Author: Jonathan Dodson

Simple and Missional are not Church Models

Posted on November 11, 2008

Loved this from Ed Stetzer’s new article, “Simply Missional”:

There are so many unaddressed issues in our books (intentionally so) that prevent “missional” and “simple” from being comprehensive church models…

All types of churches should be simply missional. What we are advocating is for church leaders to distill their ideology of what church is to the irreducible minimum that defines a church as God’s gathered people, sent to a particular community as His redemptive gift to that community.

We need all types of missional churches–big, small, traditional, contemporary, with country music (did we say that?), hip-hop, some with guitars, some with organs. We need churches in homes and churches in well-marked buildings.

The container is not the issue. The issue is not staying contained.

Members/Partners Class – II

Posted on November 10, 2008

We 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.

Austin City Life Partner’s Class Material