How do you contextualize in proclamation and demonstration as you launch missional communities/churches?  (Contextualization is adapting the declaration and demonstration of the gospel in culturally adaptable forms, holding to the essence of the gospel at the same time.)  Another document from Soma that they use to equip missional leaders.

Download: Missional Communities and Contextualization (pdf) 

MISSIONAL COMMUNITIES DEFINED

A Missional Community (MC) is a committed core of believers who live out the mission of God together in a specific area or to a particular people group by demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms and declaring the gospel to others – both those who believe it and those who are being exposed to it.

To Clarify…A Missional Community is not PRIMARILY:

1. A Small Group
2. A Bible Study
3. A Support Group
4. A Social Activist Group
5. A Weekly Meeting

Download: Leading a Missional Community (pdf)

Document Includes:

How to establish a Missional Communities Direction including the 'mission' of the community, how the community should be led, MC responsibilities, activities and more.  Created from a gospel-centered, triperspectival angle.  

Credits: Soma Communities, edited for Kaleo by David Fairchild. 

At Kaleo church , we call our home groups “missional communities,” (MC’s). The title serves as an intentional reminder of why we exist here on this earth: to love God and neighbor. Not surprisingly, this is also one of the healthiest assets to a formal counseling relationship. Gone is the separatist mentality of old-school counseling: “me and my therapist.” Gone is the stereo-typical break in relationship between counselor and counselee: “I have no relationship with you outside of my office.” In their place is the Scriptural portrait of “brother and sister,” “life-on-life,” and valued body members, all “in Christ.” Its a beautiful thing, yet strange to individualist (worldy) thinking.

In truth, this body relationship is foundational and is what “creates” one-another counseling for Christians. Its a full-on, Acts 2:44 model. And its also what moves us out to “counsel the world” together (as the title “missional” and “community” imply), for the community that lives under the cross also takes the cross to the ends of the earth together, as they are gripped and transformed by the pursuing love of Christ (As proof, Acts 2:47 tells us God added to their number daily those who were being saved.)

..continue reading post by Steve Trout: Missional Communities as Extension of the Counseling Process

Also read about developing counselors in community . 

Today, a lot of what is called church planting is really starting a new 1 hour service for people to attend.  There's a belief that just by opening your doors and great preaching, you will start a revolution.  We've seen these new churches spring up and begin to market themselves as the cool new 'un-church' where they hope to get marginal Christians to commit to the new endeavor.  The debates go back and forth about planting with a core or planting big and gathering a core from that.   As we've been involved in church planting, our thinking has changed.  Here is how we envision Planting New Gatherings in the City (pdf):

1. A Team (some call this an Apostolic Team) of people (Missional Community) are on mission in a specific area of the city.  This Missional Community has the DNA intended to replicate, be on mission and disciple people.

2. The Missional Community multiplies.  See also:  Missional Community Leader Development (pdf)

3. As several new Missional Communities are formed in an area, they begin to be trained to create a new gathering in the city.  This includes a weekly worship service to gather the communities to celebrate, worship and hear the Word of God.

4. A movement of Missional Communities and gatherings spreads through the city as a visible witness and gospel hermeneutic.

See also: Leadership Development in Community and people of God exercising their gifts as Prophets, Priests & Kings.

A church planter asked about how/where to plant.  Here is my response:

Go somewhere where a church plant will take you and help you plant. Be mentored first. Plant with a team, a group who are on mission and have that dna. Don't plant in such a way that you become forced to try to 'market' to Christians in order to get tithe up and pay yourself.  Plant a church that seeks to be a gospel-centered, city-changing movement.  Start one relationship at a time.

What advice would you give a church planter? 

Kaleo is hosting a conference March 25-27. Here is a brief synopsis:

Living at the Crossroads: Church and Mission Kairos

The church is at a crossroads. The cultural landscape is shifting and it requires thought into how to be a relevant witness in this time. This conference will prepare you to understand the current cultural story, where it is heading, and to equip your church community to be a relevant witness in our time.

Dates: March 25-27, 2008

Location: San Diego

This is not a primer on the materials we are going to cover. Conference attendees should be prepared to bring a working knowledge of missional ecclesiology and gospel witness.  People who are leading missional churches across the country will be joining us and participating in the discussions.

We have chosen a non-traditional conference format. We have set aside considerable amount of time for discussions to occur for those seriously thinking through these important issues. We also desire those who attend to contribute to the discussion. To encourage this type of intimate and intentional exchange we are limiting the conference size to 60 people. Come with questions and observations on how we might be both faithful and relevant in this time.

Our hope is that this isn’t just another conference you attend as a passive listener and walk away with about 2% retention and very little time to work out what you’ve learned in your context. We want to ask key gospel-missional-communal questions to draw out the implications of mission as God’s grace-saved people who exist for God and the world.

