Leading Missional Communities Without Falling Apart
Missional community life can be challenging to sustain, and leading one often feels even more complex. How do you know if you and a potential co-leader are truly aligned? What steps should you take to get started? Navigating these questions well can make all the difference in building a thriving, mission-focused community.
This week on the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we’ll help you determine who you should lead with and how to handle disagreements along the way. Whether you’re working with leaders you’ve developed over time or forming a brand-new team, we’ll explore the key principles that create strong, unified leadership in missional communities
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- What healthy missional community (MC) leadership looks like.
- The best ways to bring up conflict as leaders and how to deal with it.
- Getting leaders on the same page as to “what the mission is”
- How practicing the 23 “one-anothers” from scripture is key to healthy leadership.
Ask Caesar #1
I get a lot of questions from many of my readers and those I train and coach, so today I thought I would answer a couple of those questions in a segment that I will call, “Ask Caesar”. Pretty original, right? 🙂 I hope you like this and find it helpful.
Let’s give this a spin…I’ve got a couple of great questions here that are actually somewhat related. And they are both really important! (more…)
Missional Community: Have You Really Tried It?
Many churches think they’ve tried starting “missional communities” before, but they failed. Or they’ve given ‘micro-church’ a try, and that didn’t take off either. But actually… maybe they just exported religious activities!
This week on the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we look at the difference between talking a good missional game and really living in a community that is radically focused on discipleship as a lifestyle.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- One of the most common reasons that missional communities fail.
- Why our best intentions at living on mission often turn into new “law”.
- The difference between religion and the gospel of grace.
- How to get the help to make authentic missional living a reality.
Family Dinner Night
My wife Tina and I, have for years, been living out our spirituality–our faith–with others in community. I’m not talking about the “church we go to” but rather intentional community with others that’s focused on living like Jesus would live if he were walking around our neighborhood today.
A big part of living like a family with others is eating together, and OFTEN!
As if it is carved into sacred stone, our extended family–we call it our missional community–gets together for a weekly family dinner night.
These collaborative meals are usually simple, sometimes elaborate, often thrown together, but always warm and full of acceptance. It is a needed bright spot in our week and a time when anyone and everyone are invited in everyone is always invited. At times we will take communion together and go around speaking Good News to each other, pushing back the hurts and disappointments of the week and reminding one another of what is now true of us because of Jesus. Afterward, everyone helps clean up, making sure there is no leftover mess.
As a family, we practice an “open door policy” with one another. I know that I can stop by the home or apartment of those in my community at any time and it will be no big deal. It works in reverse too; my friends know that they can stop by our house any time (I’ve noticed that the single guys seem to practice this more around dinnertime).
This may freak you out a little. You may be thinking, “Whoa, how do you have any time to yourself.
What about boundaries?
There have been times when my wife, Tina, and I are sitting on the couch in the evening having a glass of wine together and the doorbell will ring. “Hey, Caesar. Hi, Tina. What are you guys doing tonight?” And I will say, “Hey, Nick, how you doing brother? Tina and I were just sitting here watching this romantic comedy together and I, um, was kind of hoping for a happy ending…if you know what I mean. So unless there is some emergency or you really need us right now, let’s get together tomorrow if that’s cool.”
Because of the openness and trust we have with one another, there is not only the freedom to open our homes, but we also have the freedom to say “Thanks for stopping by, but now’s not a great time.” We all know this and respect this reality.
But sometimes it’s hard!
Living like this could really spin-off in a bad direction if we don’t live with a focus on the Good News and live with intentionality. If my life is all about my comfort and feeding my preferences, then all of that stuff would be frightening and impossible to sustain. But in light of the love we have been shown, it is a pleasure and a blast to live in ways that show what our real, true heavenly Dad is really like.
Sure it would have been great if someone would have shared these ideas with you or led you into this way of thinking and living years ago, but as always, the next best time to begin…is now!
Question: What’s keeping you from hosting a weekly family dinner for your friends and community? If you’re doing it already, what are you experiencing?
Why Our Advice Rarely Helps
Christians can often get into a mindset where we think everything that is wrong or untrue needs to be addressed NOW! And so with the banner of “speaking the truth in love” flying high over our heads, we dive in with our unsolicited advice.
In this episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, Caesar explains why most people really don’t want to hear our advice. We’ll look at what motivates a lot of our advice-giving, and learn some best practices for when we do need to offer help and insights to others.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- The 4 types of advice that we give to people.
- Why we feel the need to quickly offer our advice to others.
- How the gospel speaks into our motivations when giving advice.
- Best practices so people will want to hear your advice.
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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.