educate, and empower the orphaned and at-risk youth of Southern Sudan with the goal of restoring hope, peace, and socio-economic self-sufficiency to their war-torn country. Starting with one child at a time (the first was Arok), the program now includes 35 orphans from Arok’s village who are provided with food, clothing, health care, a loving environment and education in a boarding school now located in Kenya. Other efforts are also underway to help this village obtain access to water and needed equipment.
One fund raising event they’ve done is with the organization Hoops of Hope., with funds going to the dozens of children in the queue waiting to be included in the program when funds are available.
Last year the Hoops of Hope fund raiser attracted over 200 participants who shot baskets in support of the effort. Held at the local middle school, this was a great opportunity to connect with many people from the community who share a heart for the children of Africa. This video was created by a local seventh grade student.
[vimeo 14347603]Missional Communities series | Post #16
Our last two posts in this ongoing Missional Communities series have dealt with an idea that Michael Green wrote in Thirty Years that Changed the World. The basic idea is this: The early church saw explosive growth because they had a red hot, burning center of everything that was hugely inviting. It was the family, rhythmic flywheel of Passionate Spirituality, Radical Community and Missional Zeal. The people were seeing unbelievable spiritual transformation and breakthrough, a deep commitment to each other and each other’s welfare and a passion to grow the family. When people who didn’t know Jesus were close to “the fire” (the rhythms of the family), it drew them in because they were living such beautifully different, meaningful, adventurous lives. It was infectious.
In our last post we looked at the reason this happen: Basically, that because people’s primary identity for church was in the home, representing extended families of about 40 people. This size allowed people on the fringes close enough to the fire to be drawn into it. We then looked at how most of our churches are structured (i.e. because it’s about gathering large groups of people, very few can actually get to the red hot center of the community, most are trying to get closer to the warm fire at the center of the community but can’t).
For this post, I’d like to make one simple point and then repost the natural segue to these thoughts in what has been the most trafficked post on my blog thus far: Can a church be missional AND attractional?
Before the repost, one point I’d like to make (and will make again in the repost as well, but from a different angle).
Imagine that this red hot center burning at the center of every Missional as a sort of torch and every Missional Community has one.
The thing with torches is that they are really portable and for Missional Communities, that’s really important. A Missional Community, by definition, finds a crack or crevice in society that is dark and incarnates a Jesus community there, slipping into that crevice with the “torch” of Jesus. Can’t fit a giant bon fire in that crack, only a torch will work. So the flexibility and portability of the torch is huge.
BUT…torches also go out fairly easy. One little rain storm and it’ll go out. While they are portable, without proper care, they will flame out in a short amount of time. Or even if it doesn’t flame out, it’ll smolder and become far less bright and brilliant than it once did. People don’t tend to gravitate towards burning out torches. We lose that infectiousness without the burning fire.
I would suggest that there is a dire missional need for these torches to regularly gather together so that we aren’t simply torches scattered along the missional frontier, slowly flickering out. Rather, by coming together, there are times when we are a raging bonfire and we continue to burn hotter and brighter once we return to the missional frontier. I would say there are times when the torch needs to go out and “DO,” but there are times when the torches need to come together, create a giant fire, regain nourishment and just “BE.” In the early church we see this duality.
People’s primary expression of “church” was in the home as they broke bread, did life together, cared for each other and households grew. However, these extended family churches would then all come together and gather at the Temple regularly. So you had both, but both needed the other to find its’ proper place.
To further illustrate this point, here is my post, “Can a church be Missional AND Attractional?”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Recently JR Rozko put up a review of our newest book, Launching Missional Communities, on his blog. I’ve met JR before, and while I wouldn’t say I know him well at all, I definitely love the way he processes and he has a great blog which you can read here. It is thoughtful, provocative and is asking all the right kind of questions.
His review of mine and Alex’s book (you can read the review here), was overwhelmingly positive. I thought he summed up well what we were trying to do in the book:
- Discipleship, leadership and mission are the driving themes of both the book and the entire philosophy of missional communities. To get the point of the book, you have to understand that from the author’s perspective, the task of the church is discipleship – period – the end. Any they are right. You also have to embrace the idea that the replication of leaders is imperative to the larger task of discipleship. If you don’t equip and empower leaders, you can kiss your changes of exponential discipleship bye-bye. Again, I’m totally with em here. Finally, mission is the context in which leaders are equipped and disciples are formed. Amen! If you can embrace and own these three things, then you’ll love this book and what it offers.
