Community, Person of Peace, Questions, Transition, Up Making the Missional Breakthrough

Posted by alexabsalom ⋅ March 17, 2012 ⋅ 5 Comments

Filed Under  Breakthrough, Come

A friend emailed me, saying how they and their team are spending time hanging out with non-Christian friends…”but frankly I’m not sure it’s very missional: it just feels like, well, friends suggesting to other friends to go to the toy library together on a Saturday morning!

Our circle of non-Christian friends and contacts are all busy families so each time we meet it is a different set of people who tend to turn up… Our conversations tend to be regular ‘school/vacation/kids/work’ stuff… perhaps we are just no good at relating faith to these subjects and knowing how to talk fluently about God stuff? Or perhaps I just need to be patient.

I wonder still if we are being too discreet: we just invite people to hang out with us as friends and don’t make a big deal of it being a group of Christian friends at the core (some know this; others probably don’t). Or do we need add a more overtly ‘up’ activity that others can participate in to the mix?”

First off, here is a link to a blog post I did last year that might be helpful:

https://alexabsalom.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/theriskofyourneighborhood/

To this I would add that you are not alone.  At our GoCo leaders meeting on Thursday evening the same issue came up from some leaders.  I think the reality is that some groups find they first have to build community, and thus relational bridges, before they can do much ‘spiritual’ stuff.

Nevertheless, if you are sensing that you should be taking the next step, I would encourage you either to use something easy to stir spirituality (eg find a way to celebrate at Easter that builds upon relationships), or some service project that together people can be part of (“we’re doing this because we’re Jesus followers, but anyone can come be a part of this”).  You might even be able to combine the two!

With families, often parents do want their children to grow spiritually, but they feel pretty clueless yet don’t want to have to “buy into” the organized church experience (at first).  So a Missional Community is nimble enough to start to bridge this gap, by working out what it means to do and be church in that particular geographical and sociological context. Thus specifically for you: what can you do that enables your friends to encounter God, both through service and also by marking significant moments that cause us to be more open to the truths of Christ?

I think a key practice for MCs is celebration: how do we celebrate the individuals and communities that God is giving us relationship with?  Obviously birthdays, anniversaries, births, promotions, etc are all ideal for that.  Thinking about your wider context, how can your whole group (including your non-Christian friends) find ways to celebrate life – to be Good News – in your neighborhood or context?  So few people or organizations (including most churches, sadly) do this that the bar is pretty low!  We can also find fresh ways to celebrate some of the Christian festivals in ways that draw in our unchurched friends: Easter, Christmas, Lent, Advent, Pentecost, etc.  Try to boil them down to their essential core and then approach them in completely new ways that are designed to impact your missional context.

In all this don’t forget the importance of Person of Peace.  That person(s) will help you gain the breakthrough, so try to find ways to include them in planning your strategy.  Their perspective is valuable, so consider what might appeal to them and their oikos network of relationships.  Then run the idea by them, asking for their help and input on it all.  This is not a token thing – they really will help you to avoid pitfalls and to be successful!

I’d also encourage you to think about the naturally supernatural dynamic that I wrote about in the blog I linked to above, since that is a key breakthrough thing in many relationships.

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About alexabsalom

Check me out at http://about.me/alexabsalom! View all posts by alexabsalom »

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Discussion

5 Responses to “Making the Missional Breakthrough”

1. Very helpful post and link. Was wondering how you deal with the inevitable rejection of the gospel of some in an MC setting?

Posted by Matthew | March 18, 2012, 3:00 am

Reply to this comment 2. Great question Matthew! Let’s start with the general principle:

Well, it is never pleasant, and sometimes worse than that, but also remember that Jesus warned it was inevitable. That’s why Jesus said we’d feel like sheep amongst wolves! But He still commands us to go. His strategic gift to us is Person of Peace – focus on the people who lilke you and respond to you (and thus Christ in you), rather than fixating on the ones who reject you. In fact Jesus tells us to dust off our shoes and move on! I know that is easier said than done, but I wonder if His point is to help us not to be overly weighed down by those rejections.

Having said all that, within a GoCo, it is important to allow people to say what they think, even if it is complete heretical nonsense!! That doesn’t mean you have to agree or can never challenge them, but it does mean you create an enviroment where people know that they are loved and accepted for who they are, rather than for what they believe. Obviously here I’m talking about people you have relationship with and who aren’t just there to cause trouble, but generally your non-Christian friends are crossing the relational bridge and at the very least enjoying the community, and that will be the place where they (maybe frustratingly slowly) check out the claims of Christ.

How does that resonate with your experience?

Posted by alexabsalom | March 18, 2012, 7:58 am

Reply to this comment * Yes I can definitely see how this principle works, thank you. I am at the beginning of the journey growing community, and that was a major question for me. But it helps to see that Person of Peace as His gift. I am a youth leader and have begun one with the young men from my local church many of whom are not-yet believers. The reason for asking the question is because I am starting to see so much potential in my work as a musician and music teacher and this has helped me to see how it could possibly work, instead of as you say “fixating on the rejection”.

 Posted by Matthew \| [March 18, 2012, 10:36 am](#comment-199) 


[Reply to this comment](/web/20121130142341/http://alexabsalom.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/making-the-missional-breakthrough/?replytocom=199#respond) 
	+ ![](http://web.archive.org/web/20121130142341im_/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/22baeb099100d10b031265499565d6f3?s=40&d=identicon&r=G)
	That sounds tremendous – what a great opportunity! Using music is an excellent way to connect with young adult men, as that seems to be one of the ways unchurched friends often try to experience ‘come/up’. Do keep us updated!
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	 Posted by [alexabsalom](http://web.archive.org/web/20121130142341/http://alexabsalom.wordpress.com/) \| [March 18, 2012, 1:06 pm](#comment-200)

3. Thanks for a great and timely post. Our fledgling missional community has for a couple of years now organised a Christmas party which has been popular and a way of introducing a small drop of gospel content to the mix. We are thinking about how we can do something similar for Easter – though of course it’s not quite as easy as there are fewer cultural traditions to pick up on and redeem (at least here in France).

I wonder how you would think through this and ‘boil Easter down’ and approach them in a new way. I guess I would probably focus on new life and/or hope… what kinds of avenues would you explore in terms of ‘approaching them in a new way’? I initially thought of something like writing down something that has gone and that we miss, and something that we are hoping for – and giving those to God somehow. But…. we have mainly young families and the challenge is to find something that under 5s can engage with (i.e. not my previous idea!) and that can be meaningful to adults too.

Posted by richard | March 20, 2012, 5:11 am

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