As I continue to struggle and learn about leading a new, organic, missional church I have found that revision and change are quite common. This goes against my grain, as I want to have Austin City Life “figured out,” for which I am repenting. The church is not a problem to be solved or a company to be run; it is a community of Spirit-led disciples. The challenge for me is to keep coming back to the Spirit-ledness of my own discipleship and leadership, instead of relying on my well-reasoned plans alone.

Van Gelder’s The Ministry of the Missional Church has been a real help. His book integrates biblical theology of mission with organizational theory. In his chapter on Spirit-led growth and development he surveys the growth and development of the early church in Acts. His observations have been liberating and instructive in helping me follow the Spirit while leading an organic church. They have released me from self-imposed pressure to have the strategic plan nailed down and church ryhthms and structure perfected. Van Gelder notes that Spirit-led growth and development occur:

1. In the context of conflict (Acts 6), where widows are neglected and, as a result, deacons are appointed. They did not have deacons figured out; the church responded to the Spirit in the midst of conflict in order to lead the missional church. It is okay to not know everything about everything, to have your entire leadership structure figured out, but look for the needs and meet them with Spirit-led, biblical paradigms.
2. In adverse circumstances of Acts 8, the church was disobeying its missionary charge by remaining in Jerusalem. Persecution broke out that scattered Christians into Gentile territory, advancing the mission of the church. I run into adverse circumstances every week that drive me to prayer, but do they drive me into mission?
3. From ministry in the margins in Acts 11, Jewish Christians began to learn more about the gospel and mission by sharing the faith with ethnically and culturally different peoples. As a result, the full breadth of mission began to take shape. This is really true in my experience. As I have been spending some time with Burmese refugees, God has been correcting me and my notions of church through this fledgling group of marginal christians and non-christians.
4. From intentional strategy in Acts 13-19, where Paul and others sought converts from the culturally and theologically near people in synagogues. Most of us don’t need to hear this; we are too intentional in our strategies, so intentional that we strategize God out of our plans.
5. From divine intervention in Acts 16, where God redirected Paul from Asia to Macedonia. In other words, be prepared to change, expect God to redirect, chuck your pride and open your eyes and ears to God’s providence in leading your church.
6. From new insights into gospel and culture in Acts 10 & 15. Peter’s major shift on secondary issues like unclean and clean things after encountering Cornelius. See my comments on the marginal (#3). When I asked the Burmese house church leader if we could buy them Bibles (they only had six or so), she said: “Pray that they would be hungry.” This Burmese woman discipled me on the spot from her fresh vantage point of being a resource-dry pastor. She knew that buying Bibles doesn’t make disciples; God makes disciples by giving them a hunger for him.

“It is essential to have a strategy, but it is also essential to be alert to the disruptions and interruptions of the Spirit.”

Austin City Life has been planted with the conviction that in order for our community to “be the church to the church and the church to the world” we must live in the tension of mission and community. As a very new church plant, we have felt this tension from the beginning. At times I could feel the need for more connectivity, prayer, and sharing. Other times I could sense the decline in missional passion and practice. Instead of creating two meetings, one for community and one for mission, I shared the tension I felt with the group but told them that I thought the best thing to do was to live in the tension of imperfect community and mission, not to resolve it. As a result, core team meetings eventually became a hybrid of community and mission (though there were several months of organic community before official core team meetings). Some nights we would connect relationally other nights we wouldn’t. Some nights we strategized mission for two hours with very little interpersonal connection. However, both forms of core team meetings afforded us the opportunity to develop and experience missional ecclesiology, to understand and experience what God has called us to as a church: Jesus-centered, missional community.

Now that our church has moved beyond core team meetings and into structured, organic growth we have launched our City Groups: local, urban missional communities that share life and truth and redemptively engage people and culture. City groups are geographically-based, inter-generational communities of Christians and non-Christians that gather together weekly to share food, discussion, and mission. Each CG develops a Social Strategic Partnership (SSP) with an area organization, i.e. Capitol Food Bank, Ronald McDonald House, in order to bring the whole gospel to the whole city.

City Groups face the same tension of community and mission as our core team did. It is up to the me and the City Group leaders to learn how to shepherd others through this tension. One way we deal with it is thru our current CG material. I have written an eight week study called The Story of Scripture and Our Place in It, which is intended to acquaint those old and new to the faith with the basic plotline of the Bible: Creation/Fall/Redemption/New Creation. The material is largely discussion-driven, tapping into the felt needs such as sense of brokenness (Fall), longings for justice (New Creation) and so on in order to show that God in the Word offers us a world and life that fulfills and surpasses what we all long for. So, the material is both missional and communal in theme. It’s like we are constantly reinforcing the mission-community tension. Some groups are more missional than others and others more communal than others, but we don’t expect perfection; we expect tension. However, this tension can be peaceful; if embraced from the position of our acceptance and salvation in the gospel of Christ. So, we keep coming back to Jesus…for forgiveness, direction, community, grace. It’s an imperfect model that is in desperate need of a perfect Savior.

We are in the foundational stages of establishing the Austin Area Church Planters Network. The network has grown out of a group of cross-denominational planters intent on learning from one another and catalyzing a church planting movement in the Austin area. After eight months as a grassroots movement, the AACPN is now formalizing in order to strategically facilitate a Christ-centered, context-sensitive church planting movement for social and spiritual renewal of Austin and beyond. The purpose of this emerging network is to inspire, network, and resource church planters.

The potential of this organization is inestimable. There is an incredible level of kingdom-mindedness among evangelicals in Austin. Our board is comprised of a diverse group, four church leaders and four planters, including representatives from Hill Country Bible, ABBA, First Evangelical Free, & ABA. Here are some of the benefits for developing a network like this in your city:

Benefits of a Network

· Offering City-wide Planter Assessment

· Networking with other planters

· Shared cultural, demographic knowledge of the city

· Shared Best practices

· Learning the church planting landscape in the city

· Kingdom Cooperation

• Developing strong pastoral relationships and accountability

· Connecting established missional leaders with new planters

· Directing visitors who don’t fit your church to other church plants

· Catalyzing a cross-denominational church planting movement

If any readers are aware of similar networks in other cities, please feel free to leave a link in the comments section. We are eager to learn from others who are doing similar things.

In addition to holding to a clear vision, missional leadership involves facilitating the emergence of novelty by building and nurturing networks of communications; creating a learning culture in which questioning is encouraged and innovation is rewarded; creating a climate of trust and mutual support; and recognizing viable novelty when it emerges, while allowing the freedom to make mistakes. – Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 233

Unfortunately, it is precisely this question-asking and viable novelty that most leaders fear. The traditional, modern paradigms of leadership advocate a top-down, answer-possessing, anti-novelty approach. Yet, if we will lead remaining open to the power and insight of the Spirit in the Church, we will reap dividends and live out the priesthood of the believers! Oh, do I have room to grow in this!