How We Flesh Out Our Mission
In order to fight for the togetherness of seeking first the kingdom of God in all of life, we organize our church into what we call missional communities.
A missional community is a small family of believers committed to living out God’s mission together in everyday life, to particular people and places.
They are called missional communities because we believe that both concepts of mission and community are essential for maximum impact. Community without mission becomes selfish, codependent, and complacent. Mission without community forfeits one of the greatest apologetics for the gospel.
Each missional community aims to express our gospel identity as a family of missionary, servant, disciples:
Family
In Christ we are sons of God which makes us family.
Missionaries
In Christ we are sent by God which makes us missionaries.
Servants
In Christ we belong to God which makes us servants.
Disciples
In Christ we are saved and sourced by God which makes us disciples.
Missional Community Life
Our missional communities are where the life of our church happens. This is where we do counseling, prayer, deliverance, discipleship, and mission. These are the people who help us move, work on our houses with us, and babysit our kids. These are the people we party with, cry with, eat with, and study the bible with.
Missional Community Gatherings
A missional community is not a weekly event on a specific night, but rather a people. Most of our missional communities do meet regularly on a specific night of the week, but our aim is for the majority of the life we experience and share together to take place outside of a weekly meeting. When, where, and how often a missional community meets is determined by what is necessary to do family, serving, mission, and discipleship well. And that looks different for different missional communities and can look different within a particular missional community based on the season it’s in.
Missional Community Disclaimer
We’re not passionate about missional communities. We’re passionate about the kingdom of God in all of life together. Missional communities are just the way we’ve chosen to flesh that out in our church. If missional communities ever get in the way of that, then we’ll stop doing them and organize our people in some other way.
How Missional Communities Do Mission
These are the five things we do in our missional communities to reach unbelievers and the unchurched.
We pray for the gospel to be proclaimed and believed
We pray for boldness to speak and ears to hear what is spoken.
We build new and existing relationships
We target unbelievers and unchurched professing believers.
We preach the gospel to strangers and those we are building relationship with
We preach the gospel with words and back them up with our conduct. How can they believe unless they hear?
We expose the people we are on mission to, to the family of believers
We show people what Jesus is like by exposing them to how we love one another in the church.
We make people into disciples who make disciples
We make disciples through both informal small group teaching in familial relationships, and formal teaching in large group settings.
More Info On Missional Communities
For a more detailed, in depth look at the practical mechanics of a missional community, click here.
Connecting With A Missional Community
The best and most common way a person connects with a missional community is through an existing relationship with someone who is a part of a missional community. If you know someone in a missional community, reach out to them, and let them know you are interested. If you don’t have an existing relationship with someone in a missional community, you can reach out to someone on a Sunday morning. Over 90% of the people attending our Sunday services are a part of a missional community. They would be happy to help connect you with a missional community or introduce you to someone who can.