Thinking of Leaving…

Statistics released recently say that more pastors are contemplating either leaving their church or ministry altogether. In 2021, 21% had thoughts of leaving their current church, but in 2023 that was up to 38%. Concerning leaving ministry, in 2021 38% of pastors were considering it. By 2023 that figure is now around 51%, with 29% saying they think about it often (The Malphurs Group, “Why Giving is Up but Pastor Morale Is Still Low, December 2023). My suspicion is that it’s in reality higher than 51%, because that’s the number that actually admitted to feeling stressed to the point of leaving ministry. I’m sure others felt that way, but dared not say so.

When you consider the stresses and responsibilities that many pastors feel they must shoulder, it’s no wonder they feel like leaving! But I cannot help but believe so many of those stresses and perceived responsibilities are nightmares of our own making, not what God requires or expects of those who lead in ministry. Most of the expectations laid on pastors comes from their own perceptions of ministry leadership, from the church members they lead, from what they learned in seminary or from other older pastors, or from the plethora of workshops, books, and conferences produced by the Christian corporate culture. That culture has helped create a professionalized mindset that seems to dominate church paradigms these days.

The way we “do church” plays a huge role in both the creation of these expectations/duties/ responsibilities and the major uptick in pastoral leadership burnout. We cannot fault these leaders in feeling the way they do by saying the problem is that they are just not trusting in the Holy Spirit enough, they must have unconfessed sin, or some other sanctified excuse. Dare we stop and seriously consider the problem may very well be in what WE have created on our own, adding to God’s original simple design?

We have created a system in church life that has to be maintained, monitored, measured, and tweaked constantly. This system has consequently created needs that did not exist at all in the church of the first century. Needs like having a building and property; a budget for maintaining said building/property, paying salaries, funding projects; programs of Christian education, activities, and events; the corps of volunteers needed to run these programs, activities, and events; a lineup of talented specialized leaders to serve as ministry staff; legal documents like a Constitution & Bylaws, incorporated status as a non-profit; professional liability insurance to protect the church’s assets. The list of needs we create just grows. Oh, how we have complicated such a simple thing.

“Oh, but you have to have those to be a real church.” No. You don’t. Some think if you don’t have at least a few of these things, you cannot have a legitimate church. The nature of the church is a topic for another time, however. Let’s keep our focus on pastors wearing down.

Can you see how paying attention to all these aforementioned needs could pull a pastor’s energy and focus and drain him before any actual mission or ministry is done? And seriously, what do any of these “needs” have to do with doing mission and ministry? Can the mission of the gospel be accomplished without a building, a budget, a website, a staff, a program, a worship team, or even a sermon? Absolutely it can. Many will agree with this premise, but then go right back to work keeping the machinery in place and running.

Let’s think about how we define ministry. Ministry has come to mean all the stuff that professionals and volunteers do either at the church building, or in the name of the church in the community in order to get people to come to their church building. And that sort of “ministry” is exhausting both of body and soul. Ministry is so much more simple, natural and normal than what these frustrated pastors have been attempting to do. I believe ministry should be the most fulfilling thing you get to do. Sure, it can be tough, draining, and messy, but lives being changed by the power of the gospel, that’s the heart of ministry.

You have to think of ministry not in terms of what you do, but in terms of who you are. You are a son or daughter of God. You can fully lean into the perfect life Jesus lived for you, and rest in the complete relief of the sin debt you once owed. Then your actions and behavior stream naturally out of that identity. Your conduct is no longer a means of gaining favor, but a natural expression of love and thanks for what Jesus has done. You GET TO love others as God does; you GET TO build friendships with them; you GET TO have fun with them, share meals with them, serve with them; you GET TO dialogue with them about life and God; you GET TO care for them and share their burdens. THAT is ministry! THAT is simply life in Jesus! Ministry is a lifestyle of surrender to the lordship of Jesus over every area of your life. You are doing these things out of who you are, out of your identity as a child of God, a follower of Jesus, not out of expectation or obligation or to earn your paycheck! It’s day in, day out, in the usual and the very ordinary. It’s not just on certain days of the week at a building with a steeple on top.

So, pastor, when you say you think about leaving the ministry, are you talking about walking away from loving people and caring? Do you mean no longer living in such a way that others would want to follow Jesus along with you? I suspect not. Or do you mean you think about stepping down from the role of CEO of your local Church, Incorporated? Because I think too many pastors conflate these two ideas—indeed many church members do as well—that the pastoral role and ministry are pretty much the same thing. Think about the language we use to describe what we do: I’m ‘in the ministry.’ Translation: I’m in a pastoral leadership role, or I’m a preacher. This conflation leads to the conclusion that if you are not in the pastoral role, you somehow are not engaged in genuine ministry. Stepping out of Church, Inc. is not quitting the ministry. You need to hear that. Also, some people will make the invalid assumption that because you are no longer pastoring, you are out of the ministry. Simply not true. When you are free to simply live the life God has given you through Jesus where you live, work, and play, you will surprisingly find you’re doing more hands-on ministry than you ever did as a professional church leader. When you’re not expected to do it or paid to do it, you discover an invigorating level of freedom to simply be yourself in loving and caring for others.