This is exactly what we’re trying to do in this book. Show how discipleship, leadership and mission can all come together in a practical way in Missional Communities…and give a resource to people to help teach them their biggest question: How do we do this?
As positive as JR’s review was, he did have one critique, and I thought it would be beneficial to open it up for a little discussion. Not in an antagonistic way, but as something that’s worth discussing. It revolved around the use and exploration of doing Missional AND Attractional in one church. In the end, I think JR and I would come down on the same page. Here was his one quibble, which he expressed on two fronts, analogical and theological:
- In the book, I used the example of the coming together of the Roman model and Celtic model and how this was used to great effect to evangelize the whole of Europe. His comment: The analogical problem here is that what is generally meant today by attractional and missional does not at all correspond to the realities and circumstances in which these models of churches existed.
- Second, he quotes this from LMC: We just need to understand what Attractional does well and do it. We need to understand what Missional does well and do it. His response to this: Impossible – attractional and missional churches are such because they have divergent understandings of basic Christian doctrines. What we need is a theologically robust understanding the relationship between the the Missio Dei, the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and the Church. This will lead us not to the ‘best’ of these two models, but to a cohesive vision of a missional ecclesiology. This is the great error of ‘AND’ thinking; you never get to core issues because you spend all your time trying to artificially hold incompatible things together. The saddest part of this is that the underlying genius of the book actually does this work. It undercuts the errant theology and philosophy driving attractional churches. I just wish they had been more direct in stating it.
This was JR’s critique of the book.
As I’ve thought about this for the past few days, the predominant thing that comes to mind is that we probably could have done a better job fleshing out this concept and in the 2nd edition of the book, we definitely will. The problem is the way that I use the word “Attractional” and the way that most everyone else does can be different at times, which can lead to this kind of confusion. My guess is we will look at using a different word in the future.
Here is what we were trying to get at: There is something inherently attractive about a group of people coming together to worship their Father and King once they’ve been actively engaged in the mission field. In other words, the gathered church, coming in from being scattered, is unbelievably attractive.
Why?
Because it is the power of the reconciled community.
When a scattered church gathers, when we tell stories of mission to each other, engage in the sacred act of communion, worship as hundreds and thousands of people, hear from the scriptures and respond, look around and see every tribe and tongue and we do all of this in the presence of the Holy Spirit…this is wildly attractive to a great number of people (not everyone, but a lot).
This act of gathering the scattered church, I think, is something akin to what Newbiggin talks about when saying the church community should be a SIGN and a FORETASTE of the Kingdom that will be brought to fulfillment. It points to a future reality and provides a taste of that reality. (And as Newbiggin says, is an INSTRUMENT when it is scattered and in the mission field).
The church that I led in Sheffield was this kind of a church and I’m starting to see it in the churches we are working with in the United States. When Sheffield’s scattered church gathered together, in one room, there were rich, poor, old, young, former prostitutes, former drug addicts, former felons, former snobs, the homeless, former Hindu, former Muslims, people from Africa, Europe, America, Asia…all under one roof worshiping the same God. Thousands of people. I can’t begin to describe what worship is like in that context. (In fact, I bet JR could give us some insight as he just recently returned from the Lausanne Conference in South Africa where he experienced a similar thing).
To certain kinds of people, this is wildly attractive, in the same way that Jesus was so wildly attractive that large crowds often gathered to him.
I think this is the biggest difference between what I’m talking about with Attractional (and may stop using all together) and many other people: Why do we primarily gather and what is the byproduct?
My primary reason in gathering of all of our scattered Missional Communities is to worship God. I believe we are powerfully formed when we gather in the public space, in a large group, and orient our hearts and minds toward our Savior and King. My primary reason isn’t to disciple people in this setting (though they are spiritually formed) and I’m not trying to see how many people we can get in the seats.
