Tag Archives: 3dm

Feb 28 2013

How to…start a Missional Community

In previous blogs we have looked at many of the principles and activities that go into the life of a Missional Community. As we look at some of the steps we need to take in starting an MC I am assuming that it is all being done with the agreement and blessing of the leadership of the church.

athletics track lanesStarting a Missional Community isn’t just a matter of going through a check list of tasks. There are practical steps that need to be taken as you begin, but they follow later in the process. As we have started MCs and helped others to start them the first thing we have done is ask a couple of questions. Those questions are:
  • What is God saying to YOU?
  • What is on your heart?
  • What are you passionate about?
Missional Communities are vision and passion led.

Over the past few years of leading and observing MCs we have identified that a clear vision and sense of calling have been a key factor to determine whether we see breakthrough in establishing a community.

In his book ‘The Forgotten Ways’ Alan Hirsch writes challengingly:

‘The most vigorous forms of community are those that come together in the context of a shared ordeal or, communities who define themselves as a group with a mission that lies beyond themselves – thus initiating a risky journey. Over-concern with safety and security, combined with comfort and convenience have lulled us out of our true calling and purpose.’

So for me the first step in starting an MC is to LISTEN. Listen to what God is saying to you. As you listen to God you might want to ask yourself a number of questions:
  • What is my heart’s desire? What do I long to see happen?
  • What do I ache for? What do I hope for?
  • What is my holy discontent? What do I long to see changed?
As you listen to God you will DISCERN.
  • Who am I called to?
  • Where am I called to?
This is followed with LOOKING and LISTENING.
  • Where are the opportunities to love and serve?
  • Where are the people and places of peace?
  • Where can we be good news to people?
  • What does good news look like to people?
As your vision for the MC becomes clearer you will need to write it down and share it with others who you see as potential leaders with you. Having refined and defined your vision and gathered a team who share your vision, you can begin to look at some of the other key principles that go into a Missional Community. Others have written about these in more detail but I do want to emphasise two.

Firstly ensure that the UP/IN/OUT principles are central to the life of your MC. Secondly make your MC Lightweight and Low maintenance. (For the 5 Essential Ingredients of a Missional Community see Mike Breen’s post from 3DM US.)

You are now ready, or as ready as you will ever be, to start your MC. Having a clear vision and knowing who and where you are called to will help answer the practical questions of where and when to meet.

So what do you do?

Just get going. Step out in faith and enjoy the adventure.

One of the promises that God gave us as we went on this journey is from Exodus 33:14 ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’
david and jenny rosser

David Rosser lives in Durham with his wife Jenny. They have been involved in the development and implementation of missional communities for the past 11 years.

Image courtesy of mack2happy / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Dec 11 2012

Autumn Round-Up

 

This week, a round-up of some interesting posts from other blogs and other places in the last few weeks – just in case you missed them!

alex absalom

 

Who Can Lead a Missional Community? – 5 things RiverTree Church in Ohio, USA look for when looking at potential Missional Community Leaders, by Alex Absalom

 

 

 

3dmuk logo

 

An interview with 2 mums on how they do discipleship and mission as a family from 3dmUK.

 

 

 

jo saxton

 

Jo Saxton ponders What does it take to inspire a generation?

 

 

pinterest

 

The 3dm Pinterest board has boards for UP, IN and OUT ideas for MCs as well as meal ideas and other inspiration. Check it out!

 

 

 

anna robinson

 

and finally, a reflection on Jesus as The Ultimate Incarnationalist from Anna Robinson at 3dmUK.

Aug 28 2012

August Blogs: 3DM Daily Devotionals

 

Over August the MC Blog team are taking a break from writing whilst we abide and rest. To give you some food for thought and things to chew on whilst we do that we are posting a series of links to other blogs, articles, downloads and books we want to share with you. We hope you enjoy them!

N.B. These posts have been pre-set to automatically post so any comments might not be moderated until a later date.