Some pastors relish the idea of being a CEO and having people depend on them for their spiritual well-being. If that’s you, you are setting a trap for yourself. If you have not already tasted burnout, you will. To be fair, other pastors are still capably leading, engaging in effective ministry, and are fulfilled in their role. They still experience frustration and the occasional Monday morning struggle with the temptation to find another vocation, but by and large, they are spiritually and emotionally capable of weathering it. So I hope you see this is not a categorical dismissal of the traditional pastoral role. It is simply an effort to help those struggling with the guilt of what seems to them and others as giving up on God, their faith, their call, or their “ministry” and exhort them to realize there is a whole other way of loving, leading, and providing pastoral care outside the walls of Church, Inc.

If you consider yourself among that 51% (plus!) statistic, and you want to dialogue about alternatives for everyday ministry, reach out to me. I’d love to hear your story and share some of what I’m learning over the years.

Evangelism Lessons from Chris Pratt

On Monday evening, June 18, 2018, actor Chris Pratt was awarded the Generation Award at the MTV Movie & TV Award ceremony. His acceptance speech has created quite the buzz in all forms of media, social and otherwise.

Pratt took the opportunity to share what he entitled “Nine Rules from Chris Pratt, Generation Award Winner.” He proceeded to count down these rules, mixing his trademark absurd humor with some profound statements of a spiritual nature. Here is a link to his Nine Rules so you can read them for yourself.

Almost immediately, armchair analysts and theologians began dissecting his speech, carefully turning over every word to speculate on what he meant. I’ve heard and read from both those who applaud his advice for turning attention to God, our brokenness, and the need for grace as well as those who complain that his speech was either not explicit enough about the gospel, or a false gospel altogether.

I saw a few Facebook posts about the event on my feed, but didn’t click on it at first. Then I did and listened for myself. I honestly felt pretty encouraged by what Mr. Pratt said. Now, I don’t know with absolute certainty that Chris is a believer, though a piece in Relevant Magazine in 2017 reports that he did have some sort of faith experience. However, from his Nine Rules I see some wisdom concerning speaking the gospel to others.

Use Your Platform
Chris Pratt has one of the most visible platforms from which to speak in the world–the entertainment industry. He could use that platform to say anything he wanted, and he chose in this moment to offer some truth.

You and I have platforms, too. It may not be as visible and public as being an A-list Hollywood actor, but we have them. We all have circles and realms of influence in which we can choose to either dabble around in small talk or speak the gospel in compelling ways. Are you using the platform God has provided you to declare and demonstrate the good news of Jesus?

Know Your Audience
Chris knew exactly who he was speaking to. He understands the way they think and what they believe. That’s why–if his intent was truly to share gospel truth–he said what he said the way he said it.

For those complaining he wasn’t explicit enough, if he was more explicit and detailed in talking about Jesus and our brokenness, his audience would have tuned him out pretty quickly and labeled him as some sort of evangelical quirk (maybe even a closet Trump supporter). He would likely have lost his audience among his peers overnight. Pratt’s creatively worded rules were presented in such a way that he managed to get across some strong gospel points without alienating those he was speaking to. His technique leaves the door open for some of his entertainment colleagues to approach him later and ask questions about what he meant, and then he would have opportunity to share more detail.

Lesson: communicate gospel truth in a way your audience can understand, but in such a way that you don’t unnecessarily turn them off and close the door for any future conversations about Jesus. We have to earn the right to speak into someone’s life, and we must learn to give the good news in ways that it actually sounds like good news.

Trust the Holy Spirit
If Mr. Pratt’s intent was to speak some gospel to his audience, then hopefully he understands that he can trust God to continue working in the hearts of those who heard his speech.

Too often we try to do all of the heavy lifting in evangelizing, thinking we have to “set the hook and reel them in” on the first cast. Or, we dump the whole gospel package on someone in our first encounter to seal the deal. We try to do the Holy Spirit’s job.

We have to learn to trust the Holy Spirit to do what only he can do once we have spoken gospel truth to someone. People choose to follow Jesus, not because of your detailed, persuasive, and impassioned presentation of the gospel, but because the Holy Spirit convicts them of their need for Jesus and he convinces them that choosing to follow Jesus is the absolute best choice to make.

