I have started a new blog and I want to serve as many people as I can through this medium.
In this post I want to post many of the questions I receive through my training and consulting. I would like to find out what questions you want me to respond to. I am going to post the ones I hear most often and ask you either to let me know which of these you would like me to respond to OR what questions you have that I have not listed.
FAQs:
- How do we transition our small group ministry to missional communities?
- How can families with young children be effective in missional communities?
- How do you raise up leaders for MCs?
- How do you go about multiplying and sending out new MCs?
- How important is the Sunday gathering in this approach to church?
- How do you train MC leaders?
- What does an MC leader assessment entail?
- What is the role of women in MCs?
- How does you wife handle this?
- What basic training is required to start an MC?
- How do you develop a Gospel Fluent Culture?
- How do you counsel people who are “too busy” to be involved in an MC?
- What does an MC Covenant look like and how do you help people form one?
- What kind of ongoing training or coaching do you have in place?
- What does this look like in a Suburban culture?
- How do artists engaged this?
Let me know which of these you want me to begin writing on first OR what am I missing?
How do you develop a Gospel Fluent Culture?
Jeff. This all looks good. Can’t wait. Thanks for serving us like this.
I would love to hear some insights on being a reconciled community (racially, socio-economically, age, etc.) within a missional community. I find myself so unaware at times of how much my own culture (not necessarily the gospel) influences how I go about being missional.
My top four:
1. Families with young kids
2. Sunday Gathering
3. Too busy
4. Suburban context
So glad for this blog. I need all these questions to be answered, but maybe the most pressing for us right now…How do you develop a Gospel Fluent Culture?
Jeff,
I hope to see you answer all of these questions. Right now our biggest issues are childcare and “too busy”.
My vote would be “What basic training do you need to start an MC?” OR “What are the first things you would do when ‘on site’ to start the MC?” Thanks for taking the time to do this. Will be a great blessing
Hey Jeff,
Appreciate your ministry. I got a chance to chat with you at the PHX Boot Camp. The Lord has been doing an incredible work in my heat and ministry through the Gospel. Idols are being smashed, works righteousness is being exposed and freedom is beginning to reign.
I have not joined the A29 network. I am actually helping a friend get New Breed Church Planting started here in the US. I know New Breed Works with A29 Western Europe in Wales. We are trying to do a work within Calvary Chapel to open some eyes about Church Planting. They have accidentaly planted about 1800 churches in the last 40 years. But that has really cooled off. Imagine if they got intentional.
OK, to my question. I am interested in Missional Communities with small children. I am in the core team stage myself. We are pretty much a missional community at this point. We are going through Thune’s the Gosple-Centered Life study. Most of us have kids. Sometimes we can get someone to come and watch them from the outside and sometimes my wife is forced out of the core team meeting to do it. Right now the core is closed. I have eight adults that I want us to be deeply formed in the Gospel before we start to grow the group. We will open it up in a few weeks. I am not sure what to do with the kids then; especially if we start splitting into a few communities.
Thanks for your help brother. Grace and Peace.
Charlie Marquez
Impact Church (Southern. CA)
562.237.7500
My picks regarding what we need in our church’s direction:
How can families with young children be effective in missional communities?
How does you wife handle this?
How do you counsel people who are “too busy” to be involved in an MC?
And one you might be missing:
- What do you do when members live about a 15 minute drive away from each other due to busy streets in the city?
Thanks for blogging on this topic brother.
In Christ,
PJ Tibayan
I would love to hear your thoughts on …
1. Being too busy
2. role of women
3. importance of sunday gathering
Theses all look great. I would especially want to know your thoughts on “How do we transition our small group ministry to missional communities?”
We’re excited to hear answers to all of these, but our top picks would be:
1. families w/ young children
2. basic training
3. artists
Thanks!
My tops:
- transition to MC’s from small groups
- how to raise up mc leaders
- how to train/assess mc leaders
- developing a gospel fluent culture
- people who are ‘too busy’
Thanks for doing this Jeff!
I think the posts I would be excited to read are:
*families with kids
*busy schedules
*where do Sundays fit
I would also like to hear your thoughts on being a hybrid model, and the potential of burnout. It seems many mc churches are pushing mcs hard (almost like house church), but also the more traditional Sunday model. So it really isn’t Missional/incarnational vs attractional….it’s both. Which is great, but practically, it seems like schedule overload could be an issue….
Thanks Jeff!
Jeff,
I think this will be incredibly helpful to me and many others! Thanks for the work you are doing.
I plan on coming back to this blog frequently.
I really want to know about the role of women in this topic. It’s something I’m extremely passionate about but I’m not sure what steps I should take as a woman finishing college. Also, I’d like to know how it all pans out in a family. Just being practical I guess. All these questions look awesome and I can’t wait to hear about it!
Thanks Jeff! Here are the main ones I’d like to hear about:
How can families with young children be effective in missional communities?
How do you develop a Gospel Fluent Culture?
Jeff,
Would love for you to tackle MC’s and young families and how to live missionally in suburban culture. I appreciate you and all you do for A29 and the Kingdom!
