Categories
assimilation missional community

Considering a Preferred Future

At The Austin Stone, the process of connection to multiplication follows a general pattern that usually takes approximately two years. It generally goes something like this:

This series of posts will explore what comes after the initial efforts to connect individuals into community.
—–

A Preferred Future

After a community has connected with one another and gotten through the first four weeks, the next step is helping them think through a longer-term vision for their community.  Each individual within that newly formed community often has a different understanding of what the purpose of the community is.  For some, it’s a place to connect with Christian friends. For others, it’s a group to serve the city with.  Others might simply be there because they think “it’s the right thing to do.”

Gathering a diverse group of people with different expectations is often a difficult challenge.  Add to that our desire to see genuine missional community form, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.  That’s where our missional community training comes into play.

After those first four weeks together, we try to involve the entire community in our missional community training for two reasons:

  • To cast a compelling vision for a fully-functioning missional community
  • To help the community sort through the many different motivations and expectations each individual has

In this environment, we are trying to create a desire for the kind of community we are training toward, as well as identify challenges and differences of vision that may arise.  We’re not necessarily aiming at getting all the details perfect, but more at helping these people think differently about where they’re going together.

A good example of a tool we use in this environment is the “Who is the Missionary?” exercise:

We have found it’s really important for a group to do this kind of training together, rather than focusing just on the leader of the group.  Doing this helps the group go through some challenging thinking together, and the leader gets to help facilitate conversation. Secondly, it allows the entire group to buy into the vision and practices of the newly forming community very early on.

The whole community gets the benefit of understanding WHY we do what we do, not just what.

Categories
assimilation missional community

The First Four Weeks of a New Missional Community

At The Austin Stone, the process of connection to multiplication follows a general pattern that usually takes approximately two years. It generally goes something like this:

This series of posts will explore what comes after the initial efforts to connect individuals into community.
—–

The First Four Weeks

If you commit to connecting individuals into your church into community life and are committed to pursuing missional community, you inevitably need to answer the question “how do we get them moving in the right direction?”

Although it usually takes 18 months to 2 years for a healthy missional community to emerge from a group of individuals who don’t know one another, we have found that the first four weeks of the community is imperative to set the tempo for the long term future. Most of our new groups are launched from a Sunday, classroom-based environment we call “Connect Class” (see here for more), and those weeks immediately following are often what makes or breaks a group.

These four weeks are often when group participants will decide if they are going to stick with the community.  We have found it’s important to give a little space after the Connect Class environment to allow the dust to settle and allow people an off-ramp from the people they were placed with.  

For those who do want to stick, we don’t want to overload a group with too many assignments – we’ve found they “need room to breathe”.  At the same time, the first few gatherings will often set the rhythms and culture of a community, so we want to template that time as well as we can.  Rather than provide a curriculum or prescription, we’ve found it’s best to accomplish four things over those four weeks:

  1. Read through the Book of Acts together (1 chapter per day) and discuss it
  2. Gather over a meal twice in someone’s home to share your stories with one another
  3. Gather somewhere not in a home and continue sharing your stories
  4. Meet with a Missional Community Coach to discuss your group mission

We leave the planning and execution of these up to the newly minted leader in order to create ownership for the leader and buy-in from those in the group.  The first three things are designed to mimic what we will ask of a healthy group down the road (The Family Meal, LTGs, Third Place).

What do you think is critical in the first few weeks of a newly forming community?

Categories
assimilation missional community

What’s Next For a New Community?

At The Austin Stone, the process of connection to multiplication follows a general pattern that usually takes approximately two years. It generally goes something like this:

  • What’s Next?
  • The First Four Weeks
  • Processing a Preferred Future
  • Establishing Healthy Rhythms
  • Thinking Critically about the MC
  • Considering Multiplication
This series of posts will explore what comes after the initial efforts to connect individuals into community.
—–

What’s Next After Connection?

If you commit to connecting individuals into your church into community life and are committed to pursuing missional community, you inevitably need to answer the question “how do we get them moving in the right direction?”

There are a variety of ways you could answer this question, and a variety of things we have tried to launch healthy missional communities.  With any process, it’s important to define your end point and your starting point.  We are aiming at the multiplication of healthy disciples, the multiplication of healthy missional communities, and the multiplication of healthy churches.  Typically, we’re starting out with a group of people who don’t know one another well, generally are approaching community as consumers, and are typically familiar with small groups in the life of the church.

As we think through the process of transition that a group must undergo to become a missional community, we need to consider where people are coming from and where we want to take them.  We therefore use tools that are familiar to many who have participated in groups in the past like curriculum, but begin to template life together in a different way.

Additionally, there are a few critical stages in the life of a group over time:

  • The first four weeks of a newly formed group
  • Processing through a preferred future together
  • Settling into the normal rhythms of life together
  • Working through conflict and assessing the health of the community
  • Considering group multiplication

These critical moments in the life of a missional community have shaped what we do organizationally over time.  We have created environments, trainings, and tools to respond to each one of these stages, and I’ll work through them in the next few posts.  It might be helpful to review the stages of missional community development series, as this will parallel that set of posts.