Will some of those who heard Chris Pratt’s Nine Rules eventually decide to follow Jesus? Will Chris Pratt be a growing effective influencer for Jesus in Hollywood? I pray so on both accounts. Meanwhile, I learned some pretty profound lessons about sharing the good news.

Missional Service

Personal Note: This is my first blog post in a few weeks. We have been in the process of selling our house and moving. I don’t have to tell you if you’ve been through this what an interruption that can be.

Serving is part and parcel of the life of a Jesus follower.

Jesus is the prime example of what true service is. He continually was giving of himself for the benefit of others. He said, “…the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve…” (Matthew 20:28). When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, he told them they should do as he had done for them (John 13:15). Jesus’ example was behind Paul’s admonition to the Galatian believers to serve one another humbly in love (Galatians 5:13).

All of this means that service in the name of Jesus is not some kind of add-on to everything else you’re doing in life. It’s not an optional, do-it-when-it-fits-your-schedule sort of thing. Service for the Jesus follower is a lifestyle.

Let’s think about how churches many times approach serving. Churches tend to promote service from the perspective of a project orientation. Sometimes they even call it that–a service project. It’s done as a kind of one-off activity that is planned, coordinated, executed, and then analyzed for its effectiveness.

The service activity may be a regularly scheduled project varying in frequency from weekly to monthly, quarterly or annually. Some projects are connected to the season of the year. Some churches are well known in their communities for the specific service projects they perform, and are appreciated for them.

A major drawback of doing service purely from a project orientation can be that those being served can feel as though they are little more than a project for a church’s service activity. While they appreciate the kindness shown, they know that these church members, once the project is completed, will retreat back to their homes and normal lives. Meanwhile, needs continue among those served the whole year, day in and day out.

An example of this scenario is a church that conducts an annual outreach to a local apartment community doing Bible Clubs for the kids. The kids and their families are blessed, but once the week is over, they know this church will to a large extent be absent from their lives till next year. Those of the church who participated in the project will feel they have done their annual bit of service and continue on with their normal lives.

Even when service is done on a weekly basis, the project orientation is still influencing the attitudes of service both on the servers and those being served. It is still seen as an additional activity that is scheduled and performed.

So, how would missional service be any different? How would a church move from a project orientation to a missional orientation regarding serving their communities? What impact does a missional perspective have on how a church serves?

First, we need to establish that serving is to be a normal and natural outflow of a loving relationship with God. We love because we have been loved without measure by God; we serve, because Jesus has served us by ultimately giving himself for us. Our mindset should be, how can we not serve with generosity and grace as God has served us?

Serving is to be the lifestyle of the believer. We serve not only by participating in organized activities, but in smaller, everyday opportunities. We must learn that service does not always have to be put on the calendar; it is how we live every day. Reflecting continually on the gospel leads us to live a life of extending grace to others in simple acts of service on a regular basis without even thinking about it. Serving should be a habitual expression of our desire to glorify God and make Jesus known.

Let’s return to that example of serving the apartment community. A missional orientation of serving would lead one or more of the families in the church to choose to move into the apartment community and become residents. Their acts of service would be year-round. The other residents would receive their serving and not feel like a project, but like a neighbor. They are now your neighbors and friends, not your service project. This is how serving gets real, when you choose to live among those God has called you to serve.

Another example is when churches serve by cleaning up a park, or performing some other service activity that is very public. Churches will often get matching colorful T-shirts printed up to wear when they do these projects. That’s okay, but let’s think about the rationale of advertising our church this way. Are we drawing more attention to the love of Jesus for the community, or are we communicating that we want the neighbors to know that our church is the one doing the serving?

I think the simple act of serving without concern that people know that your church is the one doing the serving highlights Jesus more effectively. When Jesus said in Matthew 10:42, “If anyone gives a cup of cold water to one of these little ones…” I don’t think he had in mind including a label on the cup with the church logo and a note saying From your friends, the Disciples of Jesus in Bethel.

Churches can tend to use service projects as a means of promoting their church and increasing the attendance at their gathering. Our motive for serving should never have the hint of personal gain. We should serve because this is our identity: servants of King Jesus. Serving should point to Jesus, not to us. And Jesus said if we lift him up, he will draw people to himself.

I challenge you to examine how your church serves the community. Is it more of a project orientation? Service is not a project we complete; it is a lifestyle we live. Adopt a missional orientation to your service as an individual believer, and lead others to do the same.

Understanding Missional Terminology

Communication can be practically impossible if you’re unable to understand the language someone else is speaking. Hand gestures, facial expressions, and pointing to things can help, but it still falls far short of efficient communication.

