Launching Missional Communities: A Field Guide

by Mike Breen, Alex Absalom

What is a Missional Community? Where did Missional Communities come from? How did they develop? How can your community begin launching and multiplying Missional Communities? This a practical, insiders look, giving you the tools to make MCs come alive in your church. For years I have written about what the church of the future might look like. Consider this book one of the best around at getting to actually do the real thing. ---Alan Hirsh, author of The Forgotten Ways I have read heaps of books on Missional Church and Communities, but his book is by far the most practical and helpful thing I have read. Filled with theological background, case studies, practical help, and proven results. I highly recommend this.--Jon Tyson, Trinity Grace Church, NYC There's a lot out there on the theory, but not a lot out there on the practice. This is a practical field guide. If you're a leader and are looking to start, explore or experiment with Missional Communities, this book is for you.--Michael Stewart, VERGE Conference & The Austin Stone Pastors today — and I get letters about this — want more than a theology of mission or a missional theology, though they want that too. What they are asking for is a handbook, a field guide, about missional community formation. And they want a field guide from someone who has done it (not just talked about it or written about it) and who has done it long enough to have wisdom about it, and done it well enough to be able to teach it in ways that are both adaptable to a local context but theological enough to be sustainable. This is that book. And the publishers are to be thanked for making it look like and feel like a Field Guide. This is a one-of-a-kind book that will be the standard for all those wanting to form missional communities.--Scot McKnight, Jesus Creed

Genres: Church, Christianity, Theology

184 pages

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Jesse Ludema · Rating 5 out of 5]

YES. This is without a question a must-read for all church leaders. Launching Missional Communities is a beutiful marriage of theology with methodology. It presents legitimate critiques of the Church, while offering a redemptive way forward that doesn't feel cliche or rebellious. I am hooked by the Missional Community framework, and I highly recommend it if you are a student of the Church and Mission.

[Jeromie Rand · Rating 3 out of 5]

I serve on the pastoral leadership team of a small Anglican church plant in an urban Denver neighborhood. Our head pastor (Rob) heard Mike Breen, one of the authors of Launching Missional Communities (LMC), speak at the Anglican 1000 conference, and he asked the team to consider introducing some elements of missional communities from LMC into our existing "missional communities," small groups of 8-15 people that are joined by how they intend to serve the larger church body and surrounding community. (Throughout the rest of this review, when I refer to missional communities I will be talking about the LMC sort.)

I was not at the conferenced Rob attended, so this book was my first introduction to the type of missional communities envisioned by Mike and Alex. The book provided a broad outline of what missional communities are pretty early on: they are groups of 20-50 "people who are united, through Christian community, around a common service and witness to a particular neighborhood or network of relationships." (Kindle location 337) There is a much longer list of things that missional communities do, though I think the 3DM website provides a better definition of the essentials of a MC than can be found in the book. Missional communities are defined by size (20-50 people is considered "small enough to care but large enough to dare" and is frequently compared to the size of an extended family), a clear missional vision, a triple focus on relationship with God, other Christians, and the surrounding world (often summarized by UP/IN/OUT), a low maintenance structure, and "low control and high accountability (http://bit.ly/Kzyhk7)."

These missional communities are led by laity and supported by "huddles," smaller groups where missional community leaders are discipled. The missional communities will probably break up into smaller groups on occasion, but the MC is always considered the primary unit. In fact, as the book progresses it becomes clear that the authors intend the missional community to be the primary unit of the church. In their view, a healthy missional community will not attend a larger worship service (referred to throughout the book as a celebration) every week.

Missional communities are clearly intended as a model for church, not something that churches do. Following the model laid out by LMC involves going all-in; it is difficult to separate one piece from the rest. Because of this, the book is of limited usefulness to those who wish to borrow pieces of the model without adopting it outright. There are some good ideas: the idea of four distinct "spaces" based on groups size (Public, Social, Personal, and Intimate ), the centrality of missional activity to making true disciples of Jesus, building a church through empowerment of the laity rather than an increase in staff, and an emphasis on UP, IN, and OUT for holistic church life. But they are just ideas; unless you are prepared to fully embrace missional communities there is no real guidance on how to implement them in your church. This is probably to be expected in a field guide on launching missional communities, but it would have been nice if some intermediate steps were provided.