The community was scattered out on the mission field. And now we are gathered together, locking shields together, resting in the embrace and arms of our Father, responding to his Spirit that works within us.
That is my primary reason for gathering people.
Now there is a byproduct: Often, because this reconciled community of people (the body of Jesus) and the Spirit of Jesus in that place are so wildly attractive, people come to know him. They decide to become disciples of Jesus. That happened often in Sheffield. But it wasn’t the primary objective of gathering. We weren’t measuring the “success” of the service in decisions made. We weren’t measuring success by how many people were in the seats. Our way of being the church always found far more people in Missional Communities than in our worship service. The worship service was not used as a direct attempt to “grow” the church. But it almost always did grow.
Success was worshiping God! Success was listening to what God was saying to us as a gathered community and responding to it.
What is unhelpful is many people use the word “Attractional” differently. And it comes down to the primary reason for gathering and the byproduct of gathering. In the way many people seem to use it, the primary reason to gather is to increase the number of people in the church and see as many decisions for Christ as possible. Recently, we heard a pastor say to the people in the worship service, “If you’re a Christian, this service isn’t for you. If you weren’t a Christian last week, it was for you. But it no longer is. This exists for people who aren’t Christians.”
In this way, “Attractional” as it is often expressed exists to gather as many people as possible and get them saved. The byproduct is worshiping God.
Now I think many would disagree with this. They would say, “It’s both. We want people to become Christians AND we want people to worship. They are of equal importance.” The problem is that their behavior doesn’t reinforce this idea. The success of worship is almost always evaluated on: 1) How many people are attending? 2) How many people made decisions?
“Success” isn’t based on simply coming together and worshiping. For me, success is simply being obedient…God has asked us to gather and worship him, we did, thus, we were “successful.”
In sum, what I am trying to say is that when the scattered church gathers, it is massively attractive and it isn’t unusual to see people come to faith or attendance increasing. But it’s attractive because of the work happening outside the Sunday gathering that is then being brought into the service. I’m simply recognizing there is inherent value in gathering all of our scattered parts together, that we are spiritually formed in such an experience in both a positive and powerful way. I’m acknowledging that to be true. There are many within the missional/organic stream of thinking who deny the need or goodness to gathering large groups of people together to worship. It is this point that I feel needs addressing with the word “AND.” We need the scattered AND the gathered church, but I might use those terms slightly differently than others.
I don’t fall into the camp that has abandoned large worship gatherings, which to me, feels a bit reactive. If that’s all you’re doing and maybe some small groups, you’re just not going to make disciples, which is the task Jesus has given us. But if the worship service is an environment for a scattered church of Missional Communities to gather, it is not only helpful but, I believe, necessary.
This is quite possibly the longest post I have ever written!! 😉 But I think this is great discussion to have. And I’m glad JR pointed this out in his review because I think we could have done a bit better job clarifying how we are using the terms and our thoughts behind it.
Look forward to more discussion on this.
Missional Communities series | Post #15
In our last post we looked at a short excerpt from Michael Green’s book Thirty Years that Changed the World which talked about the red hot center that the early church developed. Essentially, the dynamics of the early church was so infectious, so vivacious, so transformative…it spread like wildfire. That’s why we read passages from Acts that say, “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
We started to get into the three elements of that red hot center: Passionate Spirituality, Radical Community and Missional Zeal.
In many ways, these three things acted like a flywheel, whirring around the spark of the Holy Spirit and at the center of the early church was a raging, burning fire, infused by the breath of the Holy Spirit. For those close to these family rhythms, this fire proved warm, inviting and infectious. The family grew.
But what’s interesting is when we start to analyze the properties of fire and proximity to it. What we often forget is that almost exclusively, the primary identity of “church” was in the oikos, the household, a group of about (on average) 45 people. What we’ve done in reading the New Testament is drug our assumptions of church into the scriptural text. The reason this red hot center was so infectious to not-yet-Christians was because they were able to get very close to the fire. Most of our churches, currently, simply aren’t structured that way. Here’s what I mean:
Notice, only so many people can circle around the metaphorical fire and participate. Now there is a small margin for people to observe as well as participate, but very shortly, you have a third ring of people who do nothing but observe. The early church was structured so that people were given access to a household on mission that was still small enough to get close to the fire. Our churches are structured so that only the privileged few really get in on the action.