Something similar happens in discussions among church leaders talking about mission and ministry. They may be speaking the same actual language, and even using the same terminology, but the meaning of those terms can be understood differently.

Throughout church history, theological and biblical terms took on a pretty standard meaning as they were taught and studied. At times, some of the deeper meanings of terms may have been truncated somewhat for any number of reasons. Perhaps out of cultural compromise, political convenience, or in an effort to promote a particular doctrinal position certain terms were shaped accordingly. Today, that reshaping of terminology has carried over into our current church experience, and we unwittingly fall short of full comprehension of some critical language of mission.

If we are going to effectively share the good news of Jesus, be fully engaged in the mission of God, and have lasting impact on the culture of our day, we must be on the same page when we describe and define our terminology of mission. It is definitely not that we must come up with new meanings for familiar terms. It is simply that we must define these terms from the perspective of the biblical mission.

So, here are a few terms where we may be using the same words, but speaking a different language at times…

Sin

Typically, sin is defined as anything that displeases God, acts and attitudes of rebellion against God, or disobedience to God. All true. But let’s go deeper. Consider this definition of sin:

Sin is any expression of disobedience to God rooted in unbelief regarding the truth of who God is or what God has done.

Sin at its root is unbelief. We believe wrongly, which leads us to behave wrongly. Sin is not just about the surface actions that we manifest. It is not even only about the heart attitudes that sometimes lead to those actions. It is about a willful unbelief that God is who he says he is or that what God has done for us in Jesus is enough. When we fail to believe that God is great, glorious, good, or gracious, we sin.

Gospel

The gospel is traditionally thought of as the good news about Jesus paying our sin debt by his sacrificial and substitutionary death on the cross so we can be forgiven of sin and go to heaven. Amen! All that is great news. The typical understanding of the gospel with this definition speaks to our future, and usually this is how people think of the effect of the gospel: it secures me a place in heaven for eternity.

The problem with this description of the gospel is that it doesn’t really address the here and now impact of the gospel on us. So let’s define the gospel like this:

The gospel is the good news of Jesus as expressed in God’s greatness, glory, goodness, and grace. Jesus has saved us from the penalty of sin, is saving us from the power of sin, and will save us from the presence of sin.

A fuller understanding of the gospel enables us to live with incredible peace and victory right now in the everyday. We understand that we are now living the eternal life that God gives through Jesus, and all the benefits of the gospel begin now and not in the sweet by and by.

Evangelism

The usual understanding of evangelism is that it’s the act of sharing the gospel with a nonbeliever for the purpose of seeing them come to faith in Jesus. This typically involves learning a technique of conversation that eases into the topic of spiritual matters.

Evangelism means telling good news. We normally think only nonbelievers need to be evangelized, but believers need the good news about Jesus proclaimed to them as well. In fact, there is not a single person who does not need to be evangelized on an ongoing basis. Evangelism is not just for the purpose of getting a nonbeliever saved. It is also to call believers to live in line with the truth of the gospel.

Evangelism is showing how the good news of Jesus applies to your life circumstances. It is declaring how the greatness, glory, goodness, or grace of God as expressed in Jesus speaks to what you are dealing with in life at the moment.

This is not some sort of feel good approach that compromises the need of the person to repent of sin and turn to Jesus. It’s simply making the good news truly good news to the individual by showing how Jesus is the better answer for whatever their dilemma is.

Discipleship

Most think of discipleship as training a new believer in the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life; how to pray, how to study the Bible, how to serve, and how to share their faith. It usually involves a curriculum, a class time, or some sort of formal one-on-one meeting. Discipleship has a continuum, beginning when a person chooses to follow Jesus and ending when the person has completed the course.

Biblical discipleship is a lifetime process. It begins with your first encounter with a person and continues for as long as you are involved in their life.

Discipleship is the continuing process of learning to submit every area of life to the lordship of Jesus. It is moving from unbelief to belief in every area of life.

Discipleship occurs best in three environments: life on life (one-on-one, done in normal everyday rhythms), life in community (each believer has impact on the person in the family life setting), and life on mission (discipleship occurs as the family serves together on mission).

It’s so important for leaders in communicating with those they lead, not just to use the same words, but to be speaking the same language.

Missional Leadership

We have to face the reality that the church has lost its place at the center of culture.

For generations, the church enjoyed the position as a primary influencer in the culture. But that day has passed, and the church has been nudged to the margins.

The church particularly in America has reacted to this shift by attempting to regain the center. It has pinned the hope of national revival to recovering its place of influence in culture. The formal training for church leadership has for years been informed by this mindset, and continues to perpetuate the notion of the church at the center.

