As we think about Missional Communities, we want them to reflect the fullness of the life of Jesus because we are the Body of Christ. So we want the MCs to have an UP dimension (time spent together with the Father), an IN dimension (time spent together with each other as Christians, the members of the family of Jesus), and an OUT dimension (time spent on mission together, stepping into the brokenness of the world).
1. So our UP times constitute our bi-weekly Huddles (people helping us lead the Missional Community) and biblical teaching after the dinner group with a few worship songs on an iPod so we can sing and the little kids can sing and dance together.
2. Our IN times are the dinners, but also the informal meals and things we do to feel like family, as well as the cornhole tournaments, bbq’s, play dates, football games, etc. Also, Elizabeth and I have a family tradition of going to a local diner each Saturday morning with our two kids, and we’re constantly inviting people into that family outing with us.
3. Our OUT time will be a relatively new concept for them, so we’ll be helping them understand why it’s important for them to invite friends who don’t know Jesus. Also, we’re going to pick an OUT activity that serves the disenfranchised. In the case of this group, we’re going to go to a nursing home once a month, with our kids, to visit and spend time with lonely, elderly people. Most of them don’t have family living by them and they don’t have anyone visiting them. Plus, older people simply LOVE having babies and toddlers around.
Because of that, we’re going to call the group the Pawleys Pampers Brigade (because both the babies and the old people might be in diapers).
I think the big thing to notice is that this Missional Community was started amongst a group of people we didn’t know. We parachuted in. We just moved here. It has grown because we’ve attended to the different seasons of development:
1. A season of finding a few key Persons of Peace who opened up a wider network to us. Then, getting to know these networks and building relationships with them, finding out what people were really open.
2. A season of praying for people, who were already Christians and open to investment from Elizabeth and I, who might want to help us lead the burgeoning Missional Community.
3. A season of developing these people while we started doing more extended family dinners with light spiritual content.
4. A season of diving deeper into spiritual content and a higher commitment to being family.
This happened over the course of eight months.
These things don’t happen overnight, and I think it’s important to realize that. It takes time to see where God is working, find the people he’s placed out there for you, and then cultivate those relationships and enter into a new network of relationships because they’ve been gatekeepers.
