My friend lowered her head and lamented what she considered her church’s major flaw. “Missional communities; they’re just not interested in fostering them,” she said. At the time, I couldn’t understand why this burdened her. I had never heard anyone talk about it.
Soon after, I began to hear “missional community” more and more often in Christian circles. There’s nothing new under the sun, and trends come and go, sadly even in the Christian church. But missional community, I’ve found over time, is not a new trend and it’s not a buzzword.
Missional community––or living missionally in community––is Biblical. And God wants us to live our lives within missional communities for one important reason: through them, we strive together to be living examples of His love and share the gospel. In community, we are spiritually strengthened for the mission of being light in the world (Matthew 5:14-16).
I can now understand why my friend was so saddened that those in her church weren’t making an effort to live missionally together. But in the absence of a church body to align with this passion for missional community, I believe we can and should invite others to live missionally with us and in this way build missional communities of our own.
Understanding Missional Community
What is a missional community?
I’ve observed that many people in the church (myself included) are almost always crying out for community.
We want to gather with other Christians who share similar interests and with whom our lives coincide. That’s not always possible. We live far from church, our schedules don’t line up, or when they do, we realize we don’t have anything in common––at least with those in the Bible study located closest to us.
We seek community for a mutual building up of our faith, and rightly so. We’re looking for Godly friendships, accountability, a place to grow and “do life together.” As good as these things are, when we talk about missional community, these benefits are not the driving force. They’re not supposed to be.
A missional community is a group of Christians who does life together, but do so with the intent to share Jesus.
A missional community enriches our desire for community, turning that desire outward for the sake of the world. Our alignment centers around our mutual inclination to help others experience the love of Jesus.
Missional communities in the Bible
The Acts 2 church
John Frederick David, of The Lausanne Movement, has this to say about the apparent newness of missional communities:
“Missional communities aren’t a new program or strategy, but a return to how the early church lived out their faith, as described in Acts 2:42-47, where their communal life and devotion to God attracted others to the faith.”
In his article on missional communities, David calls it crucial to the spread of the gospel. And indeed, as we see it in Acts 2:42-47, we owe the growth of the early church and those being saved to missional communities.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” — Acts 2:42–47
What were the earliest Christian communities like? They were both extremely communal and missional at once. The early church sought one another out at every turn, for encouragement during persecution, for a place to gather and discuss Jesus. They shared meals, met needs, worshiped and prayed side by side. They sustained each other physically and spiritually.
The early church thrived because they lived out their faith together in community. But it was their penchant for gathering together “with glad and sincere hearts” as they praised God that made all the difference. I can only imagine it promoted an environment that drew people in and nurtured their first steps of faith in Christ.
They shared the gospel, the good news of Jesus, with their lives.
The joy of missional community living
Missional community not only enriches our lives but also serves as a powerful form of Christian witness. It’s the love of the gospel modeled between Christians for the world to see.
“They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” — Acts 2:46–47, NIV
One of our writers, Alexandra Rodriguez, sums it up well in this blog post:
“True community—genuine, Christ-centered relationships—is one of the most compelling witnesses to a watching world. When those outside of a relationship with Jesus see how we as Christians live our lives alongside one another, serving each other out of genuine love and care, it shows them a picture of what life looks like as a part of God’s kingdom, as part of His family. This picture of love in action shines a light in a world longing for connection, revealing the gospel in a practical and tangible way.”
The early church thrived because they lived out their faith together in community.
I’m reminded of one of my favorite passages of Scripture, Psalm 133, where the psalmist reflects:
How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore.
A missional community is a picture of the gospel to a world that yearns for true community––love, forgiveness, peace and unity through Christ. The reason for our displays of humility, gentleness and unity? To live worthy of the calling to which we have been called––the mission of the gospel (Ephesians 4:1-6). But also as proof that we are truly Jesus followers.
Jesus said: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:35).”
Missional community—what it’s not
It seems to me that in order to have impact, missional communities don’t operate in exclusivity and don’t meet only to serve their members. Their love for each other and the genesis of that love––a Godly pursuit of Jesus––is visible and palpable to the world around them. That being said, there are a few important things to note that missional community is not.