Rather than struggling to move to the center of culture again, why not instead engage the culture with the gospel from where we are? Churches must learn to transition to mission from the margins rather than from the center. That begins with the leadership. Pastors, planters, and leaders have to unlearn some things and re-learn how to lead missionally.

Today’s view of church leadership is based largely on the professional model. Ministry is seen as a profession requiring specialized training for specific roles that church members look to for spiritual resources. The image of the professional is rooted historically in how leaders are trained, how leaders see themselves, and how the churches see the leaders. Ministry is a profession in the same sense as law or medicine. Therefore, a professional degree is preferred and it takes professionals to do it. Some unfortunate ways the professional model is fleshed out in churches today are…

Chaplain

Pastoral care is the main function of the chaplain professional role. Taking care of the flock by visiting the home bound and hospitalized, providing counsel, preaching good sermons, marrying and burying duties, and basically managing the church are the chaplain’s duties.

Motivator

Helping people feel good about themselves, showing how the gospel can empower people to succeed in life and giving principles to live their best life now is what the motivator professional leader does.

Entrepreneur

The pastor operates as a CEO who seeks to grow the church with marketing and branding, energetic worship, creativity, and relevant teaching series appealing to the felt needs of their target audience.

Notice a common factor among these three examples of the professional model. The primary leadership burden falls to one person. The organizational chart looks like a pyramid with one point, the pastor/leader at the top. Missional leadership is by necessity and scriptural history not for professionals, but for everyday people.

So what does missional leadership in a church look like? First, it is shared leadership. A plurality of leaders with a mix of gifting share the responsibility of leading the church. The facets of administration, shepherding, equipping, proclamation, and discipleship are divvied up among leaders who are best gifted for those particular responsibilities.

Next, missional leadership involves shared ministry. Ministry is not seen as the domain of the professional, but of every believer. Leaders in a missional church give the ministry away by equipping believers to live out the realities of a gospel-centered life in the everyday. Every believer is engaged with ministering to one another and their communities in the normal course of the everyday rhythms of life. Believers demonstrate the heart of God and the love of Jesus by caring for needs in very practical ways. The clergy/laity divide is broken down. If you have responded to Jesus’ call, Come, follow me, then you are called into ministry.

Finally, missional leadership culminates in a shared mission, making disciples. Believers are trained in gospel fluency, being able to apply the gospel to themselves, one another, and nonbelievers as gospel needs surface. Making disciples is way more than an invitation to the Sunday gathering; it’s a way of life. Leadership will train believers that making disciples is not only about seeing an individual converted to Jesus, but seeing that individual consumed by Jesus.

The missional church leader has the challenge of unlearning the professional paradigm and re-learning a whole different paradigm. Find others who are on this same journey and learn from one another. Build networks of like-minded missional leaders. Reach out to those a little further down the road than you when you hit roadblocks. Missional leadership is different and transitioning can be scary. But it is well worth it.

Missional Metrics: How Do We Measure Success?

To determine if something is being effective or not, to gauge whether or not something can be declared a success, you need metrics. You need some way to measure the results.

In traditional church paradigms, success is generally determined based on three particular criteria: how many people attend the gathering, how much money was received, and how large a building (space) you have. The ABC’s of church success: Attendance, Buildings, and Contributions.

Typical metrics of church success are based primarily on quantitative standards.

Now, don’t think that I’m saying it’s always a bad thing to pay attention to numbers. Knowing how many or how much is helpful to church leaders for some things. My only argument here is that numbers are not the best gauge of true missional success in a church.

How We Did vs. How We’re Doing

The numbers game generally focuses on one event: the gathering. We feel that we were successful if the crowd was larger than the previous week. How many people responded in some way to the message? How many kids were checked in at the children’s ministry area? How much was the offering this week? If the numbers were good, even a little higher, then we did really well that Sunday. If the numbers were down, maybe we didn’t do so well. This is measuring how we did.

Measuring how we’re doing takes into account what’s going on all week, not just what happens on Sunday. It does take into account how many in some ways, but it’s more focused on the idea of how well.

For example, how well are we building friendships with people who don’t yet follow Jesus? How well are we incorporating the gospel into everyday conversations? How well are we multiplying our missional communities? The how well translates naturally into the how many.

Measure What You Value

We measure what we value. What we place value on, we measure. So, if you value quantity, you measure by the numbers. You then focus your efforts on what can increase the numbers.

If your concern is more about quality, then you measure by effectiveness. Quality is more intangible than statistics, and is not something that is easily quantifiable. But it really is the more accurate picture of how your church is doing and a better metric.

Just as the how well naturally translates into how many, the numbers can lead to a deeper examination of your effectiveness as a church. Here’s what I mean.