Categories
assimilation missional community

Lessons Learned in Assimilation and Mission

The Austin Stone is a church committed to the exaltation of Jesus through the proclamation and demonstration of the gospel to our city and the nations through missional communities.  This blog series unpacks how we approach the difficult challenge of assimilation into smaller communities from our Sunday gatherings:

—–

Lessons Learned in Assimilation and Mission

As we’ve developed our approach to connecting people from our gatherings into community, there have been a ton of lessons we’ve learned along the way.  In no particular order, here are some random learnings:

  • It’s really difficult to balance assimilation and mission. Bottom line, there isn’t a perfect solution.
  • Putting someone with no paradigm for missional community directly into a group living on mission is a recipe for frustration for the individual and the group leaders.
  • Putting someone with a high value for missional community into a group that isn’t living out missional community is also a recipe for frustration.
  • Starting new groups is way easier to instill a fresh DNA and connect new people than dividing groups and adding new people.
  • It takes about 3 to 6 months for the average person to meaningfully connect into ongoing community at our church.  Encourage people to stick with a group even if it’s awkward at first…connection takes time.
  • Assimilation is not a “one size fits all” process. You need multiple pathways and opportunities to be effective.
  • You will end up with healthier group participants if you train them early on in the life of group.

I’ve also learned a lot about connection from my friend Mark Howell…I’d highly recommend you take a look at his blog and read through it thoroughly!

I’d love for any nuggets of wisdom you have to share!

Categories
assimilation missional community

Overcoming Barriers to Connection

The Austin Stone is a church committed to the exaltation of Jesus through the proclamation and demonstration of the gospel to our city and the nations through missional communities.  This blog series unpacks how we approach the difficult challenge of assimilation into smaller communities from our Sunday gatherings:

—–

Overcoming Barriers to Connection

In order to address those barriers that exist to connection, we have found three predominant categories are helpful in responding well: events, environments, and relationships. Below is a discussion on the different categories that will lend to an understanding of what things we actually do.

Events

Events are predominantly based on leveraging the momentum of a crowd. They are designed to be a place of low, short-term commitment. In these settings, we want to make information about the connection pathway clearly accessible, that people are available to ask questions of and connect with, and finally that we are clear and succinct on our vision for our church.

Some examples of events that we have utilized include:

  • Discovery Events – monthly post-Sunday service events for newcomers
  • Missional Community Leader Open Houses – A place to meet a leader in your area
  • Group Link – catalyze a new community from a crowd
  • BBQ and Potluck Events – gathering people around a meal with no formal agenda

Regardless of the event, we are trying to set the table for someone who is disconnected to meet an individual or find the information that they need to connect.

Environments

Environments are different from events in that they require some amount of ongoing commitment to participate in. Typically they involve at least a four-week commitment, and often capitalize on either a particular need or a particular demography. These tend to be the most effective means of connection because involvement in a smaller community is expected and embedded into the environment.

We have found that the best kind of environment for connection involves 6 weeks of a mixture of teaching, discussion, and expected small-group discussion time outside of the classroom. Some examples of these kinds of environments are:

  • Demographic-specific classes – Nearly/Newlywed class, Married Life class, Women’s and Men’s classes
  • Connection Classes – a 7 week class marketed directly at those who desire to connect to community
  • Other Training Environments – Missional Community training, Financial Planning classes, etc.

In addition to these examples above, there is a special kind of environment that we use frequently which is designed to prepare someone to engage in the communities we have. Before someone connects into an existing community, which may be completely unfamiliar territory, we want to provide an understanding of WHY we do things the way that we do.

We simply call this environment “Missional Community Training”, and market it to anyone who has interest in connecting to, learning about, or potentially leading a missional community. The value of having these people altogether is two-fold:

  • First, we can leverage the larger environment for connections purposes. The greater the volume of people, the more likely people are to find someone who is geographically or demographically close to them.
  • Second, we create an environment for emerging leaders to cast vision for and recruit those interested into new expressions of missional community.

Cultivating an environment for preparation to connection has gone a long way towards fostering healthy culture and reinforcement of our vision for missional community.

Relationships

Relationships are the core of any effective assimilation strategy, and we try in any setting to ensure that a person who desires to be connected has someone to walk alongside them through the process. Whenever we are receiving some piece of information about an individual, we are trying our best to personally follow up and walk with someone over time.

Our Welcome and Connections Teams are tasked with connecting individuals they meet with a community that is a potential fit, and walk with them through the process of finding a community when another strategy has not proven effective. Only about 11% of people whom we connect with will end up finding a community to plug into this way, though.

Conclusion

It’s important to understand that our objective in connection is not necessarily a perfect missional community right out of the gate, but taking step one in connecting people to one another.  We do this so we can intentionally disciple individuals and communities toward greater obedience over time, walking them through a process of change.

What else have you found effective in connection strategies?