Register for this ChurchBootcamp Conference

I'm at the Global Church Advancement Conference (GCA) this week and am encouraged to see "the stodgy old dudes at GCA are finally shedding their blog-norance" (as Bart put it) and do live blogging of the conference.  Alex Chediak (author, professor and former Piper apprentice) is posting on several sessions.  Go check it at the GCA Blog which just launched.

I'm working on a couple new posts for after the new year, until then enjoy a couple posts from others:

The Tyrannus Effect - Paul’s Neglected Strategy for City-wide Discipleship : Jeremy Pryor writes that "In a little known passage in Acts 19 we get the clearest glimpse of what Paul spent his days doing when he wanted to plant churches in a city."

Seven Principles for Planting Organic Churches : Tim Chester continues his reflections on Organic Church.

The GCA Church Planting Conference is around the corner: January 28 - February 1 in Orlando, Florida.  This is one of the most gospel-centered & missional church planting conferences I attend each year.  If you have not made your way to one of these, it may be time for you to attend.

Highlights:

Emerging Ministries: Church Planting in the Emerging Culture led by Chan Kilgore and Daniel Montgomery

Evangelism: Making Room: A Trinitarian Reflection on Evangelism and Cultural Engagement with the Gospel led by Martin Ban

Gospel-Centered Preaching: Transformational Communication led by Larry Kirk (Excellent for any of you Keller fans.   Kirk basis his material from this vein.)

Multi-Site Church Planting led by Doug Swagerty and Russ Kapusinski (For those of you are interested in examining a Multi-site approach.)

Developing A Regional Planting Network led by Steve Childers & Tom Wood (For those of you who want to start a movement.)

Plus many others such as Scotty Smith, Randy Nabors and Stu Batstone (get your hands on the Sonship stuff.  All our elders and their wives are going to go through this.)

I will be conducting two sessions again this year:

Communication in Our Post-Christian World - This year 30% more Jesus!  A lot more ideas learned from over the year to expand on communicating the timeless message of the gospel in our changing culture. The culture is shifting rapidly, learn about these shifts.  How do we effectively communicate and reach post-Christians, with an emphasis on Gen X & younger…

The Internet & The Sovereignty of God - As our culture moves increasingly online, this session will help your church effectively use the internet to be missionaries to unbelievers, gather the un-churched and connect with your community.

This year my sessions are head-to-head with Ed Stetzer.  I'd like to think it's two heavy-weights pitted against each other in the time slot, but I'm the underdog little guy.  So buy his books, attend my sessions!  Plus, chances are he'll be speaking at the next 10 conferences you attend anyway.

This is the final post dealing with individual leadership development toward a missional ecclesiology.  As stated, Kaleo Church seeks to create organic (systemic) leadership development as well as deliberate/intentional (systematic) discipleship to those who seek to grow in using their gifts in the community.  We see the people expressing these gifts as in three categories of Prophets, Priests & Kings. 

You can download the example of a Deacon (pdf), which are typically more Kingly oriented.  The Kingly track would also lead to Ministry Leaders and Domain Engagers. 

See also: Priests & Prophets

Definitions

Prophetic type – an emphasis on the unchanging truths of God’s character, the gospel message and the mission of the Church.
Priestly type – an emphasis on the care of the soul and caring for one another.
Kingly type – an emphasis on the tangible working out of the mission through structures, strategic thinking and hands on activity

Kaleo Church has re-oriented our leadership development & discipleship to be done in community.  Our goal is to create a systemic discipleship process for the people of Kaleo as well as bring systematic development to those who seek to grow in using their gifts in the community.  We see the people of God exercising their gifts as Prophets, Priests & Kings. 

You can download the example of a Gospel Counselor (pdf), which are typically more Priestly oriented.  The Priestly track would also lead to Ministry Leaders and Deacons (internal). 

See also: Kings & Prophets

Definitions

Prophetic type – an emphasis on the unchanging truths of God’s character, the gospel message and the mission of the Church.
Priestly type – an emphasis on the care of the soul and caring for one another.
Kingly type – an emphasis on the tangible working out of the mission through structures, strategic thinking and hands on activity

Kaleo Church is a movement of people seeking to change San Diego by the power of the gospel.  As we have examined what it means to be the church, Kaleo has shifted our emphasis to people living together being the church in the neighborhoods and patterns of life they are already in.  These Missional Communities are where people live as a one-anothering community and express mercy, hospitality, love and mission to the city.  Corporately groups of Missional Communities gather together weekly to celebrate together, worship and share in gospel-learning.

As such, we have re-oriented much of our leadership development & discipleship through these communities.  Our goal is to create a systemic discipleship process for the people of Kaleo as well as bring systematic development to those who seek to grow in using their gifts in the community.  We see the people of God exercising their gifts as Prophets, Priests & Kings.  You can download the example of Missional Community Leader Development (pdf), which are typically more Prophet oriented.  This track would also lead to Elders, Teachers and Church Planters. 