This is the beauty of Missional Communities.
Everyone has access to the fire of the infectious rhythms of the extended family on mission. Missional Communities can look like this.
In our next post we’ll take this even a step further. What happens when these Missional Communities are networked together within a larger, wider community?
Missional Community series | Post #14
As we continue in our 4 month long series on Missional Communities, I want us to examine something Michael Green wrote in a gem of a book a few years ago called Thirty Years that Changed the World (if you haven’t picked up this book, you definitely need to).
Early on, he has a great paragraph that explains one of the characteristics that defined the strength of the early church’s evangelism strategy. In sum…at the core of the church there was a red hot center (passionate spirituality, radical community, missional zeal) and it created an incredibly infectious community. The life of the “family” itself worked like a very strong magnet…it strongly attracted some, and strongly repelled others.
Here is how Michael Green describes it in his book:
The approach of the first Christians was strikingly different [than our modern way of evangelizing]. It was a totally opposite strategy [than how we do ‘outreach’]. They learned it from Jesus. He had spent much quality time with three men; Peter, James and John. Beyond that had been the circle of the twelve, then of the seventy, then of the crowds. Jesus had concentrated on getting the center of his little band hot and well informed, and he moved out from there. And that is what the disciples did. They gave attention to their own unity and prayerfulness, obedience and expectancy. And they were able to move out from that hot center onto the streets with enormous effect on the day of Pentecost and in the months and years that followed. In obedience to Jesus, they began to be his witness in Jerusalem first, then Judea, then Samaria and then to the uttermost ends of the earth. It was an effective strategy. Their fellowship was so vibrant, their lifestyle so attractive, their warmth so great that it was infectious. People were drawn in, as to a vortex. God added to the church those who were being saved.
This idea of moving into mission out of a red hot center is hugely important if we want our Missional Communities to be effective. We have to be inviting people into something that actually is hugely transforming, which is what having a red hot center of Passionate Spirituality, Radical Community and Missional Zeal can do. The power of this spiritual extended family on mission together works when there’s a raging fire of God moving, breathing and living at the center of this group…that’s where the power lies!
From time to time I hear pastors say if we are “inwardly” focused we’ll forget our mission. To some degree, there is truth to that. But sometimes I feel we miss the forest for the trees. If we attend to our community life in the way that the early church did, we will see much of the same things. Because if it’s not happening for us, the people who make up the core of the MC…it’s not going to happen for anyone else!
Our next post will dive even deeper into these waters. Until then…stay tuned…
Lent begins
We dug this out of the archives as today is Ash Wednesday and begins the season of Lent. It’s also been one of my top posts in the last year. So as we dive into the Lenten season, I hope these thoughts inform your next journey to Resurrection Sunday.
Aidan: Mike, we were talking some and you mentioned it might be appropriate to spend a little time thinking about the season of Lent.
Mike: Right. After all, I spent how long in the Anglican church? Lent is one of those things that’s just engrained in you. And actually I think that’s a good thing if we understand Lent for what it is. I’m not always sure we get it. Sometimes I think we approach it as the 40-some odd days we are supposed to give something up and that’s it.
Aidan: Where do you think we might miss the point?
Mike: Well Lent is really all about Identity, that’s not terribly hard to see. This period of 40 days is to engage and almost re-enact Jesus’ 40 Days in the Wilderness and the Temptations he had to face. And when you get into it, this was about Identity. Just look at the first two temptations…”If you are the Son of God, then do ________.” That’s a direct threat to the Identity of Jesus as his Father’s son…the Tempter is trying to make him prove his Identity and the thing with the Father is that our Identity is freely given. We’re his kids, we simply can’t earn that. How can Jesus prove that?
Aidan: Why do think the Tempter was so keen on going after Jesus’ Identity?
Mike: Well how do Americans put it…if the Tempter gets Jesus’ Identity, well, that’s the ballgame! He knows that Jesus’ Identity is the source of his Authority and Power. If he is able to shake that Identity, the ramifications are massive. Jesus gets his Authority and ability to exercise Power from being his Father’s Son. If that’s shaken or not lived out of, the authority and power are gone!