 

Our 3DM team in the US meet each morning for a daily devotional and then upload the audio of it to their site for the rest of us to listen to. If you want some short devotionals to listen to then why not head over to have a listen, or you can catch them via their Facebook page too.

 

 

Aug 14 2012

August Blogs: Verge Network

 

Over August the MC Blog team are taking a break from writing whilst we abide and rest. To give you some food for thought and things to chew on whilst we do that we are posting a series of links to other blogs, articles, downloads and books we want to share with you. We hope you enjoy them!

N.B. These posts have been pre-set to automatically post so any comments might not be moderated until a later date.

 

An advocate and champion for movements of gospel-centered Missional Communities, Verge Network exists for church leaders, students, entrepreneurs, artists, urban innovators, business leaders, community development specialists, non-profit leaders, church planters and everyday leaders – anyone pursuing the mission of God, in community, whatever the context, for the sake of the Gospel.

If you subscribe to their email updates you can get this free book ‘Simple Ways to be Missional’ which includes lots of practical ideas about how to live a missional life in your town, neighbourhood and workplace.

Subscribe here

There are many articles and videos on the Verge website including this video by Jo Saxton on her stories of hope and struggle in Missional Communities.

Jun 21 2012

Sustaining a Life of Mission…Bible

 

One of the first things I remember being told in cluster leader training (clusters were prototype Missional Communities back in the day), was to avoid the temptation of letting them just become a group bible study and make sure they stayed ‘Out’ focussed. That’s still very important.

But, if we’re serious about growing as disciples, and seeing others discipled through our communities, then we’re going to have to be serious about getting into scripture together too. So how do you get your community into the bible, without turning your community into a bible study group?

One of the things we’ve found most helpful, is to focus effort on getting core members of the community excited about studying the same bits of the bible on their own or in twos and threes. When this works it means that the whole community is reading and thinking about the same things, and so you have natural things to talk about and wrestle through when you get together.

One time we set each other a challenge, to read the New Testament all the way through one summer. One of our resident geeks set up an online table so we could check when we’d done our reading and keep each other accountable. It became competitive not to fall behind, and really helped us chew over scripture together (I should say we tried this with the Old Testament as well, but found it a lot harder to keep going) and provide a catalyst for a number of us going deeper with God.

Other times we’ve read through Christian books together and then come to discuss them as though in a book group. This can work well, especially if it’s a book full of bible references. (Mike Breen’s Covenant and Kingdom might be a good one to do for a short season).

With our community right now we’re using the Old and New Testament readings from the Anglican lectionary (although we don’t tell people that’s where we got it.) You could also use the 3dm daily devotionals, or there are many other similar online devotional guides.

We’ve found that it is far easier to get people into reading God’s book when you approach it as a community. We’ve also found starting this works really well when your community is in more of a relaxed and restful season.

How have you got your community passionate about getting into the bible?

 

Ben Askew lives in Deal, in the far south-east of England. He is married to the beautiful and talented Helen and they have two children.  Ben and Helen have been involved in leading missional communities for the last 10 years and are particularly passionate about seeing the emerging generations discover God’s love.   Right now they are working for a church in Deal while Ben is also training for ordination.  You can connect with him more at benaskew.tumblr.com.

 

(The brilliant photo is by Matthew Kirkland and was found on flickr)

May 31 2012

When it went wrong…and what we learnt: team

In any human enterprise it is inevitable that at times things will go wrong and Missional Communities are no exception. Sometimes these are major events that lead to the breakup of a community, but more often they are ‘little local difficulties’ that cause the leadership a time of concern. Handled properly they don’t have any long term negative effects on the community. Rather, in my experience, they lead to the strengthening of the group and enable growth to happen.

In our early days of establishing a Missional Community we had an occasion when our carefully made and agreed plans for the evening were turned upside down. One of the members of the leadership team, without any warning, introduced an entirely random activity to the group. Not only did it catch us unawares but it didn’t fit into anything we had agreed and prepared. Although it meant lots of instant re-arranging we got through the evening.