Even if you are interesting in shifting your church to a collection of missional communities, you may be left scratching your head at times. The book provides a lot more description than direction. Part of this is, I think, the authors' attempt to capture the variety possible in missional communities. But as a pastor, I recognized a number of significant challenges that would face my church that are quickly passed over in the book. How is it possible to shift from an existing small group structure to missional communities without causing the community to be completely worn out on change? (Especially difficult for a church plant that discovered this book after the fact!) How do missional communities integrate into the weekly / bi-weekly / or monthly "celebrations"? Is the pastor left with trying to maintain a traditional staff AND oversee the missional community leaders? Admittedly, every church will be different. Perhaps the pastor is supposed to discover the answers to these questions as he or she launches a pilot missional community. But it seems the authors assume either a large church with significant resources or an upcoming plant without an established structure. Those churches stuck in the middle (many, I presume!) may find the outline for starting missional communities overly taxing.

I liked the ideas behind Launching Missional Communities, but I think the book is a little difficult to use. Those who are not ready to take the plunge into missional communities will find that there is a lot of work necessary to incorporate the principles of the book into their church. Those who wish to move full steam ahead with missional communities may find themselves wishing for more direct guidance. Both groups may find themselves wishing for more clarity in the writing style. I'm glad I read LMC, but it's not likely to find its place among the favorites on my shelf.

[Justin Reeve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive field guide that is not only thought out well, but put together logically. The trouble for me was contextualizing this. This is a field guide for church planters (as it deals with everything from worship with children present to missional communities for senior citizens). I am a youth pastor. I read this book in the hopes of generating new ideas and reformatting our current small group method. So it was a bit of a challenge to take "Big Church" principles and see how they would work in youth ministry small groups. However, Launching Missional Communities is a very attractive idea that doesn't claim to be the fix-all for whatever ails the Western Church. In fact, most of this book is steeped in years of practice and large portions of Scripture. After reading it, I didn't feel like I "had" to do this (or my church was suddenly archaic), rather, I wanted to begin this in my church and see how it goes.

[Haije Bergstra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Missional communities could be a next step in setting up churches. This book focusses mainly on the transistion from existing "mainline" churches to churches that consist of missional communities. In that way the line of thinking moves into renewal of the existing church. A missional community is a group of 20-50 people that come together to be church that disciples people and operate in a outgoing way in the community they live in. As a churchplanter I was curious how these ideas could help to plant new housegroups or missional groups. Unfortunaltely there was not much in the book that focusses on that.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an incredibly practical read that sparked my imagination many times, leaving me eager to get into the practice of what I was reading. There is a contagious energy within these pages, an energy that effected me regardless of actually making a "missional community" happen.

The most helpful piece for me was seeing a timeline (of sorts) for putting something like this in motion. Even more, the "think through these" lists were great for inner dialog and day dreaming.

I am left imagining, What is possible?

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The material covered and vision of the book were exceptional. However, Breen's writing style is often redundant. Here the book tended toward disorganization for a frustrating read. Given enough time and patience, however, the very important topics began to distill themselves. I suspect that I will re-read this book as we begin to enact the missional community objectives discussed herein.

[Tim Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a great, practical book about how to launch missional communities. it truly is a field guide. so many practical ways to initiate a missional community. i am eager to put a lot that i learned in to practice. i am sure that i will be relying on this book a lot - it's the kind of book that i'll be going back to time and time again.

Great resource!

[Daunavan Buyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book for people who are serious about shifting to a church with a missional culture and understanding. This book is extremely practical and provides step-by-step ways that leaders can launch missional communities in their context. Very good.

[Daniel Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I wish the book was longer and went into some details of questions I have, this is the best book out there on the topic. So it deserves 5 stars. Basically, get anything by Breen.

[Mark Winner · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's good content, but I'm still wrestling with how the local church can exist alongside missional communities with me involved in both.