Aidan: So how do you see this playing out in a way that’s practical for us in Lent?
Mike: Lent is a Season of Repentance…but not repentance in the way we understand it a lot of times. Repentance, Metanoia, in Greek really means an inner change of the heart. In Hebrew it’s the word Teshuva, which means “to return home.” What a beautiful picture, isn’t?! So to understand repentance, it is about re-orienting our hearts towards God…towards home! So what we are looking at in Lent is this: More than likely this past year your Identity has taken some specific hits and it’s paramount that we re-orient our hearts home, that we place all of our Identity in our Father’s loving care. Lent gives us the space to examine and explore this.
Aidan: What would be some helpful, practical ways we can do this?
Mike: I don’t think you have to look much further than the Temptations. The Tempter goes at Jesus in three different ways and I think our enemy uses very similar advances:
1) Appetite
2) Affirmation/Attention
3) Ambition
Aidan: Very nice alliteration there!
Mike: Can’t imagine I’d be a proper Englishman without alliteration!
But just look at these.
Appetite is very much like a child…it’s always clambering for attention. It’s about what our body or mind craves in a way that says: I don’t trust that my Father can give me a good life, I don’t trust the Identity he has for me. But I think this craving, this Appetite, at this moment, will give me what I want since I’m not sure my Father will. As you can see Appetite is often about control. And this can be any number of things. Sex, food, obsessive body image issues that force us to the gym, TV, internet/Facebook. What do you crave in a way that controls you?
Aidan: So if that was the way the Tempter is going after us, what would a Lenten response look like?
Mike: I say go with the ancient response: If you say no to one Appetite you can say no to another. Dallas Willard puts it this way: “Do the things you can so you can do the things you can’t.”
In other words, go at it indirectly. Learn to use your will to give something up so that the door of your heart are crowbarred open just enough so God’s Spirit will give you His power over the other Appetite.
Obviously this is where the tradition of giving something up for Lent began.
Aidan: What about the other two? What about for Affirmation/Attention?
Mike: Right. I think this is an easy one to understand. Our Identity has to come from somewhere outside of us. And it can be easy to seek the approval of others in lots of ways and let what they say dictate how we see ourselves…as either someone who is worth something or someone who isn’t. So instead of resting and being confidant as our Father’s child, which is an unshakable reality…we look for quick hits of Affirmation. There are plenty of ways we do this. Asking someone what they think of us when we already know the response, putting ourselves in places only so they praise us, doing something for the sole reason of someone saying we did a good job or to think we’re someone special. It creeps up everywhere in our lives.
Aidan: So what would the Lenten response be for this one?
Mike: What we have to understand is the Tempter will use the addictive process of Affirmation to cripple us. We want to live for our Father’s smile by being obedient, not in people telling me how wonderful I am. So you have to remove yourself from the places and the cycles whether that addiction starts.
Go to the source.
Many of us do things just so people will affirm us and for no other reason, myself included. You have to dig down, find the source, find the motivation and remove yourself from that cycle. Give up the Affirmation.
Aidan: Can you give us a real life example?
Mike: When I was at St. Toms I noticed I was really struggling with this. Of course I liked when people told me what a wonderful sermon I had given or how powerful my prayer was…you know…the normal stuff for any pastor. But it became part of the addictive cycle for me. So we would often have a response time after the sermon and we would sing and people could receive prayer and I’d stay to the side for that, but as it was winding down, my assistant would make sure she got my attention and give me the sign that it was time to quietly exit (someone else would close out the service). That way, my involvement in the service was simply me being obedient to what God had put on my heart to say, not waiting for people to say how wonderful it was. You have to go to the source!
Aidan: It seems like each of these things deals with a type of addiction.
Mike: It does!
Addiction to a type of Appetite.
Addiction to Affirmation.
And lastly, addiction to Ambition.
