Todd Engstrom

Upcoming Series and New Ideas

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Todd Engstrom
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It’s been a joy to unpack some of the nuts and bolts of missional communities, and I’ve loved the feedback I’ve received from many of you.

I’ve compiled the different series together on my resources page here: https://toddengstrom.com/resources

In the coming months, I’ll be working through:

  • Coaching Missional Communities
  • Assessing Missional Communities
  • Missional Community Core Values
  • Leadership Development Systems for Missional Communities
  • Assimilation and Missional Communities

I’m sure there will be more to come as well!  

Much of the purpose of blogging is for me to write down many of the ideas that drive us at The Austin Stone, but it’s also to serve and equip Kingdom leaders around the globe.

I’d love to hear from those of you reading this – what topics would you like for me to write on?  How can I continue to be helpful to you as your pursue missional communities in your context?

Let me know in the comments!

Comments

8 responses to “Upcoming Series and New Ideas”

  1. josh stockel Avatar
    josh stockel

    This has been a blessing! Thanks for sharing.

    When forming LTG’s do you have any structure or do you just let groups naturally come together? And if there is no structure in helping create LTG’s, then how do you avoid 3 coming together that really arnt on mission?

    Reply
    1. Todd Engstrom Avatar
      Todd Engstrom

      We pretty much let them come together naturally…we have found that trying to coerce things that are primarily relationally driven produces LTGs that end up fizzling.

      As for them coming together and not being on mission, that’s definitely a risk you take. That’s part of the reason why we make sure that we are praying for our neighbors by name each time we gather. We want to reinforce obedience to sharing the gospel, and make sure that it’s kept in front of people often.

      In the end, there’s no way to make sure that people are on mission – you have to trust in the Word and the Spirit to produce that :).

      Reply
  2. Reach Taiwan (@reachtaiwan) Avatar
    Reach Taiwan (@reachtaiwan)

    Hey Todd, I’ve been following you on Twitter and really appreciate the practical tips you’ve been sharing regarding MCs. My wife and I are long-term US missionaries to Taiwan, and have just started our first MC in Taipei city. More on the project here: http://crossing7.com/reachtaiwan/ministry-details/church-planting/

    We’d really appreciate your take on these questions:
    1. How do you structure your house church gatherings? What kind of content / discussion material do you use to make disciples?
    2. How do you keep mature Christians and non-Christians engaged and growing? We’ve found that even simple Bible story discussions are very challenging for our non-Christian working class friends.
    3. What kinds of materials to people use in your LTGs?

    Thanks so much!
    Blessings,
    Erich

    Reply
  3. Todd Engstrom Avatar
    Todd Engstrom

    Erich,
    It’s awesome to hear what y’all are doing in Taiwan! I’m not sure if you caught the posts that unpack the different environments, but you can find them at http://toddengstrom.com/resources

    As far as content goes, we utilize two primary tools. The first is the McCheyne Reading Plan, coupled with simple Bible study methods we call REAP: http://austinstone.org/reap.

    The second is a curriculum we wrote that is aimed mostly at the general attender at our church who is familiar with Christianity and generally college educated.

    I’m surprised that storying has been difficult, to be honest with you…that seems to be the standard toolset used by most cross-cultural missionaries. Have y’all done some training on storying? I’d recommend Soma Communities material – it’s very good in the post-Christian context of the Northwest: http://somatacoma.org/resources/story-of-god/

    For a new believer in Austin, I typically recommend using the LTG format but reading through the gospel of Mark because we’ve been preaching on it at The Stone, and can provide some extra content with it.

    I’d be curious to hear what you’re learning!
    Todd

    Reply
  4. Reach Taiwan (@reachtaiwan) Avatar
    Reach Taiwan (@reachtaiwan)

    Hey Todd,

    Thanks for these resources – I’ll definitely check them out. So far we have not undergone any formal training in storying. We’re kind of non-traditional missionaries in the sense that we’re not connected with any major missions agency. More like freelancers 🙂 This offers us great flexibility to explore new missionary strategies outside the traditional approaches, but as you pointed out, sometimes leaves us lacking some of that basic training. Thankfully there are great training options for storying in Taiwan, using Mandarin or Taiwanese.
    I’ll keep you updated on how things go. Thanks again for your help!
    Blessings,
    Erich

    P.S.: A technical note: your blog’s commenting system somehow grays out the two notification options after I use my Twitter account to log in. But if I refresh the page, I stay logged in, and the checkboxes are suddenly checkable. Not sure if anyone else has been experiencing the same issue…

    Reply
    1. Todd Engstrom Avatar
      Todd Engstrom

      Strange – how does it notify you when you login with Twitter?

      Reply
      1. Reach Taiwan (@reachtaiwan) Avatar
        Reach Taiwan (@reachtaiwan)

        I’ve yet to receive any notification, although the boxes were selectable. I thought I might be getting a notification email via the address linked to my Twitter account… no biggie 😉

        Reply
        1. Todd Engstrom Avatar
          Todd Engstrom

          That’s probably why they are greyed out. I don’t believe Twitter has any ability to do notifications. You can always use your name and email, or create a wordpress account to login with. Sorry!

          Reply

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