The Church Planter Fellowship

THE DEVELOPING SEASON

Small Groups: Learning to Live Missionally

The church is largely disconnected from the harvest.

To bridge the gap churches host outreach events. Programs are a part of the solution, BUT people are the bigger part.

The Kingdom needs skilled workers to go into the harvest.

Church plants, by their nature, are relationally driven, NOT attractionally driven. You must equip and encourage your people to live on mission where they live, work, study, and play. It’s through relationships that the Kingdom grows.

Consider:

“The primary change agents in the spread of faith … were the men and women who earned their livelihood in some purely secular manner and spoke their faith to those whom they met in this natural fashion.”                      Kenneth Scott Latourette The History of the Expansion of Christianity V. 1 p. 116
The best place to develop these skills is in a small group.

Goal: To reach our neighbors and friends in ways that make sense.

Key Results:

1. People grow closer and more sensitive to God.

2. People grow closer to others in the group.

3. The congregation finds who is missing and brings them home.

SKILL 1: Communicate Missional Values to Your Small Groups.
Though your wording is probably different, these three activities are present in a relational and outward-focused church plant.
    • We Go: We gather, then scatter. We make it a habit to focus on loving lost people. This is our mission. We find a cause, a person, or a people group to love.
    • We Love: We share our lives together with one another at church and in the community. We stress being ourselves and the “one anothers.”
    • We Grow: Our job is to help people mature in Christ. We emphasize spiritual formation.
At the beginning of each small group meeting ask each person the following:
  1. Who did they pray for since the last meeting?
  2. Who did they care for since the last meeting?
  3. What has God taught them through praying and caring for others?
This helps them stay outward-focused, engaged with people outside your church plant, and grow closer to God.
SKILL 2: Orient Your Small Groups Members to Treating The Lost Well
When you train your leaders, emphasize how the lost were treated in the Bible.
  • How did Jesus relate to people outside the faith?
  • How about Paul?
  • Where did they find those outside our faith?
This is the model for your people to follow when treating those outside our faith. Your leaders will be coaching their small groups to this end. Developing these ministry skills works hand-in-hand with building the characteristics of compassion, empathy, and granting dignity.
When your train your leaders, emphasize the commitment to the tone God has toward the lost.
  • Which Scriptures help us understand the missional and compassionate themes of God?
  • Which Scriptures help us understand God’s concern for the lost and miserable?
Historian Rodney Stark makes a persuasive argument that showing mercy and compassion to the miserable during the early decades of Christianity was a major factor in its growth.
He also states, “Women were especially drawn to Christianity because it offered them a life that was so greatly superior to the life they otherwise would have led.”
            THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY:
            HOW THE JESUS MOVEMENT BECAME THE WORLD’S LARGEST RELIGION
As people answer the above three questions, train your leaders to listen for cues of group members treating the lost well. Celebrate those times. Highlight how treating them with compassion, empathy, and dignity makes our faith attractive.
SKILL 3: Each Small Group Member Develops A Personal Mission Field
Your people have already developed relationships with people. They will be their mission field. They are to pray and care for them. When the timing is right (we teach when in Making Disciples), they will naturally share how God has worked in their lives.
Ask your people to identify and list people by name where they:
      • Work: present and past employers
      • Live: home, neighbors, extended family
      • Study: your old schoolmates, your kid’s school.
      • Play: Yoga, Pickleball, Gym, Book Clubs, etc.
Use the following PDF Worksheet to record their answers.
  • Pick one person to pray for and one to care for every time you meet. If that is too much, then back off to every other time your meet. Caring for people can mean a multitude of big and little things. A great guide is The Golden Rule.
SKILL 4: Identify The Ways to Share Life Together that Will Be Attractive to Lost People.
This will be the relational Velcro that helps find those who are missing and bring them home.
  • How does the gospel help create this culture in a small group?
  • What would it look like if we ______________? (insert the “one anothers”) How would our community respond?
  • Start living this way.
SKILL 5: Identify how each small group will be an earthly good to their surrounding neighbors.
The idea is for each small group to become active and impact the community in ways that make sense to them.
    • Pray and think through the following:
      • What are we passionate about?
      • What would the posture of our hearts have to be to become an “earthly good to your surrounding neighbors?”
      • What are our giftings?
      • Where is God working?
      • What is God asking of us?
      • What does the community think is important?
      • Can we align any of those things with the themes we find in the Bible?
After answering these questions, have each small group choose what they would like to do.
SKILL 6: Determine Missional Effectiveness
  • These three questions are your scorecard when evaluating missional living.
    • Does it make a difference?
    • Does it make a relationship?
    • Does it make a disciple?

Next Sample: Develop Leaders So You Can Minister to More People in Better Ways