Ambition is really about an addiction to winning or having to be successful. And it isn’t that winning or being successful is wrong, it’s when we need it to give us our Identity that it really creates problems. If I lose, if I don’t get that promotion, if I don’t get that raise, if I don’t get that job, if that person doesn’t want to date me, if that person beats me at that game…it’s not that I have failed so much as I see myself as a Failure. And that will become my Identity: Failure. Or at least until I win again.
And when the Tempter has that, we are practically useless to God. We can’t be Agents of his Kingdom when we are seeking our own success first. Just can’t. We’re useless to him.
Aidan: So what response is appropriate here?
Mike: Pretty simple: Choose to lose.
If an argument is going a certain way with your spouse, choose not to have the last word. Lose the argument for the sake of the relationship.
If you’re playing a board game or basketball or any kind of game, make the point of playing to bless your opponent and don’t care whether you win or lose. I’m not saying don’t play hard, I’m saying know when your obsession to win takes over. Change the motivation from winning to blessing.
Go above and beyond at work but don’t let anyone know. Choose to lose the opportunity of that something extra being in the back of your boss’ mind when your annual review has come.
Take the discipline where you regularly choose to lose.
Missional Communities series | Post #13
Just to remind everyone, a few months ago we released a book called Launching Missional Communities that really takes all of the theology, theory, practices and 20 years of experience working with MCs and put it all in one book. It’s not a formula or silver bullet, but as we like to say, while there isn’t a formula for these things, often times there is form.
Now for that last few years a lot of people have been writing about the theory about doing church differently…particularly about MCs. And theory is GREAT. But we kept running into church leaders who wanted a really practical resource. So this book is for them. (Which you can purchase here. Seriously. You should pick it up). 😉
One of the more exciting things is seeing different reviews of the book start to light up the blogosphere; fortunately for us, people have had some very gracious things to say about the book. In case you’re wondering what a few of those people are saying, here are a few choice reviews:
Missional Communities series | Post #12
You’ve probably picked up how we’re shepherding this Missional Community series. We’re looking to give a good amount of practical advice, some very simple but provocative posts, some theory as well as stories of how all of this comes together in real life.
Today we’re going to look at another story, this one coming from Doug Paul at Eikon Community Church in Richmond, Virginia.
It’s definitely worth reading his whole post, which is excellent, but look at the sentiment that he expresses:
Last Saturday, my wife and I were at breakfast with good friends of ours and we got to talking about the small group we used to lead together, while at the same time talking about changes/tweaks we were making with our family-centric Missional Communities. And somewhere in the middle of that conversation (and I mean right out of nowhere!) it hit me like a bolt of lightning: We already know how to grow, build and develop these more organic, flexible, mid-sized groups.
In fact, I’ve done it before.
For whatever reason (and I have a theory as to why), I never understood that the small group I had started and led 4 years ago had become a Missional Community and we were doing EVERYTHING you’d ever want a MC to do. Essentially, what started with a group of 4-6 people who were committed to growing the group and doing life together, had grown to a group of 22-25 people (not including kids) in about 15 months.
In fact, the top thing people would say in describing the group was, “This just feels like family.”
Another person put it this way, when describing our mid-sized group: “It’s like finding something you knew you always needed and wanted, but never knew was actually missing.”
This is actually a really common experience for people. They don’t realize the places where they’ve led things that have turned into an extended spiritual family on mission together and it just didn’t fit into the “small group” mold any more. And again, I’d recommend reading the whole post, which you can read by clicking here.
How about you? Has this happened to you or people in your communities before?
church planters unite!
Are you a church planter or know one?
We have some really exciting news! On June 7-8, we are going to be offering a FREE Missional Communities Workshop for Church Planters in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina.
Increasingly, church planters are wanting to explore new and more effective ways of planting churches in a North American context that is more post-Christian with each passing day. Gone are the days when all you need to do is throw up a worship service with the right marketing and see a church spring up with people who aren’t already Christians. In most places in the United States, this just doesn’t work anymore.
Because of that, many church planters are starting to explore using things like Missional Communities and Huddles to start churches. While this isn’t necessarily new, it is fairly unknown in the United States. SO…we want to help!
If you are a church planter or know of one, because planting provides some very unique challenges, we’ve put aside two whole days to teach on, explore, model, answer questions and provide in-depth consultations on Missional Communities in a church plant setting…and it’s completely free.
