Decentralized Missional Church Growth
By Jonathan Dodson | August 28th, 2009 | Category: Missional Church | 10 commentsMissional ecclesiology has led the the expression of new church forms and structures. This innovation is exciting, challenging, and constantly changing. How can we be the church on mission to reach our context? The answers must be mined theologically, worked out practically, and applied contextually. Austin City Life is committed to a form of decentralized missional church growth, fostering mission through small gospel-centered communities that renew the city in geographical pockets all over Austin. As we continue to grow, we face the challenge of remaining small as we grow big. Several models have been helpful as we continue to process.
Parish Model
I met John Tyson of Trinity Grace Church at Q (more Tyson here) this year when we spoke on a panel on American Ecclesiology. John is a very thoughtful, missional leader. I have benefited from his writings on his church website, and recently came across his article for Catalyst called On Reaching a City. The article is more specifically about how Trinity Grace is structured to be a church that reaches a city. It’s helpful and insightful. TGC uses mid-sized groups for missional communities which fit within a larger Parish Model of church. This model appears to be too layered for Austin City Life. TGC has what appears to be 4-5 layers of church:
6 Week Gathering, Neighborhood Churches, Missional Communities, Life Groups, and Triads.
Austin City Life currently has three layers of church:
Sunday Gathering – City Groups – Fight Clubs
However, as we continue to grow, a new structure or missional expression of ACL will be necessary.
Models of Decentralized Missional Church
The Parish Model is just one among several ways to configure churches comprised of missional communities. As Austin City Life continues to grow, we are considering various models of growth. Will we use a mid-sized structure or just move to plant new expressions/church of Austin City Life? We will remain a decentralized missional church, but the question before us is “How?”As we attempt to work this out, we have found other models and partners in ministry to be very helpful.
Other Churches
Other friends who have been helpful in thinking through decentralized missional church are:
- Soma Communities Church – uses the term Expressions to communicate the gathering of missional communties into a larger forms of church
- Kaleo Community Church – missional communities gather into three church locations.
- Kairos Church – uses the term Canvas to communicate the gathering of missional communities to form Neighborhood churches
- The Crowded House – uses the term Gospel Communities for missional communities
- Trinity Grace Church - uses Life Groups to form bigger Missional communities which form Neighborhood Churches.
So it really seems like all of these are multi-location expressions of the church, but I wonder what do you mean when you say decentralized, and where does the emphasis on decentralized church come in biblically?
Part of the discussion has to be what is the church, and what do we mean when we say church? Above you seem to put church as synonymous with worship gathering? Not that, thats your entire expression.
Ed Clowney has a good section on the idea of defining church in broader and narrower ways in the IV book “The Church”
Just thinking out loud.
Good questions, Sam.
First, some of these churches see themselves as not merely as “multi-location” but also as multi-church.
Second, when I say “decentralized” I am referring to an organizational structure for the people of God to live out the gospel in the community of Christ. Centralized church offers one primary structure, the Sunday gathering, to organize the people of God. Decentralization vs. centralization is an open-handed issue, a method not a doctrine, and does not need biblical backing. However, there are examples of decentralized church in the NT, i.e. house churches vs. city churches.
I am particularly convinced of this decentralized method because of its facility to enable the people of God to obey Christ’s commands to love one another, serve one another, forgive one another, encourage one another, bear one another’s burdens and so on. Obedience to these commands is almost impossible without some decentralized organizational structure, i.e. small groups, community groups, cells, missional communities.
Third, you have misread me altogether. I do not see the church as synonymous with the worship gathering. Rather, I see the church as a missionary community created by the Spirit on the mission of Christ that gathers in different ways and for different purposes. I believe this mission should be carried out in community in centralized and decentralized ways–public gatherings and public and private scatterings.
Keep thinking! Thanks for the sharpening.
