from church-starters to movement starters
A thought-provoking sharing from Roger over at simplechurchjournal.com:
… As mentioned, starting house churches and discipling viral disciplers (who gather in house churches) might look very similar on the outside. But the process is very different! When we start house churches, our focus tends to be on the gathering—what to do, how to do it, what it looks like, etc. We say to ourselves that we are learning to “be” the church 24/7 (and we may even go do missional things), but often our priority remains on developing the structure/form of simple house church gatherings. When following Jesus and inviting others to follow him becomes our focus (discipling viral disciples), we will have to shift from the “gathering” mentality to the “lifestyle-going” mentality. This shift changes the processes we walk out from top to bottom. And, this shift will propel us from being church-starters to movement starters (where churches spring up along the way).
There is much more to share about the process of discipling viral disciplers, but suffice it to say that it does ask us to examine our own “followership” as a starting point. Jesus, the adventurous, undomesticated, on-the-move God invites us to join him daily where He is working. What does that look like for me today? What does it really mean for me, today, to be the church (Jesus’ follower) in the world? From that starting point, we can begin to look at and grasp a process that will “infect” others who will then “infect” others to fully follow Jesus. Ah… a movement!
Read it all here.
If being gospel-centered and being gospel community-centered are the two overarching principles to govern the practice of church and mission, I guess what we need to ask is this: where should the gospel community be found today? Should they be found or confined to a building, or should they be going (individually and communally) out, making disciples of Christ? Is the community of faith formed through gatherings, or with practices and actions? Or both?