Want to know more or register for this event? Click here to for more details and registration.
Missional Communities series | Post #11
One of the great pleasures I have is watching people take some of the basic principles, tools and ideas behind Missional Communities and come up with language of their own.
Tim Catchim (who has a great blog, btw) recently sent over some notes he used within his own community to explain why Missional Communities work so well for groups of 20-50, rather than smaller groups of 6-12. I’ve taken his words and added a bit of my own for this post.
Enjoy.
Why do MCs work better for groups of 20-50 instead of missional small groups?
- Manpower – Missional Communities give you ample human resources to make an impact on your mission focus, whether it’s a neighborhood or a network of relationships.
- Money – We have to address money as a resource to mobilize for mission, and a group of 20-50 people is ideal for this, supplying enough to channel towards specific projects the group is focusing on. Moreover, since MCs should always have not-yet-Christians joining in on community life, these people are quite willing to give to cause-based projects, but they want them to be big enough to make a difference. This allows them to join in on the mission of God before they’ve come to see their own calling to it.
- Momentum – Small groups that have a missional bent are small enough to care, but not big enough to dare. With these mid-sized groups, very real momentum is developed because the group is small enough to care but also big enough to dare.
- Multiplication – Thinning the herd takes less of a toll on a group of 20-50, giving you the optimal number for movement to take place without cutting into the previous 3 M’s mentioned already. Furthermore, rather than experiencing the pain of splitting a small group and losing some of your closest friends, multiplying a MC allows you to continue the journey with your closest friends while still expanding the Kingdom of God.
- Margins – A group of 20-50 creates a sort of semi-anonymous space in the community for people to hang out in the margins and observe before they move closer in for more in depth participation. A group of 6-12 does not have this kind of space, only intimate space. We need marginal spaces for “observers” to come among us and hang out without being in the spotlight.
Missional Communities series | Post #10
So here we are, in the midst of our 4 month series on Missional Communities. So far we’ve had some helpful insights and tools to use with the people you’re leading as well as a story or two.
Today, we’re going to turn our sights to another story of a Missional Community.
Brian Williamson is leading The Bridge Bible Church in Somerset, WI. They’ve been in one of our Learning Communities and are really leading the way in putting disicpleship and mission in the center of everything they do.
Here’s a quick story of one of their Missional Communities:
As a lead pastor, it has been my greatest joy to see decentralized ministry actually happen. Through the encouragement and accountability of huddle, Craig and Jessica Porter have launched a missional community called AgapE. Their missional focus is bridging the “gap” between Apathy and Empathy through self-sacrificing love (hence, A “gap” E). Their mission focus group is simply non-Christian friends in their sphere of influence. Although there is not an age focus, the axiom that like attracts like has held true and the group is dominantly made up of young families with kids. They have done such things as:
-helping one of their own get a house ready to move into.
-Couples weekend away where there was some real breakthrough in relationships.
-picked up trash around the Somerset Community.
-held baptisms/had a party at a local lake.
-hung Christmas lights at an area elderly home.
They meet once a month for a meal/ministry night, in huddle and other discipling groups on off weeks and their goal is an “OUT” type event once a month as well. From my vantage point looking in on AgapE, I would say that everything works and nothing doesn’t. What I mean is that no matter if an event was low attended or if there has been relational challenges or lack of clarity or a hesitance to know exactly what’s next, they are doing something! Proverbs 14:23 says that All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. The biggest challenge in our setting for all of our missional communities has been identifying what kinds of OUT activities/foci work in a small town setting. Craig and Jessica as fantastic leaders are surfing the wave well and God is giving them fresh direction and vision for seeing breakthrough in the lives of new folks. I am honored to see the way God has and is using AgapE. If you were to ask the members how they feel, hand down, this is their extended family. They are learning well and making mid-course corrections to fulfill their mission.
Seeing missional communities get traction has been a slow burn but in the words of the old school hymn, “I have decided to follow Jesus..no turning back, no turning back. Though none go with me, still I will follow…” We’d have it no other way and are passionate about seeing a discipling culture continue to take shape no matter what the cost.
Mike Breen 