Could you put an RSS subscription on your site please
Yes.
Jeff,
This is going to be very helpful. I am most excited to hear how families with young kids can be effective in MC’s and would love to hear your thoughts on how teenagers fit as well.
How do you counsel people who are “too busy” to be involved in an MC?
Thanks for all of the replies so far. I am going to wait until the end of the week to compile the results and begin writing. I plan to put up my first response in the beginning of next week.
How do you transition from a small group to a MC?
Raising new leadership and training them would be my top requests
Jeff,
Thanks so much for taking the time to do this! I’ve listened to a number of your teachings on Missional Communities, and they’ve all been a blessing. We are about to start a group with 2 other young families. Therefore, I would be most interested in any wisdom you can give regarding “How can families with young children be effective in missional communities?” Also, what do you find to be the biggest challenges for those groups? We want to avoid burn out. Thanks!
Nate Palmer
Columbus, OH
Love it Jeff. I think the list is right on. Personally I’m seeking answers to:
How do you raise up leaders for MCs?
How do you go about multiplying and sending out new MCs?
How important is the Sunday gathering in this approach to church?
How do you counsel people who are “too busy” to be involved in an MC?
Can’t wait to hear more from you here. Thanks for setting all this up and thanks to Soma for their support of this.
The biggest and most pressing question in light of the call to missional communities is: How do we transition our small group ministry to missional communities?
Hey Jeff,
Really enjoyed your teaching at Christ+City. I was actually passively listening and answering work emails on my laptop when what you were saying made me stop and listen. What a powerful and convicting call to Christians and how we train and live in community. I feel like I am full of doctrine and theology but I am called to put my faith into action in a faithful way. I am extremely excited about building a Chist-Centered, missional community.
My wife and I are members of a church of which I am largely connected. Live in a small, tightly linked village (close by the church) and I want all my neighbors to come to the throne of Christ. I started wading through the Soma resources as a guide.
My question: which podcast/audio downloads would you recommend (in order) if this is somewhat foreign to you?
Thank you for your ministry and dedication to the Body of Christ.
In Him,
dip
Douglas,
I would encourage you to start with our Soma School training: http://bit.ly/gx8Z9h
Unfortunately, its a few years old. Hoping to get the newest stuff up soon.
Jeff
Thanks Jeff – please pray for the young families of Cherry Hill Village that all may come to Christ.
First, I was introduced to your ministry at City to City after TGC ’11 and I was very grateful for your being there.
Second, I know lots of guys are going to be posting so if it takes a bit to get to this i completely understand…
What about teenagers? How do we engage them in this? Are they separate from the whole(i.e. youth directed ministry) or are they just lumped in with everyone else(i.e. family style ministry) is it both/and? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Jeff,
Great to see your new blog and thanks for taking on these questions, brother.
The question I am most commonly addressing is:
How can families with young children be effective in missional communities?
I’d really like to hear your thoughts on this question. Specifically not “how do we occupy the kids while we do mission in community?” but really, “ways we can include children on mission?”
Thanks bro,
Gino
Hey Jeff,
)
Thanks for your hard work and efforts in this ministry. I really enjoyed hearing you in Wenatchee. It really gave me some great clarity about the missional communities. I think the biggest issue that I’m seeing is the “too busy” answer. I think all the “idols” such as family time and work are a huge hang up for all of us. I’d love to hear more about how to address people when they say… “I’m too busy” ( including myself at times
I’m looking forward to reading your FAQ responses.
A couple of related questions that I was asked this weekend:
Are the MC leaders church elders?
How do you deal with discipline issues – do the groups recognize the MC leader as the authority over the group; does the MC leader function autonomously or do the MC leaders work together to resolve issues in their various groups?
Here in Quebec we need so much this material. i’ve studied the soma school material and for me the 2 most important questions would be :
The answer to the “too busy people”
And the place of young families in Mc
thanks for helping us with your knowledge in all this
Jeff – I’ve listened to you for over a year now. This blog is going to be such a blessing. We have planted a church that is about 3 mos. old now. Looking to implement MCs. I’ve got a gazillion questions I could ask regarding implementation. One that stays on my mind is about the relationship b/t MCs. Once someone feels led to go out from a MC and start one, are there any remaining ties they have with the old MC? They are leaving a lot of deep relationships and solid biblical training. Is there a way for them to remain tied into that? The ideal seems to be to meet with both MCs, but I know that’s not feasible. I know that new leader will be discipled in the new group as he disciples, but is he still connected to a group where he will continue to learn? Hope my question(s) makes sense. God bless – Tom
How does a Missional Community relate to the local church, the elders, and other missional communities of the same local church? Or is the missional community the local church?
Thanks!
In Christ,
PJ
I’d love to tag on, “What adjustments are necessary when the MC’s target people-group is NOT primarily geographic?” For many of our MCs that are NOT neighborhood based, doing life together seems even more of a challenge (I can’t walk out my front door and catch somebody, meet them walking around the neighborhood, meet up at the neighborhood park, do a neighborhood block party/bbqs/brunch, etc.)