A Bible study
Is a missional community the same as a Bible study? If our sole purpose is to read the BIble with other Christians and discuss it, then no, we’re not quite being a missional community. We’re learning and growing together, for sure, but it’s when we apply what we’re learning beyond the walls of our meeting room that we begin living missionally together.
This means we regularly talk to others (and not just believers) about the truths we find in Scripture and how they’re changing us with the help of the Holy Spirit. We pray together for those unreached with the gospel, at home and abroad.
A regular church event
As a community of believers dedicated to glorifying God and making disciples, missional community gatherings are not simply weekly events to attend.
I’m not rejecting the church’s participation in missional community or our participation in church events that are community-focused. We should definitely attend community outreaches hosted by our church. Our churches should be missional churches––and many are.
But a missional community church sees its greatest missional activity outside of church walls and beyond church programs, because those who benefit from it can’t or won’t come to church.
Surely you and I both know people who cannot or will not participate in a “church event.” Now imagine your group of friends, largely believers, deciding to meet up once a week at a local coffee shop and you invite anyone to join, including your friends who don’t know Jesus. It’s not an event. It’s life. That’s a missional community.
It’s not another item on the social calendar, a responsibility to tick off the list or somewhere to go on a weeknight or a weekend. This perspective shifts our focus from treating church as a place we attend to being the church out in the world.
A missional community is a picture of the gospel to a world that yearns for true community––love, forgiveness, peace and unity through Christ.
Small groups and life groups
It’s great to find common ground and attend weekly gatherings where we make lifelong friends. However, often for these groups the purpose is to find community only with each other. And life groups that solely aim for the feeling of community can fizzle out for lack of stronger motivation.
In this article from The Gospel Coalition, Pastor Todd Engstrom puts it this way:
“The danger in the church aiming for community, though, is that it typically becomes the destination. Once relationships have been established, and the need for friends has been met, that’s the way a community group stays. Community groups love to spend time together and have rich friendships, and the concept of “doing life” together is easy and appealing. But these kinds of groups often struggle because they lack the imperative of mission. They meet and live in community but do not engage in missionary activity. Once more appealing friendships or changes in life circumstances occur, a community group often dies out.”
This doesn’t mean that small groups and life groups can’t evolve into missional communities.
I’m in awe of a family of four in my church that has done this well. Although he is an elder and she is heavily involved in church, every second and fourth Sunday of the month they open up their home for lunch and fellowship. Their goal? To discuss and plan ways everyone in the group can reach out to their neighbors with the message of the gospel. This includes inviting their neighbors for dinner, checking in on them and welcoming them to church any given Sunday.
In seeing the need to reach out to their own neighbors, this family made their life group about everyone reaching out to their neighbors! And they include their two children. More importantly, the purpose of the life group extends beyond those who attend it. Its purpose lives on as long as those who attend it have neighbors who need to know Jesus.
An irregular gathering of strangers
A missional community functions like an extended family who regularly prays, engages in Bible study, shares meals, has fun, supports each other, but above all is dedicated to reaching their friends and neighbors with the love of Jesus. We’re talking about a collection of missional Christians with a vision and mission of community.
Missional communities:
- have family-like bonds, sharing their lives, resources and responsibilities.
- actively participate in God’s mission; they both proclaim the gospel and demonstrate it with their lives.
- are focused on a specific context, with many serving a particular neighborhood or a network of relationships.
- are held together by their commitment to each other and the mission.
- are empowered by the Holy Spirit; they rely on God’s guidance and strength in everything.
Missional community and discipleship
In this Desiring God article, writer Jeff Vandestelt centers on this idea of family or missional families over life groups or Bible study groups. “A missional community is a family of missionary servants who make disciples who make disciples. … The missional community is the best context in which this can happen.”
It’s not lost on me that, through their missional community, the family at my church is discipling other families as well as modeling how to share the gospel and disciple others. Their lives are not hidden away. They share it all, the good and the bad. They make their need for Jesus evident and long for others in their community to realize their need for Him as well.
