Here are four helpful ways to keep an Organic (or any church) on mission, taken from Neil Cole and expanded upon by yours truly.
Practice of Prayer
Don’t rely on your cultural exegesis, persuasive personality, strong leadership, or big vision. Rely on God for growth. Pray for the harvest and for laborers to join the harvest. As one our launch team members pointed out, Jesus tells the 70 disciples he sent on mission to already begin praying for more missional disciples, more organic kingdom laborers in the harvest. Consider having launch team members host regular prayer meetings, rotating from house to house, neighborhood to neighborhood, to contextualize prayer and mission.
Pockets of People
In Jesus’ sending of the 12 and 70 (Luke 9&10), he sent them to houses and with very little (no food, extra clothes, money). The disciples were forced to rely on God and the would-be community of faith to grow the kingdom. Look for people who are connected in your communities and spend time with them, have dinners and parties in their homes, get on board with giving the kingdom away. Identify pockets of people in coffeeshops, clubs, restaurants, etc and spend time there. Avoid heavy-handed leadership and cultivate leadership early on. Cole notes that some of these folks may be unrepentant sinners, but that “bad people make good soil.”
Power of Presence
Expect God to do powerful things. Cole says that “Where you go, the King goes, and where the King goes, people bow” (OC, 177). Exercise faith as you live missionally.
Person of Peace
Look for people who come to Christ to be people of peace, people who lead to new relational and cultural networks through which we can spread the gospel to make our communities and cities better places to live. Whether they have a good or bad reputation, God wants to bless them with salvation and multiply his grace through them. Jesus delivered a demoniac and sent him to ten cities to spread the gospel.