As can be imagined, some of the leadership team found this easier to deal with than others. We had to face the fact that we had a ‘loose cannon’ on the team and that we were going to have to find a way of dealing with it. So what did we learn from this?

Allow space for the unexpected. Spontaneity is important. In this instance it wasn’t, but for us as leaders we saw the need to be open and relaxed.

Low control is good but High Accountability is equally important.

Accountability is vital. When we discussed the whole thing as a team we each came to see that we all had to learn this. In this particular instance it was the one person going against what had been agreed without reference to anyone else that caused the problem. There had been discussion and agreement but it was obvious that there wasn’t at this stage an understanding of mutual accountability. We all saw that it was possible for any one of us to act in the same way.

Open and honest conversation is a vital part of being a team. It would have been easy to insist that we always stuck to the agreed programme and challenge the person about their behaviour. However we chose to have an open discussion and see what emerged. As we discussed the evening and its events everyone came to understand that this was a learning opportunity for all.

It was a Kairos moment for the Missional Community and its leadership team. We were able to put into practice all aspects of the Learning Circle*. We all learned and the team was strengthened. Over time it allowed for deeper discussion about the vision of the Community and how each of us related to it. This in turn led to the positive and creative multiplication into 3 new Missional Communities.

There are plenty of other things we learnt out of this one evening but above all we realised that we not only loved one another but that we really liked each other and could work together.


David Rosser lives in Durham with his wife Jenny. They have been involved in the establishing and development of Missional Communities for the past 10 years.

* For more on Lifeshapes go to www.weare3dm.com

May 14 2012

Missional Communities Round-up

 

We thought this week we would do a bit of a round-up of various things happening in the Missional Communities movement right now.  Here goes!

3dmUK are busy with another Learning Community in Sheffield this week, the last one in the 2-year cycle for the 500+ churches.  This has been a great Learning Community with lots of people really seeing God breakthrough in new ways in churches right the way from Bournemouth to East Kent to Leicester, Liverpool and Edinburgh!  If you want to find out more about Learning Communities then click here.

 

 

If you haven’t already seen it the 3dm HQ in the US has re-launched their website.  It is full of resources, blogs and reflections on what it means  to be missional disciples and churches in our world today. Their current promo carries the tagline ‘Keep Calm & Disciple On’.

 

 

We know you’re a fan of the Missional Communities Blog, but did you know that the 3dmUK also write a blog for leaders?  Their latest posts have been reflecting on the journey of discipleship and what that looks like, especially about the times when it can feel really discouraging.

“…the process of stepping out requires us to live uncomfortably, to stretch ourselves, and often to experience misunderstanding from others. This process happens personally for us as leaders, but is also something experienced by the congregation. But take a look through the gospels…. doesn’t this sound familiar? Isn’t this precisely the place we often find the disciples?”

To read more head over to the blog here.

Finally, a story about getting started from a new Missional Community based in Deal, Kent.

I lead an MC with my husband called Imagine. We are a community of young adults seeking to share our lives together throughout the week, encourage each other to go deeper in our walks with God and reach out together to other young adults in our town. We have spent time helping one person with her regular craft fairs, another couple with the youth work they are involved in; we have done prayer walks and times of extended worship together, we have eaten together a fair amount and sought to bring those on the fringes of church into our community.

In the next few months we are looking to find the places where young adults hang out in our town (sports clubs, music groups etc) and go and join in. We hope to be able to run some faith-based discussion groups or an Alpha course for young adults. We love bringing people together in a community like this because it is just the right size to be able to get things done together, but not so big that we can’t know each other really well.  We are a fairly young community but we are really excited about all that God is going to do with us and through us over the coming months!

That’s all for this post!  We pray for God’s blessing on you as you seek to reach out to others with His love!