Dude, what missional church planter in his right mind would want to mange the complexities of this structure?! Triads, Missional Communities, Neighborhood Churches…sure. If Missional Communities are 30-50 people and a Neighborhood Church is multiple MCs, that is easily a self-sustaining community. Fine, call it part of your Network of churches. Release! I like the thinking behind it, but the beauty of missional is simplicity…freeing up people to be the church, not making internal structures complex, no matter how much good each environment serves. As a leader, you have to pick out the best from the good. Jonathan, I agree with your 3 environments at ACL(we have the same), and anticipate your 4th environment would be a plant.
Yeah, I tend to agree Zac. I am leaning towards a plant as our 4th environment, perhaps a plant under the banner of ACL, perhaps not. I’d love for John and others to make a case for mid-sized groups.
Yeah I didnt think you saw church that way. I think the challenge is how to explain what one is doing. I heard Keller pitch Trinity Grace’s model and it didnt sound very crazy.
I guess there would be people out there that say centralization or decentralization are closed handed things. Ie Anglican Vs SBC. But in the daily running of their church their people might not see a big difference.
Im still fuzzy on your def. of decentralized. Is it like Goodmanson’s diagram that he did up at Kaleo.
Yes, Goodmanson’s diagram is an example of one way to decentralize the church.
To decentralize a church is to not put most of your effort into pulling off a centralized Sunday gathering, but to put most of your effort into starting and multiplying smaller units of church, i.e. cells, missional communities, house churches.
I get where you are going. I like Timmis’ take that we dont have to degrade gatherings, but rather we must change peoples thinking that we “go to church”. Worship gatherings are one part of being the church, but not the only part. I was out at Harbor Presbyterian, and they are doing this kind of thing in the presbyterian tradition. At some point it seems like it takes more work to stay together a one “church” than to plant many churches. Zac was pointing to the difficulty of this.
Gents,
These are great questions and discussion. Let me clarify why we do things this way at Trinity Grace.
1. Our model is specifically designed for an urban context, and by that I mean city center Manhattan etc. Our culture is so dominant and transient, that we need these core anchor gatherings, at these different levels, otherwise things disintegrate. People simply come and go, and without a core structure, they dissolve. And I dont mean head off in an empowered organic way, i mean fizzle into nothing. This is because people in New York have no margin outside of their jobs to plant churches on the side. This is something Keller told me about, that I thought was wrong, but now embrace as a city reality. In my 4 years in New York, I seen leader after leader come in with a purely organic model, and it literally amount to nothing after years of work. I think this may be specific to New York, so if people have more margin elsewhere, I would empower them and send them out.
The biggest frustration I have with what we are doing, is that is is so urban specific, that it probably doesn’t translate elsewhere. We are trying to contextualize for New York, and think others churches in different contexts are probably way better examples and models for others. “Pick the best from the good” Amen.
2. Partnership amongst neighborhood churches. I have tried for years to work together with other churches in tangible ways in the city, but we never have come down to actually doing anything together of consequence. We all affirm each other (I love that church, great pastor etc) but never seem to network. The reason we want neighborhood churches under one banner, is that built into our time, gatherings, finances etc, is missional activities in different neighborhoods. We have seen incredible fruit doing this together, rather than on our own.
3. Back to Zach, “Dude, what missional church planter in his right mind would want to mange the complexities of this structure?”
Its not so much management as collaboration amongst neighborhood leaders. It is not top down beaurocracy, but teams dreaming and empowering others together. It doesn’t feel like a giant machine, but more a functional family of leaders with specific vision working together for a greater impact.
I also would add, if you are ever in New York, I would love to take you out for coffee and show you around and let you see what we are doing. Structure on paper, is totally different than in real life, and I would love to you meet our people.
If any of you are in the city, hit me up. jon@trinitygracechurch.com and I pray Gods real power and blessing on whatever you are doing, in your own place.
Cheers.
Hi all, happened to chance upon this blog. And I’m liking this thing about taking one another out for coffee. So if any of you drop-by Singapore, would gladly buy you coffee and show you around the community.
Cheers!
Justin
I’ll let you know next time I’m in that part of the world!