5 Signposts of a Missional Church

thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

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3. Missional churches practice the gospel in accountable community. 

A third characteristic of missional churches is a recapturing of the Book of Acts type of community. A big emphasis is placed on the image of “the body of Christ” and the “one anothers” of the New Testament. The idea here is that church must move beyond Sunday into an accountable, small-group environment for Sunday to take its full effect. For those exploring the faith, this will be the third step in their journey toward faith: being willing to take part in the heart of the radical community they witnessed.

This step is important, because without the accountable community, there is no radical community. The accountable community is at the heart of the missional church because it’s the DNA of those who are working together, serving together and showing hospitality together—without this piece, the missional aspect of church is lost.

4. Missional churches reproduce the gospel in discipled community. 

Missional churches need solid leadership in order to create, sustain and guide these smaller, radical, accountable communities. This is why a big emphasis is placed on discipleship in the missional church.

Some in the missional church might object to differentiating between “accountable” and “discipled,” but increasingly, church leaders are seeing the need for something even deeper than small groups for real discipleship to occur. This is why many churches have begun to emphasize that, in addition to small groups, smaller, more intimate gatherings of three to five, or even one-on-one, need to be activated alongside.

These discipleship groups are typically one-year processes, where someone who has been discipled takes on a handful of others to lead them through some rigorous leadership training. The training typically includes equipping for spiritual disciplines, some systematic/biblical theology and some practical guidelines on how to lead a small group/disciple others.

5. Missional churches multiply the gospel through sent communities.

Finally, missional churches recognize that maintaining intimate, radical communities is difficult to do in established institutions that have been sitting around for a decade or so. The leadership of the church becomes dominated by “insiders,” and the vision for radical outreach to the lost vanishes.

For this reason, missional churches place a big emphasis on church planting, or “sent” communities. These sent communities continually keep the sending church in touch with those who are just coming into the church, and statistically speaking have proven to be the best way to reach the unreached (there’s a lot that goes behind this … I recommend Keller’s Center Church for an explanation).

So, what’s the missional church “model”? 

The answer is: any “model” that embraces all five facets of the missional church—it displays radical community, it explains the gospel foundations through worship, it allows for exploration in accountable community, it reproduces itself through rigorous discipleship, and it continually sends pastors and members into local and international communities for outreach. So long as those five sign-posts are up, you can officially consider your church one of the cool kids.

Even without the skinny jeans.  

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nicholasmcdonald@churchleaders.com'
Nicholas McDonaldhttp://www.Scribblepreach.com
Nicholas McDonald is husband to lovely Brenna, father to Owen and Caleb, M.Div student at Gordon Conwell Theological seminary and youth/assistant teaching pastor at Carlisle Congregational Church. He graduated with his Bachelors in Communication from Olivet Nazarene University, studied literature and creative writing at Oxford University, and has spoken internationally at camps, youth retreats, graduations, etc. He blogs about writing, preaching and the arts at www.Scribblepreach.com, which has been featured on The Gospel Coalition, Knowlovelive.org and Challies.com. He currently resides in South Hamilton, MA.

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