Mission in New England

As a former resident of New England, the place holds a special place in my heart. I went to seminary there, had my first child there, led several ministries there, and even tried to plant a church in Boston (Allston-Brighton) but God wouldn’t let me. Though church planting is on the rise, there is still much work to be done in New England. It’s percentage of unchurched is rivaled only by the Pacific coast. We need more gospel-centered, missional planters in New England!

So, naturally I jumped at the chance to speak at the Lead Conference in Maine. Read this post on the conference and this brother’s passion for New England. It’s awesome. May we all be aglow with love for our own mission fields, committed in prayer for the lost, and sharing the gospel with others, especially in New England!

Decentralized Missional Church Growth

Missional ecclesiology has led the the expression of new church forms and structures. This innovation is exciting, challenging, and constantly changing. How can we be the church on mission to reach our context? The answers must be mined theologically, worked out practically, and applied contextually. Austin City Life is committed to a form of decentralized missional church growth, fostering mission through small gospel-centered communities that renew the city in geographical pockets all over Austin. As we continue to grow, we face the challenge of remaining small as we grow big. Several models have been helpful as we continue to process.

Parish Model

I met John Tyson of Trinity Grace Church at Q (more Tyson here) this year when we spoke on a panel on American Ecclesiology. John is a very thoughtful, missional leader. I have benefited from his writings on his church website, and recently came across his article for Catalyst called On Reaching a City. The article is more specifically about how Trinity Grace is structured to be a church that reaches a city. It’s helpful and insightful. TGC uses mid-sized groups for missional communities which fit within a larger Parish Model of church. This model appears to be too layered for Austin City Life. TGC has what appears to be 4-5 layers of church:

6 Week Gathering, Neighborhood Churches, Missional Communities, Life Groups, and Triads.

Austin City Life currently has three layers of church:

Sunday Gathering – City Groups – Fight Clubs

However, as we continue to grow, a new structure or missional expression of ACL will be necessary.

Models of Decentralized Missional Church

The Parish Model is just one among several ways to configure churches comprised of missional communities. As Austin City Life continues to grow, we are considering various models of growth. Will we use a mid-sized structure or just move to plant new expressions/church of Austin City Life? We will remain a decentralized missional church, but the question before us is “How?”As we attempt to work this out, we have found other models and partners in ministry to be very helpful.

Other Churches

Other friends who have been helpful in thinking through decentralized missional church are:

• Soma Communities Church – uses the term Expressions to communicate the gathering of missional communties into a larger forms of church
• Kaleo Community Church – missional communities gather into three church locations.
• Kairos Church – uses the term Canvas to communicate the gathering of missional communities to form Neighborhood churches
• The Crowded House – uses the term Gospel Communities for missional communities
• Trinity Grace Church - uses Life Groups to form bigger Missional communities which form Neighborhood Churches.

Austin City Life Twitter

Some of the leadership of Austin City Life is now on Twitter

Gospel, Community, Mission Questions

Three questions to ask people from Matt Adair:

• Who’s walking through this with you? (Big Idea: you were created for community)
• Who are you serving this week? (Big Idea: you were created to join God in his mission)
• Are you moving closer to or further away from Jesus? (Big Idea: you were created for Jesus)

Missional Communities in Suburbs?

If you are doing missional communities in a suburban context, I’d love get get some feedback from you.

1. How would you describe a missional community?
2. Some argue that MCs are only effective in an urban context. Would you agree or disagree?
3. Have your missional communities grown by adding non-Christians?
4. What are your top three best practices for your MCs?
5. What has been your biggest struggle in creating MCs?

Thank you for sharing your insights and time. This reserach will be used for my breakout session on Missional Communities at the Acts 29 ENDURE Bootcamp.

Reason for God now in Paperback for $10

Is Your Mission Driven by Prayer?

I’ve been thinking about prayer a lot lately. I’ve been convicted that if prayer is the engine of mission, then I’m not as missional as I thought! On Sunday, I confessed that I’ve been engaged, in the words or Richard Lovelace, in horizontal communication at the expense of vertical communication.

The proportion of horizontal communication that goes on in the church (in planning, arguing, and expounding) is overwhelmingly greater than that which is vertical (in worship, thanksgiving, confession and intercession…The old midweek prayer meetings for revival have vanished from the programs of most churches or have been transformed into Bible studies ending with minimal prayer. - Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 153

How about you? Horizontal better than your vertical? Maybe we need to bring the old mid-week prayer meeting back! How about your missional communities or small groups? Have they devolved into Bible Studies that simply tack prayer on at the end?

And how about your praying? In order to grow in my intercessory praying, I told our church that if they filled out a card with a prayer request I would pray for them once a week for the rest of the year. It’s already increased my joy in prayer and in mission. I plan on doing this several times a year.

Also, I can’t recommend enough Paul Miller’s book  A Praying Life. It takes prayer off of top-shelf spirituality and places it in the everyday person’s hands. Insightful, gospel-centered, and inspiring.

• Here is a blog post I wrote on Jesus, the Most Dependent Human Being Ever inspired by Miller’s insights.
• A post on Three Types of Prayer.

Lies Planter’s Wives Believe

Check out my wife’s latest post on Lies…..

Missional People

Some friends are running a website called Missional People. It is devoted to:

“giving people ideas of what it really looks like to live as a missionary in whatever context God has placed you.  We will provide insight,  stories, and examples from people and churches who are engaging in the mission.”

Training a Missional Core Team

Here are the Stages of Growth we followed as a Missional Core Team (see separate document Stages of Organic Growth for further explanation)

1. Meals & Mission: time spent cultivating community over shared meals, missional conversation, and being on mission together socially and evangelistically.
2. Vision & Mission: time spent in community discussions around vision and values, while continuing to practice mission.
3. Commitment Night: an evening in which I gave a charge, we prayed for our city, had first communion over a meal, and celebrated God’s work in our Core Team.
4. Bible Study & Mission: spent time teaching through Luke-Acts, identifying the themes and challenges of gospel, community, mission.
5. Strategy & Missional Community: time spent in more strategic conversation and planning to be a church in the city and for the city through what came to be called City Groups (aka Missional Communities).
6. Low Profile Public Gatherings: our first public gatherings which included preaching and primarily built up the existing Core Team
7. High Profile Public Gatherings: our first attractional, public gatherings in a city centre location
8. City Groups Multiply: existing City Groups multiply through mission and leadership development