A missional community is a people not a place, selfless not selfish, neighbors not strangers, intentional not busy, servants not self- seeking.
Much is being written about missional communities, and even more so, many churches are renaming their small groups, community groups, support groups, etc. as missional communities, yet the only change that really happened is the name. This muddies the water for most trying to follow Jesus and understand what it means to be part of a missional community.
This isn’t a long description, but is one that will hopefully help with the conversation on why they are actually different than the church’s small groups.
1. A missional community is a people, not a place.
You can’t go to missional community. Many will say, “We are going to our small group,” or “We are going to our life group,” etc., but this cannot be said about missional communities.
A missional community is a family of missionary servants sent together to show and speak the good news to a particular context by the power of the Spirit.
They might have meetings or family meals, but their lives are so intertwined as family, one could not ever say that they are going to missional community. Think of it like a family. A family has meals, has meetings, has times when they plan things out, etc. But that is not the totality of who they are. They have unplanned things happen, interruptions, lives always intertwining, celebrations, times of mourning, fights, etc.
The point is, just like you can’t go to family (it’s who you are, not where you go) so too with missional community.
2. A missional community is selfless, not selfish.
Some of the first things most ask when they are looking to join a small group is:
a. What day and time do you meet?
b. What is the demographic of your people that meet with you?
c. What church do you attend?
d. What are you studying?
Notice these all have to do with the person as the center instead of the first missionary sent to us: Jesus.