We live missionally in our communities when we share every part of us, including our ever-evolving walk with Christ and how He changed us and continues to change us to be more like Him, often through trials and challenging relationships.
Missional communities are the foundation of missions abroad. In fact, one Jesus Film Project® resource, Knowing Jesus, relies on missional communities to multiply the gospel. People in unreached places gather in small groups to go through this curriculum. As they grow in Jesus through the material, they also learn to build new missional communities where they can lead others in knowing Jesus. In this way, the gospel spreads in community, as it did in Acts 2.
Who should take part in missional community?
Everyone––all of us––every single Christian, from oldest to youngest. Sometimes the busyness of work and home, of raising a family, can make it seem like missional living is not for us.
Missional community is for singles, spouses, friends and families.
For many single people, making new friends, maintaining friendships and finding one’s spouse can take top priority in where we commit the most energy. But I believe Christians can find these blessings in missional communities as well, all the while living out the Great Commission together.
Missional community living is meant to happen at home too. Here’s a great insight from John Fredrick David’s article on missional communities on The Lausanne Movement website.
“In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16, Paul highlights how a believer’s faithful conduct can have a sanctifying influence on their unbelieving spouse, potentially leading to their salvation. This demonstrates that the proclamation of the gospel’s power should not be confined to verbal proclamation, but must also be manifested in the daily lives and loving interactions of believers.”
Our families are the perfect nucleus for missional living and the best starting line for a missional community. For a great way to start conversations with your family about what it means to live on mission, download and explore our free resource Life on a Mission: A Family Devotional. This five-day devotional for families includes a coloring page, discussion questions and tips for living on mission.
Participating in Missional Community
How to build missional communities
Serve together
One of the most impactful and simplest ways to begin to practice missional community with others is to serve together. This could involve:
- Organizing or participating in local outreach events
- Partner with schools, shelters or food banks to coordinate fundraising or community drives. Sign up for a Saturday shift. I guarantee you other families or groups of friends will show up as well. Model the love of Jesus and engage in conversation while you serve. Consider collecting supplies for Unto, Cru’s humanitarian ministry.
- Hosting community meals or block parties
- Your home may not be large enough for hosting meals or a barbecue, but maybe the community center is, or your neighborhood pool.
A block party can be complicated if your neighborhood requires permits, but instead of blocking the street, you could suggest a set of street “open houses” in which several neighbors open up their homes for the afternoon, one for lunch and another for dessert.
Invite friends from church to bring a dish to share and introduce them to your neighbors. Have them return the favor next month when you get to meet their neighbors.
- Your home may not be large enough for hosting meals or a barbecue, but maybe the community center is, or your neighborhood pool.
- Offering tutoring or mentorship programs
- Many students do poorly in school and their parents cannot afford to provide them with a tutor. Could you step in and help someone you know? Other children just need a place to wait after the bell rings while their parents finish their work. Can you and your children model what a Christian family looks like to those children a couple of hours a week?
I once volunteered for a literacy program and became fast friends with the older gentleman I read alongside every week at the library. We otherwise wouldn’t have met, but we certainly visited the same local library. Even though I attended the program by myself, it was a great opportunity for me to live missionally by tapping into my community.
- Many students do poorly in school and their parents cannot afford to provide them with a tutor. Could you step in and help someone you know? Other children just need a place to wait after the bell rings while their parents finish their work. Can you and your children model what a Christian family looks like to those children a couple of hours a week?
These practical acts of love unite us around a common goal as well as meet tangible needs. Events and programs within the community are ideal soil for initiating new relationships, and these relationships may one day present an open door to sharing the gospel. Until then, it allows us to live according to Ephesians 5:8-10, as children of light, showing goodness, righteousness and truth.
More missional community ideas
Consider these three missional community ideas that others have found effective:
- Neighborhood prayer walks – praying for your community while walking through it.
- Cultural events – celebrating local festivals of holidays and finding ways to point back to the message of the gospel.
- Book clubs – gathering to read books that spur on thoughtful discussion and allow people to connect on a deeper level as they share their experiences, hopes and struggles.