How many non-believers are in your circle of friends? Now how well are you doing at loving those non-believing friends in such a way that only the gospel can explain? How many opportunities to have gospel conversations did you have in the past week? How well did you take those opportunities and speak the gospel into specific situations?

See how that works? The more valuable metric is how effective your church is at living and speaking the gospel. The result is that more people are introduced to Jesus and his ways through his people. And that’s success by any measure.

Building a Missional Framework for Your Church

What is the basic organizing factor of your church? What is the framework on which you build your identity and function as a church?

If you examined everything you do as a church—every event, program, ministry, and activity—what would those things point to as your “main thing?”

The most typical framework of traditional churches is the Sunday gathering.

Everything the church does, communicates, and promotes inevitably points back to the Sunday gathering, the big weekly event. The gathering is the primary organizing structure of these churches.

The planning and preparation each week looks toward the gathering. Then we pour our energy into the gathering. Next, we review how the gathering went. And then we launch into planning and prep for the next gathering.

In churches organized in this way, evangelism is expressed as encouraging members to invite others to the Sunday gathering. Discipleship is a formal exercise in a classroom setting, typically at the building. Anything done outside the building in the community still has the goal of getting people to the gathering on Sunday.

Some unfortunate side effects of relying on the gathering as your primary organizing structure are…

1. Attendance becomes a metric of faith. Members begin to judge one another’s relationship with God based on their attendance at the gathering or participation in every event.
2. It reinforces a disconnect between life at church and life everywhere else. If believers depend on the Sunday gathering as their primary means of spiritual sustenance, they are more likely to compartmentalize their lives into what happens on Sunday and what happens every other day of the week. They generally don’t make the connection of their faith in God with the experiences of everyday life, and they often fail to see the relevance of the gospel to the everyday.
3. It conditions people to a centralized, building-centered understanding of church. This is one of the cultural misconceptions that often manifests itself in the language we use. We go to church. We will see our friends at church. Our language betrays the notion that we see church as an event at a location.

With that being said, is there a more biblically appropriate framework around which we can structure a church?

The organizational framework that I would encourage you to consider is missional communities.

A missional community is a group of people who radically reorient their lives around the gospel and live as a family sent on mission together in the everyday.

The missional community is smaller than the gathering, usually between six to twenty-five people. If it helps you, think of a missional community as a small group (although I personally cringe at using that term to describe an MC, because they are not the same at all).

In the missional approach to church, MC’s are the primary organizational structure of the church. MC’s are how disciples are organized for the purposes of mission, discipleship, and shepherding. Those functions of the church are mainly carried out in the context of the MC’s. Although, let me hasten to add, those functions are still important in the gathering. It’s simply that we don’t rely only or even mostly on the gathering for those functions to be accomplished.

MC’s reverse the negative side effects that organizing around the Sunday gathering can cause.

1. Living on mission is the metric of faith. MC’s naturally foster an environment of accountability concerning living a gospel-centered life. Failing to be on mission indicates unbelief, and other MC members faithfully “gospelize” one another to repentance and missional living.
2. MC’s establish a deep connection between life with church and life everywhere else. Members are taught to see all of life as mission, and to look for gospel opportunities and opportunities for worship in the everyday. The sacred/secular is a misleading distinction. For the missional believer, all of life is holy and sacred, and there is no detail of life that is untouched by the lordship of Jesus.
3. MC’s condition people to a decentralized church structure, and to a view that ministry and mission are a way of living, not an activity you add to your schedule, or an event you attend.

If a church is organized around their missional communities, then their weekly gathering will be focused on celebration, worship, equipping, encouragement, and fellowship. Evangelism, discipleship, and shepherding happen in the context of the MC.

Using missional communities as the primary organizational structure of the church does not take the place of the weekly gathering. Rather, MC’s enhance the significance of gathering regularly as a body.

Assessing for Adopting the Missional Approach

You believe your church needs renewal, revitalization, revival, or even restarting.

You’ve tried programs, special emphasis weeks, spiritual renewal weekends, conferences, denominational campaigns, revivals, and other assorted means to stir the gathered church into a fire that scatters like embers to ignite a fresh passion for Jesus and making disciples.

If your experience is anything like mine, these efforts result in limited success. Things happen, the Spirit of God moves, lives are impacted…but no lasting transformation.

Now you’ve heard of the missional paradigm. You’ve read some about it, had conversations with colleagues over it, watched some videos related to it. Maybe you’re interested in exploring more deeply, or you’ve become convinced the missional track is where God is leading you.

Just to remind you, the term missional refers to living as people who have been sent by Jesus to make disciples; it’s a reorientation of every area of life around the mission of making disciples. Read my previous post that unpacks the missional mindset (here).

