The First Time I Tried Starting a Missional Community I Failed
Have you ever tried starting a missional community from scratch?
“Missional” is a label we give to the qualitative and descriptive aspect of how a church or group of people actually lives. My buddy Hugh Halter says it simply,
“It’s about how much like Jesus people become… how much they influence, woo, and transform the culture in which they are placed.”
A family, group of friends or church that lives like this… Sounds good!
Well, a few years ago my friends all thought so too. We were excited to be rebels who were starting a missional community.
Excited, that is, until things progressed to where we moved beyond our weekly meal and discussion about being missional. It was time to start heading out and building new relationships, serving those in need in our city… actually making disciples.
That’s when everyone recoiled a bit.
Let’s Try This Missional Community Thing Again
Now I’ve learned how to make discipleship and mission a reality–something simple that everyone can live out in everyday life.
What I didn’t know back in those earlier days of starting a missional community was that while most Christians want to make disciples and live on mission with God, they also feel way to busy!
Often, when moving toward a lifestyle of discipleship and mission, people become overwhelmed with what they perceive as the risk of their family time, “margins” and sanity!
The secret is moving from “additional” to “intentional” in our thinking.
Discipleship is not a set of activities we need to jam into our lives, or a series classes that we need to take. And a missional community is more than just a weekly meeting of our small group with a name change.
It’s a series of simple, rhythms or “moves” we can easily, and intentionally, engage in our everyday life. Step by step.
Imagine…
- Making new friendships that naturally lead to “doing life” together.
(I can show you how.) - Or knowing how to talk with others about spiritual things without feeling awkward or pushy.
Discipleship becomes a way of life that includes your kids, close friends and neighbors.
That’s what my family and friends now experience.
If you want it… I’m here to get you started without all the headaches, stop/starts and frustration.
The best part? It’s 7 simple steps.
This process takes a little effort and intentionality. But it’s not complicated. And it’s one of the fastest ways I’ve discovered to get started with others making disciples and building community.
(You can do Steps 1 and 2 today!)
I want to give you access to this free Start-Up Guide (including ‘How To Start a Missional Community From Scratch’). Just click the button below and I’ll send it over.
Men’s & Women’s Ministry or Family Discipleship?
Men’s and women’s ministries have been separated in the church for years. But the church is a family. And when we disciple together, as a family in community, we experience deeper discipleship in every area of life.
In this episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, Caesar is joined by his wife Tina, and their friend and fellow disciple-maker, Barb Terry. He gets their perspective on women and discipleship. Are there differences? We find out that the answer is both “yes” and “no”.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- Why the church has traditionally separated men and women.
- The importance of women finding their “sisterhood” within community.
- Can women be effectively discipled by men?
- Why understanding our gospel identity leads to freedom for both women and men.
Control, Approval, Comfort, Power. Why We Chase False Gods
We all have hidden idols—big and small. An idol is anything that takes God’s place in your heart, absorbs your imagination, or promises what only He can give.
This week on the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we’re tackling the four root idols: control, approval, comfort, and power. You’ll learn how to identify and destroy them in your life.
Idols today aren’t statues or totems—they’re far more subtle. Listen when your heart says, “If I just had that, then my life would have meaning… then I’d feel valuable, significant, or secure.”
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- A clear, practical definition of what idols look like in our lives.
- The four root idols that fuel all forms of false worship.
- Key emotional triggers that reveal the idols controlling us.
- How these idols steal our worship and devotion from God.
Flannelgraph Theology
I grew up going to Sunday school pretty much every week of my young life. Our teachers told us amazing stories from the Bible, nicely illustrated with flannel characters, all of them ending with a nice moral such as, “If you have faith like David had, you can slay any giant in your own life too!” Or, “So, kids, if you’re obedient like Noah, God will protect you from all the bad stuff in your life.”
Not only did those teachers miss the point of the stories (God is always the hero!), but they never taught us that the Bible is one big story.
In fact, it is the Story of God. It’s not a collection of unrelated moralistic tales, nor is it a history lesson. The Bible tells a living and active story that is still unfolding—and we are characters in this story!
Imagine you are trying to put together a large, 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
A lot of time and work would go into getting to the point where you could actually see the picture that the artist intended. But think about how difficult your task would be if you did not have the lid to the box that the puzzle came in. You would have no way to tell what exactly you were trying to piece together.
“Is this a part of the sky or a reflection of the lake? Is this animal fur or a piece of a tree?”
For many of us, this is how we have learned the Bible. It mirrors the process we’ve engaged in to grow in our faith and understanding of who God is and what he is doing. We have heard sermon after sermon, and done one book study after another without really knowing what the big picture of this whole “Christianity thing” really is. Every once in a while, we’ll fit a couple of pieces together and rejoice. And some of us have been around church and the Bible long enough to sort of have all of the “edge pieces” put together, the basic framework of the Bible, but we still do not really know the Bible as one big story. We are not super clear on who exactly God is, what he has done, who we are in light of this, and how we should live.
We do not know the Story of God.
I want to encourage you to move beyond a chapter and verse, flannel graph theology and grab some friends and start going through the Story of God as a community…remember, our goal is not biblical literacy, its gospel fluency, and the next best time to dive deeper is now.
Jesus Didn’t Argue–Why Should We?
One of the biggest reasons Christians hesitate to talk about their faith is the fear of sounding weird or being hit with tough questions they can’t answer. Others feel like they have to “win” people over, and if they don’t, they’ve somehow failed.
This week on the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we’ll unpack why treating evangelism like a spiritual tug-of-war isn’t the way to go. In fact, apologetics often makes for poor evangelism—no one has ever been “argued” into the Kingdom!
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- A clear understanding of apologetics and the true purpose of evangelism
- Two distinct approaches to starting faith conversations
- The real value of apologetics within Christian communities
- Why Jesus didn’t rely on tricks, tactics, or arguments to reveal his Father
How to Share Your Faith in a Non-creepy Way
If you’re like most people I know, you probably don’t share your faith all that often. It can feel creepy or just plain awkward, and there’s always that fear of rejection.
People say to me: “I think my friends may be more open to what I’m learning about God, but I really don’t know how to articulate what I believe...” OR “I rarely talk to friends or co-workers about my faith because I don’t want them to feel like I’m cramming it down their throats...” (Whatever that means?)
Here’s a cool way to share your faith that has never been weird or received poorly by others when I’ve done it like this. (more…)
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ABOUT ME
I am the author of the top selling book, The Gospel Primer. My latest books, Transformed and Small is Big, Slow is Fast came out recently on Zondervan.
I help those with a high commitment to intentional living in the areas of their discipleship, family and mission acquire the leadership skills and tools necessary to succeed and leave a lasting legacy.