Do these spark any ideas? Can you do something similar in your community?
In this The Gospel Coalition article, Pastor Engstrom defines a missional community this way: “A community of Christians, on mission with God, in obedience to the Holy Spirit, who demonstrate the gospel tangibly and declare the gospel creatively to a pocket of people.”
Look for promising pockets of people who not only need to hear about God’s love but need to experience it firsthand through your kindness and investment in their lives.
If I’ve successfully thought of pockets of people who need Jesus, I’ve already done half the work. Now I can look for promising pockets of time, energy, creativity and skill unique to me, me and my spouse, or to me and my family and friends, that could help me love others well and draw them to Jesus. And if there’s at least one other person who might be passionate about doing it with me, I can bring them along.
Overcoming challenges to missional community
We can expect regular challenges to living in missional community, from lack of transportation to lack of interest from our friends, and sometimes even from our church family. Even if everything lines up, the people and the means, living missionally in community will require extra creativity on our part. Sometimes it will require planning, pre-planning and rescheduling, as well as an intentional effort to make it happen regularly.
Busy lives
The regular rhythms of our lives are typically the biggest challenges to our spiritual pursuits. We’ll encounter conflicting schedules, limited resources and even waning enthusiasm. Maybe in this season of life, you’re caught up in caring for young children or aging parents. You may be starting a business or be absorbed in keeping one afloat.
Expect the distractions and the obstacles and try for it anyway.
Inconsistency and Inconvenience
Consistency has always been my greatest challenge. As I pursue missional community, I don’t mind gathering two weeks in a row, but three times feels like too much for this introvert. It’s easier to skip and revisit in a few weeks. But by then, I have to work up the nerve to participate again.
Sometimes it’s just inconvenient. Handing out waters and giving out gospel tracts downtown with my friend was easy to do when the weather was cooler. But now it’s about to be summer in Florida and I’d rather not sweat through my clothes. She’s also invited me and a few others to drive around to locations of little free libraries (large mailboxes that function as tiny community libraries) to place Bibles and gospel tracts inside them.
I have not said “yes” as much as I probably should have. But I have determined to say “yes” next time, because the spiritual investment has too high a return. When I’m consistent in pursuing missional community with like-minded believers, despite the inconvenience, I find spiritual strength and motivation to do it for myself when the moment arises. I also receive more opportunities to be Christlike in both word and action, which is eternally fulfilling.
Inviting Your Christian Community Into Missional Living With You
Am I practicing missional community?
These days, after many failed attempts at consistent missional community, I’m still a firm believer in taking the first step––however big or small. And the first step doesn’t always have to be an action; it can be an initial thought or asking and answering a set of questions to get you closer to doing.
Consider your life and your family’s life as it stands right now.
- Do I regularly go to any places where I have the opportunity to share Jesus and model Jesus? What are they? List them out. Who can do this with me?
- Do I have a solid Christian friend, or know of an older Christian with whom I can meet to learn how to share my faith? Who else can we add to our gathering?
- Where can my family integrate the message of Jesus into our existing social calendar? (Think of regular activities you do with your spouse, children or other family members in which you can plan to be examples of a God-surrendered life.)
I hope you were able to think of places where you can plant the seed of missional living and see it grow. More importantly, were you able to think of someone who can do it with you? The fruit it bears will be your example of Christlike faith, consistency and love for wherever and whoever you consider your community.
A life lived in a missional community
To learn more about missional communities and for more ideas on how to build them, review these great missional community resources.
- What is a “Missional Community”?
- How to Build a Missional Community
- Rethink the Ideal Missional Community
Now that you’re well-versed in the concept of missional community, my prayer is that it’s more than just a concept or an idea. I pray missional living is not just a term we understand, but that as Christians we naturally find ourselves in environments with people also dedicated to sharing Christ.
I pray you invite your Christian community into missional living with you. Don’t do it alone. You were never meant to. Share this blog with a friend. Then, go in prayer before the God who rejoices in small beginnings (Zechariah 4:10) and thank Him for your next opportunity to show and tell someone in your world about His love.