To assess where you are in your understanding of the needs of your church and how the missional approach can be applied, we need to ask some diagnostic questions.

What are your church’s core values or convictions?

Most churches have worked these out and have them listed and described on their website. These values/convictions are your non-negotiables, the realities that give your church an identity and distinction in your community.

If disciple-making is not somehow expressed in your core values, I would ask, why not? Most churches make the mission of making disciples a priority, because that is the mission Jesus gave us, so for most, it’s going to be on the list. So my follow-up question is then…

How do you flesh out the value of discipleship/disciple-making in the life of your church?

You say discipleship is a core value. So, how does your church express that priority in practical ways?

Typical strategies might include small groups, Sunday School, training, outreach events, or special classes.

I would point out what these strategies share is that they are programs/ministries the church uses, and they are conducted primarily at the building where the church meets. Disciple-making takes a more centralized approach. One more question…

How well are your strategies making and strengthening disciples?

Are your strategies truly effective? Are disciples being made?

If you’re getting an increase in the number of Christians attending events and getting smarter, that’s not the effectiveness I would be looking for. What I mean is, are nonbelievers being brought closer to following Jesus, and are believers becoming more effective at living and speaking the gospel?

It’s important to know that the metrics of the missional approach will be different than the metrics of more traditional approaches. It’s not so much the ABC’s (attendance, buildings, and contributions) we’re interested in. It’s the intangibles that often cannot be quantified numerically. In a later post we will delve into missional metrics.

If you and your leadership are considering how to shift into a more missional approach in your church life, it requires an honest assessment of where you are now, determining where you believe God wants you to be as a church, and then prayerfully and intentionally working out a plan to move in that direction.

I would be happy to consult with you in person, online, or by phone to assist in assessing your current needs and to give encouragement in pursuing a more missional approach. Let me know how I can help.

Turn Your Sunday School Class into a Missional Community

What if your church has the traditional Sunday School and you’d like to transition to Missional Communities?

What if you don’t have to scrap what you’re currently doing in order to begin something new? Is there a way to move people in a missional lifestyle direction without dismantling current activities and creating chaos among the members? Possibly. Let’s explore.

If you’ve been learning about MC’s and then thinking, That would never work here, maybe this post is for you. Especially if you have a Sunday School ministry in place.

First, let’s think about the rhythms of missional community living.

Family Meal
Having a weekly meal together is a common feature in the life of an MC. It could be potluck, grilling burgers, pitching in to order pizza, or the host preparing something. The act of eating together regularly builds the sense of family. And it’s not just the eating, but the cleanup as well!

Content Time
This is the serious discussion of God’s Word. Setting aside time to dig into the Bible as an MC is central to living gospel-centered lives on mission together.

Serving
MC’s regularly practice the rhythm of serving the people or community where they believe God has sent them. It could be occasional larger projects where the whole MC gets together, or smaller groups of MC members serving together on various aspects of the mission throughout the week.

Hang Time
It’s just what you think. Hanging out together. Getting together for fun, going out to eat, movie night, kids’ games, whatever. No agenda other than being together. Don’t think this is frivolous, because often great gospel conversations happen while just hanging out together. This is a natural entry point for your non-believing friends and neighbors.

Most church Sunday School classes have the content time thing down pretty well. They gather to study the Bible regularly. But when it comes to the other MC rhythms, not so much. There may be the occasional party or get-together, but nothing on a more frequent basis.

Next, let’s think about how to incorporate these rhythms into the traditional Sunday School.

Hey, you’ve already got the content time covered! The regular time you gather to study the Bible–usually Sundays–is already built in. One of the challenges of trying to have a serious content time during the week with an MC is figuring out what to do with the kids. Sunday School resolves that concern.

It’s the other rhythms that will now present the big challenge. How will you establish these new rhythms (family meals, serving, and hang time) with your group so that they become normalized? When will you schedule these rhythms for each week? Your group will need to learn a new way of living as most likely they are accustomed to just getting together once a week on Sundays.

They need to really grasp that what you are seeking to establish is a group of people who radically reorient their lives around the gospel and live as a family sent on mission together in the everyday.That will require some time to teach and train them in the MC lifestyle. I don’t have the space here to unpack the steps to beginning an MC, so listen to this podcast to learn the basics of beginning a missional community.

You can use the content time to build the foundation for how you will live as an MC. Take advantage of excellent training tools to teach the why and how of missional living. During your weekly study time you could as a group work through The Tangible Kingdom Primer, or the Gospel Primer, the Saturate Field Guide, or Missional Essentials. All of these are effective interactive training tools that can help transform a class into a family on mission together.

