Members/Partners Class – II
By Jonathan Dodson | November 10th, 2008 | Category: Missional Church | 10 commentsWe just finished our first Partners Class (what we call members). It ran four weeks, one night a week, two hours per night. We had a non-partner family host the class in their home, as a way of increasing community. This family has also been hosting a City Group, which led to increased traffic in their home. As we cultivate steady state community as a gospel apologetic, we made friends with the neighbors. They began to ask more about all the parties happening at the host home. More connection has been made and even spiritual conversations started. Doing stuff in homes, in neighborhoods can be both community cultivating and missional!
During the four weeks we covered:
1) Vision
2) Gospel/Doctrine
3) Community
4) Mission.
I wrote the material. It was well-received. I think we’ve got a solid dozen committing to the church as partners, so that is encouraging. Here is the material, in case anyone is interested. Disclaimer: This is a first draft and will be refined along the way. If you decide to use the material, please email me for permission. I’d like to hear what’s happening with your membership/partnership process.
You’re (and your church) are a true blessing to the global CHURCH.
[...] Someone else is using “partner” language for “membership.” Check it. [...]
Thanks for sharing this material Jonathan…it is very helpful, well-written resource.
Thanks for sharing this. I’d love to hear a little more about your city groups and the thinking behind them and their practice. I’m currently thinking through how to re-orient our inward-looking and individualistic bible-study groups.
[...] under Theology For those interested in the material we wrote for our Partners Class, go here. [...]
Thanks Guys. Hope it is a blessing.
Seumas: If you do a search for City Groups on this blog, you’ll find a lot of my thinking scattered across the articles. Also, there’s some description at Austin city Life
Soon I will be condensing all of this into a booklet on the why and how of City Groups.
You rule Dodson.
hey friend. so glad you’re blessing THE church with your resources. this will help direct us as we ‘re-plant’ our church here in Maine.
I am still reading through your stuff. Very helpful construct. The use of partner language really lends an egalitarian feel to the practice. I am interested in the response of your repeated use of churchy “buzzwords”. I know what missional means, and you know what missional means, but if I tried teaching our membership class using such terminology, I could spend most of my time explaining what that word means to Christian faith and practice. Do you find that there is a lot of time spent on teaching what words mean in your class, or do they just pick it up as you go?
I don’t have a problem with using and explaining the buzzwords in the partner class, primarily because these people are at a point of commitment. They have been around long enough to soak up vision, mission, values, practices, and ethos of our church.
Throughout the material/class I deconstruct misguided or incomplete notions of Gospel, Mission, and Community, so that helps. People also ask questions that help me clarify. Our people are not missional theology junkies, but they are committed to being a missional church. That makes my job easier.
I briefly address the distinction between Emergent, Emerging.