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Mega AND Missional - It Can Be Done!

"I've never been to your church, but I love your church."  This was what COMMUNITY Campus Pastor Shawn Williams heard while getting his hair cut.  The conversation started when the women cutting his hair asked Shawn what he did for a living.  He said, "I'm a pastor at the Yellow Box."  As soon as he said that she responded, "My neighbors are a part of that church.  In fact, I've recently gone through a divorce and it's been really tough being a single mom.  But my neighbors who go to your church have been a big help getting me through it.  They've assisted me with carpooling; they've brought me meals and they've even helped me with small home improvement projects."  Then she looked at Shawn and said, "I've never been to your church, but I love your church."  I don't know your definition of a missional church, but stories like that tell me a church is doing it!

Many people wearing the badge of missional experts have said that missional and mega are incompatible; a church like COMMUNITY can't grow to be a large church AND exist for something outside of itself.  Unfortunately, many times they have been exactly right.  But for the last 24 months COMMUNITY has been in a transition to fulfill the dream of mobilizing every person in our large and growing church for mission. Last April myself and Alan Hirsch published our plan for transitioning a church for missional engagement in our book, On The Verge.  The On The Verge transition lays out the following three moves for a church who wants to become missional:

• "See It" - This is the phase where you capture the imagination of people through story-telling and teaching.  During this move people have the "ah-hah" and begin to see the mission of Jesus for the very first time.
• "Get It" - This is the phase where people begin to understand and feel passionate about the mission.  They begin to truly understand that our God is the missio Dei and as his people we too have a mission.  They also begin to feel a passion for the mission and it becomes this compelling cause for which they want to give thier lives.
• "Do It" - This is the phase where people begin to implement what they have seen and now understand into the flow of their everyday lives.  They eventually move to the place of becoming unconsciously competent about mission.  Simply put, they do it!

After 24 months of working through these three moves at COMMUNITY and gaining missional momentum we had a breakthrough last weekend.  We asked all our small groups to work through a 6-week process of determining their mission.  Some of the groups would be "1-mission groups" and others would be "Multiple mission groups." Last weekend we had about 1400 students and adults and 140 small groups stand on our stages and say out loud their mission, be annointed, prayed for and commissioned by the leadership of our church.  The pic to your right is just one of our celebration services where groups filled the stage and made a public commitment to the mission of Jesus.  More than 70% of our people are in small groups and 73% of our groups participated in the commissioning service this weekend.  To you that might be a lot of numbers, but to me it is a sign that a very large church is clearly mobilizing large numbers of people for difference-making mission.

No, we are not done!  Far from it.  We have a long way to go.  We have to sustain the missional momentum that we are now experiencing.  But one thing I am increasingly convinced of is this:  the large church can be used as a platform for energizing and mobilizing large numbers of people for missional engagement.  In my own opionion, mega AND mission - it can be done!

What We Are Learning About Mission So Far...

As we begin to have small groups, teams, and individuals engage more in the Jesus Mission in a personal way than ever before, as expected, we are learning a lot. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you begin to get "on mission" that others are learning:

Be patient -- I know we get excited to get started, but remember to be patient as well. Sometimes it takes longer than expected to discover our group's mission, or to hear back from an organization we hope to partner with, or to "listen" to what the needs of people/our community are. God doesn't call us to move at a certain speed--just to be faithful and obedient. Don't give up; keep pursuing it.

Be relational -- There are lots of great ways to serve our communities (donating items, doing cleaning days for them, etc.). These are important, and we do pretty well at these as a church. But remember that now we are pushing each other beyond these to begin serving in ways that require us to interact with people (including those not like us!) and build relationships with them. Does your group's/team's mission allow for that?

Small is Big -- Sometimes we think of "being on mission" as needing to be something big/flashy enough to write a book about (like starting a non-profit, etc.), but remember that often engaging on mission with God begins with simply serving our neighbors and co-workers in tangible ways. The people in our lives who are far from God don't always need "big" things--they just need someone in their lives who is willing to listen to them, eat with them, pray for them, find ways to serve them, and share their story with them. These "small" things can actually be BIG ways to bring Jesus to people!

As we take new steps of faith we've never taken before, we'll continue to learn a LOT as we go. So let's keep sharing and collaborating. Leave a comment of things you are learning from your experiences.

(This post was written by and posted with the permission of Carter Moss the Small Groups Champion at COMMUNITY)

"Sifted": 2012 Exponential Conference Big Idea

Who wants to be Sifted?  I know it doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?  When we first picked the Sifted theme for the Exponential 2012 Conference, I wasn’t a big fan.  I’m more of a big picture and positive sort of guy so thinking about being sifted made me cringe a little.  As we continued to develop this theme, I began to realize this is exactly what we need to be talking about.  God allows us to be “sifted” (Luke 22:31-32) through trials and temptations to grow us as followers and leaders.  How we respond as church leaders not only shapes who we become, but also those who we lead because we reproduce who we are.

Scriptural Summary:

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32)  Satan wants to sift (destroy) us because we are disciples and because we are making disciples. But God is allowing us to be sifted so that – as the chaff is separated from sifted wheat – the sin can be removed from our lives (the seeds), resulting in a great harvest. The sifting process develops us into the type of disciples that God wants to reproduce.

 The big ideas for each of the main stage sessions are as follows:

 Session #1:  Sifted

God will use the trials and temptations in our lives as a “sifting” process to grow us as leaders.  To make the most of this requires that we do the “hard work”, “home work” and “heart work” necessary to become the followers of Jesus that God wants us to be. As church leaders this becomes even more important because how we respond will be reproduced by others.

Session #2:  Calling

The trials and temptations that come during times of “sifting” will cause us to doubt and want to give up on our calling.  It is during those times of defeat and loss that we must not quit or give up knowing that we have been called by God to lead his church and that how we respond will be reproduced by others in regards to their own calling.

Session #3:  Purity

The temptation of sin is in direct opposition to the holiness and mission of God and is part of the “sifting” process.  By God’s grace the resistance of sin and the redemption of our sin can result in a stronger relationship with God and therefore more mature disciples and better leadership.  How we respond to sins temptation is important not only in our own lives but also others because how we respond will be reproduced in the lives of others.

Session #4:  Relationships

The “sifting” process not only impacts us but also the relationships that we value the most: our family and friends.  It is during those times that we must be devoted to our commitments and the hard work of reconciliation not only for the good of our own relationships but also knowing that how we respond will be reproduced by others in their relationships.

Session #5:  Movement

God will use the trials and temptations in our lives as “sifting” process to grow us as disciples of Jesus and as leaders of His church. How we respond not only shapes who we become, but also all who follow us.  For there to be a movement of reproducing churches that will accomplish the mission of Jesus there must first be leaders who are living lives worthy of being reproduced.

I am now super pumped about the Sifted theme and know there is a ton at stake in creating a reproducing church movement.  We reproduce who we are; so as we reproduce (plant more churches, missional communities and campuses) we want to reproduce healthy churches that continue to reproduce.