A couples class is ideal for launching into pursuit of becoming an MC. Even if it’s a singles class, or classes where husbands and wives meet separately, this can still work. You simply meet for the content time separately, but you do everything else together as family. You could even include a singles class with married couples to form your MC. The content time happens for each class, but the other rhythms are shared.

One caveat here is that each separate class really needs to be going through the same training at the same time so that everyone is on the same page. This requires that the leaders of those classes really coordinate intentionally and prayerfully together to take each class member on the same track toward MC living. The shared leadership component of MC formation could already exist in the leaders of these separate classes.

The great thing about the above mentioned resources is that you are living out the things you are discussing each week. So you don’t have to wait till you’re done with the book to start living out the other rhythms. You are beginning to build those rhythms over the course of going through the study together. The only way to really learn this lifestyle is to begin doing it.

I see some incredible potential in utilizing your Sunday School to transition into missional communities. You’re taking something that already exists and turning it in a missional direction. You avoid the trauma induced by stopping a current established (perhaps entrenched) ministry and introducing an entirely new one. There will likely be some pushback, but it won’t be to the extent that it would have been by an abrupt change across the board.

Don’t fret about those Sunday School classes that refuse to do anything differently than they always have. Just take the ones who are willing to go and forge ahead into missional territory. Others may see how awesome living that way can be and then ask how they can get in on it. Invest in those who want to reorient their lives around the gospel and experience following Jesus in the everyday.

Let me know your thoughts and share questions about this approach to transitioning to missional communities in a traditional Sunday School setting.

Note that the words in a different color are links to those recommended resources.

The Missional Approach to Personal Evangelism

Did you ever have any personal evangelism training?

Programs like Evangelism Explosion were widely used in many churches back in the day. Christian Witness Training (CWT) was another.

What I got from much of this programmed training was a little inspiration, but even more frustration. Most of the training that was around gave you one methodology no matter how you were wired personally or how you were uniquely gifted. Many who went through such training felt a sense of guilt over not being able to effectively share their faith using the methods they were taught.

It felt as though there were only two options. Either you were gifted so that such personal evangelism was comfortable for you, or you were guilted into presenting the gospel in ways that were very unnatural for you. If that was the case, you believed the approach you were given in the training was the only way to do it, and you pretty much gave up trying to share the good news at all. Frustrating!

But what if you can bear witness to the good news of Jesus in everyday life in ways that are very normal for you and come very naturally? I've previously written about various ways that you can speak the gospel, so read that post as well. Here are some ideas and actions that I think will help you develop a missional approach to your personal evangelism.

The gospel is good news!
Let me rephrase that…the gospel is the greatest news ever in the history of eternity! And good news needs to be announced. That's what evangelism is, the announcing of good news. When something good happens to you, you can't help but share it. If Jesus giving you a new life, forgiving sin, and filling you with his Spirit for everyday life isn't good news, I don't know what is. Let the gospel captivate you every day in a fresh way. If you're overwhelmed with the grace of the gospel, you will more naturally share it with someone else.

Share the good news out of grace, not guilt.
Sure, we have an obligation to share the gospel with others, but obligation alone is not the proper motivation. You get to share this good news! If your reason for sharing is because you get to do so instead of because you ought to, or have to share, it makes all the difference. Speaking the gospel to someone else is a privilege, something you get to do because of God's grace.

Relationship is the context for effective sharing.
Evangelism approaches that emphasize witnessing to people you don't know or barely know are intimidating for most Christians. Some can do it with little problem, but it freaks the rest of us out. If you have built a trusting relationship with a person, you have earned the right to speak into their lives. I find it's far more effective and more likely to produce lasting results if I share the gospel within the context of relationship. There is built-in opportunity to continue the conversation later. In relationship, the other person can see the gospel at work in your own life. They have the chance to ask questions of you. I think it's better than the "hit and run" technique, or just tossing a gospel grenade into someone's lap.

Stay alert for "gospel pathways."
Gospel pathways are natural opportunities that arise in the course of everyday life where you can speak the gospel into someone's life. Sharing your faith does not require an appointment. You don't have to schedule a time for spiritual conversation with someone. It can happen while you're working on a project together, sitting at lunch, or riding together to a ballgame. The person mentions an issue of concern, a problem, or a question they have. That may be God's opening for you to say something about how the gospel is good news for them in that moment.

So, to sum it up…
1) Let the gospel captivate your heart,
2) Share the good news because you get to,
3) Build trusting relationships, and share the gospel within that context,
4) Watch and listen for natural opportunities to speak the gospel.

So take heart! You can share the good news just being who God designed you to be in the way that comes natural to you. Now you just need to be intentional about it.

What struggles have you faced in sharing your faith with someone? What has helped you to overcome fear or guilt in your witnessing attempts?