See also: Priests & Kings  

Definitions

Prophetic type – an emphasis on the unchanging truths of God’s character, the gospel message and the mission of the Church.
Priestly type – an emphasis on the care of the soul and caring for one another.
Kingly type – an emphasis on the tangible working out of the mission through structures, strategic thinking and hands on activity

I spent the morning with Eugene, who heads up our missional communities at Kaleo.  One of the challenges we've faced as a church centers on discipling people and seeing leaders emerge to give their life to be on mission.  The following idea struck me from our conversation:

We often need structures to overcome our lack of community. 

How can any person's life be changed by attending weekly programs?  Isn't this just a portion of what Willow Creek 'Revealed' in their failure to create meaningful disciples?  And they were THE model for the typical evangelical church.  Kaleo is diving headlong deeper into life-on-life mission to San Diego.  Recently a sermon was preached where we outlined part of what this may look like:  (This is a summary of the message preached 11/4)

Kaleo Community Covenant

We promise to honor one another, be members of one another, live in harmony with one another, build one another up, be like-minded towards one another, accept one another, care for one another, serve one another, bear one another’s burdens, be kind to one another, forgive one another, abound in love towards one another, comfort one another, encourage one another, stir one another up to love and good deeds, confess our sins to one another, be hospitable to one another, greet one another, fellowship with one another, submit to one another while not passing judgment on one another, not provoking one another, not envying one another, not hating one another, not slandering one another, and not bearing grudges against one another.

We do all this because Christ has loved us in each of these ways and this frees our hearts to love one another as He has loved us (John 13:34).

Again, this requires that we re-think a lot of things such as where we live, our patterns of life, how 'ministry' is done.  But all of us long for this type of community. 

Last night, David Fairchild and I spent the evening with Bob Roberts.  He had just returned from Hanoi to speak at a conference here in San Diego.  He laid out a vision for how he believes churches will truly change culture, grabbing a piece of paper and pen he began to draw different diagrams of how this connected.  (These diagrams and the ideas will be included in his next book, so I'll leave that alone.) 

One of the larger parts of our conversation centered on the churches ability to transform society through Christians living their beliefs out in the 'domains' of society.  (Something I blogged similarly about in The Church as Movement – Organizing Decentralization and Transforming Cities - The Church beyond the Spiritual Box).  While most of the Western church is talking about being missional through engaging culture, we should be focused on changing culture.  Non-Western countries have been doing domain engagement for a long time.  Bob shared a story of South Korea and how the gospel radically changed that culture.  In both Ghana and South Korea Christians attempted to do mission through crusades and traditional means at about the same time in history.  This failed miserably in South Korea and so missionaries began to establish schools and health clinics.  Later, these became universities and hospitals.  It was through entering these domains, South Korean society changed.  The long-term difference of the gospel change in the cultures of Ghana and S. Korea are starkly contrasted based on this domain engagement in S. Korea.

Bob believes to truly redeem society Christians must engage these domains.  The primary thrust of this is done through community development.  (Kaleo Church has partnered with churches around the country to begin Re:Novo City Group aimed at this very idea.)  Planting churches is the means, seeing cities changed by the gospel is the goal.  

Read more about Bob Roberts Philosophy & Ideas on Mission, Church Planting & Being the Church > 

BONUS: Bob Roberts may be the Kevin Bacon of church planters/pastors.  Through him we can connect (within a few steps) to everyone in the world.  Here's a few examples of people he knows: 

Ed Stetzer, Bono, Nguyen Minh Triet (President of Vietnam), Condoleezza Rice (Secretary of State) & Abdullah Abdullah (former Foreign Minister of Afghanistan).  I could have mentioned dignitaries, business men (execs at Disney & Facebook), emerging guys, conservative pastors, church planting network leaders and other church planters.  But this guy is a connector.

I look forward to our continued relationship with Bob and his glocal vision. 

Session: Things that make (Steve Timmis) go 'Hmmmm…'

The first thing that makes Mr. Timmis go hmmm is the fascination with new ways of 'doing church'.   It doesn't take much to see a number of new books, blogs and conferences speak to the changing nature of the church.  (In fact, it's a subject I've posted on many times.)  Timmis quoted J.C. Hoekendijk, a Dutch theologian.  In Hoekendijk’s view, a keen ecclesiological interest was generally a sign of spiritual decadence.

"Our God is not a temple dweller. In the strict sense of the word he is not even a church god. He advances through time; ever again he lets the new conquer the old. He is not a God of the 'status quo,' but rather the Lord of the future, the King of the history of the world, and, as such, also Head of the church…We must maintain the right order in our thinking and speaking about the church. That order is God-World-Church, not God-Church-World" (J.C. Hoekendijk). 

Much of what Timmis sees in the contemporary fascination with ecclesiology is an obsession with the church itself.  Timmis warned that the emerging church, can in it's restoration attempt end up recovering the form of church rather than the heart.  As they lead the Crowded House (a house church movement) they see the nature of what they are doing as a gospel initiative not an ecclesiological experiment.  Timmis states, "Any non-gospel initiative is an exercise in self-indulgence."

Reflection: How is the nature of your church a gospel initiative?