Thinking about planting a missional church?
Rick Meigs at the Blind Beggar blog posted this list for would-be missional church planters a couple of days ago. It's good value, as is the on going discussion about the list on Rick's blog:
- Select carefully those that will form your core group. If they are not committed to engaging the culture in a “go to them” life, then they would not be part of my core group.
- Don’t make the Sunday gathering your organizational focus. If you spend most of your money, peoples time and emotional resources on the Sunday gathering, you’ll have little to devote to community engagement.
- Your Sunday gathered should be for the purpose of worship, encouragement, story telling, teaching, training, and to seek God’s presence and to be realigned with God’s missionary purpose. It should not be focused on the needs of the not-yet-Christian.
- Plant your faith community in the heart of the area you want to minister. (And if it were me, all leadership would be required to live in the immediate area, but I know that would be hard one for most.)
- You and your core group should spend lots of time exploring the needs of your community and how you can join your community in meeting those needs.
- When considering community needs, I’d be looking for those that center on the hurting people in your area. The gospel is about walking a new path and those that already know that their current path in life is a dead-end are the richest harvest ground. Get involved with the working poor, AA, NA, prisons, immigrant poor, etc.
- Be desperately dependent on prayer.
- Don’t become a CEO. Your faith community is not a business. Leave the American capitalist organizing and marketing principles for the business world. Your faith community should be organic.
5 comments:
sounds spot on - but he should add:
"don't expect people to 'get it' and don't expect to see any tangible fruit in the short term"
anyway - that's my world :)
I also queried Rick about point 6. One of my biggest challanges, working in both traditionally "needy" communities here and in Africa and working in an affluent community with the local church is that the affluent community doesn't fit the bill when it comes to the approach Rick talks about in this point.
If I could choose I think I would choose the traditionally "needy" community over the affluent community, but we kinda just ended up ministering where we are, and I am convinced that God's unwillingness for anyone to perish extends to the comfortable middleclasses as much as it does to the "needy" in the lower socio-economic neighbourhoods. It's "just" a bit more of a challenge (and struggle for me)!
:)
Andrew,
Great post.
I'm now a new church planter myself and these things really speak to the task.
Thanks.
Hey Shannon,
Great to see you again! It's been ages. I have been reading about your change of scene.
Sorry to hear about your dad also. A tough time in the middle of all the other changes.
Looking forward to hearing more about how the new church goes. I am a little envious! :)
Bless you mate!
I think that the comments made by upstream are particuly relevent when it comes to trying to change the mindset of an established church. I know from conversation with some and reading the blogs that it always seems easier when you head off and start with a clean slate. I suppose that the key is knowing where God wants you and hanging in there regardless. If God is in it then it will happen, just maybe not at the pace we would like. Hang in there guys. Super Shane.
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