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austin stone church leadership missional community

Mobilizing Your Community to Sunday Service Teams

Over the next few weeks, I’ve asked several members of our team at The Austin Stone to write on different aspects of missional community in different contexts and ministries.

Today, Brendan Thompson is going to share some learning points from practicing missional community in conjunction with service teams, specifically in our Children’s Ministry.  Brendan serves as our Children’s Director at the West Campus, and originally posted this blog here.

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Mobilizing Your Community to Sunday Service Teams

At The Austin Stone, there is an abundance of ways to get plugged in and involved.  And it seems that as our church grows, our people find themselves being continually stretched between seemingly competing church events and ministries.

You may be one of those people.  I know I am.  You walk in on a Sunday morning, hear the announcements, “Join this Ministry!”  with the followup being “Join our Service Teams”.  Later that week, you receive an email imploring you to help with some men’s event or women’s event.  And all along, you already feel stretched as you lead your own small group (or missional community as we affectionately call them).

Honestly, as a pastor, I wrestle with this very issue almost daily.   How can I do all that God has called me to do vocationally as a pastor and and personally as a disciple?  How can I faithfully serve in the areas of my church that need it while still being obedient as a disciple of Christ at home?

I think the answer is in overlapping your ministry with your community.  

Think about it; the resource you find yourself needing in this hard place is time.  If only you had time to raise your children, be devoted to a small group of Christians who live faithfully and obediently on mission for God, and be leading and serving on a Sunday at your local church. If only.  Time just so happens to be the only commodity you can’t “get more of”.  

We are all given 24 hour days and for the average person, 9 hours of that will be at work and about 5-8 of them sleeping.  That leaves you with a good 10 hours or so to do this.

This post will detail the benefits of overlapping your community into your Sunday service and I will end with a story of how my own community has done this and what it has meant for us.

The Benefits

Obedience to Christ

Often, people feel as though their attendance and participation in a community IS their service to the church.  I would contend that Christ has more for you than just one or the other.  Firstly, Christ came and gave himself up for his bride, the church, and calls us to the same radical sacrifice.  If we are to model God’s love for his bride, naturally, this means that we will want to serve her and love her with abandon in any way that we can.  Even more, in 1 Timothy 3, Paul outlines the qualifications of the office of overseer or deacon, and explicitly states that deacons will “care for God’s church”.  

Now I know that not everyone reading this is a deacon, but the aim of this passage is that Christian’s aspire to this kind of leadership, that we long for this kind of character.  This isn’t an “if you’re not a deacon you’re off the hook” kind of passage, it is a calling to every christ-follower to take up their cross and follow Him, and lay down their lives for the bride of Christ.  To die to ourselves because Christ gave himself for us that He would remove all our blemishes.  Let’s follow after Christ and love his bride.

More time with Community

Another great benefit to this is the time spent with your community together.  In my own community, I feel closer to these people than I ever had, because I am not only seeing them midweek for a bible study, meeting with men for accountability, sharing the gospel at our 3rd Place or attending Sunday service, but I am in the trenches leading a ministry team with them.  Our labor together for the gospel produces closeness in our community.  We have taken the opportunity to grow closer in the areas we already know we will intersect.

Opportunities for Giftings to Show

Another side benefit that I recognized when my community came alongside me was that I began to see the gifts of many of our members. Previous to this, I would have never known that Sarah was great with the teaching preschoolers, or that Stefan could lead so well in our grade school kids worship time or that Tim could do such a great Scottish accent! (for our kid skits of course!)  This is one of those opportunities where people get the chance to serve and grow, and use their gifts for the “building up of the body” as Ephesians 4 says.

A Model for Encouragement

One of the greatest benefits has been to see how my communities service on Sunday together has both provided a model and a resource for other people in our body serving.  My volunteers have an opportunity to be encouraged by the maturity of relationships that some of our couples who serve together have, and can ask questions about how our community is able to love each other so well.  Ultimately, I am convinced that any success that we have seen in our ministry team on Sunday has been only because I have had some faithful men and women come alongside me and say, “we are with you, we care about God’s church, and we will serve wherever is needed to see the body grow properly”.  This has fundamentally changed the attitude and direction of our kids programming.

And we have seen amazing things happen in our ministry.   I often tell my volunteers I feel like I am turning around a large ship with our children’s ministry, and I can say with confidence that my missional community’s investment in me and the ministry have made this directional change not only a joy, but an opportunity to show others what biblical community looks like

How do you do this?

Often, our most gifted leaders are both serving and leading communities, but rarely are these two spheres overlapping.  So, as a community member or leader how do you get there?  How do you lead your missional community to this?

  • First off, change is not easy.  You will encounter resistance, even from friends in your community!  But the benefits so far outweigh the hardships that it is worth enduring any amount of resistance, even from your group.
  • Cast Vision to your group.  The first step is to clearly and compelling lay out your vision for your group to serve.  Our change required that my entire community of 20 people move to a different campus of our church.  That was a large ask.  But again, the benefits (not to mention the needs) were so great, that asking them to serve was a delight.  I told them exactly what was happening;  ”I am going to another campus to lead the children’s ministry”, and I wanted them to come serve with me.  It would be a great experience to grow together, to serve together, to grow closer towards one another as we make disciples.
  • Remind them of who you are as a community. It was good for our people to remember that we loved each other and fought for each other.  I asked them also to examine their hearts before the Lord and work through prayerfully why they would or wouldn’t want to come.  I reminded them that I love each of them, and if they felt called a different direction that was ok.
  • Meet with them personally.  Take the time to have conversations personally with people.  Some of your folks will jump on the opportunity and others will need some processing time.  Give them the space, but give them the courtesy of asking.  I had one individual actually even press back on the whole transition. I was truly thankful for the conversation because he forced me to think and articulate the benefits themselves, and forced me to grow in my grace as a leader.
  • Continue to invest in them.  It is really easy for me to stop investing my time and energy into folks who I spend so much time with and as your community joins you, it will be a temptation to lessen the amount of energy you put into that relationship.  Fight against this.  They are not just “co-laborers” with you in the gospel, but you are also brothers and sisters in Christ.  Make time for each other outside the ministry.

Did this transition go perfectly for me?  No, not by any means.  But this was a great place to start for our community, and I can say now that my entire community is now serving our church in some way with one another.  I praise God for this opportunity and may He use it for his glory!

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Individualism is Dead…Or It Should Be

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My friends over at ChurchLeaders.com recently ran an article I wrote.  Below is an excerpt:

I think, therefore I am. One simple phrase that Descartes penned helped define a worldview for a future generation.

No longer would humanity be fettered with group-think, old wives’ tales and crude explanation. No, we would be released into the glorious future of rationalistic reasoning and society would soar to new heights.

Centuries have passed, technology has thrived and yet there is trouble in paradise. Behind every great historical advance, unintended consequences lurk.

You can read the rest here.  I’m thankful for the continued opportunity to write, and am praying that the Lord would use the words I’m writing to encourage and challenge churches, church leaders, Christians and non-Christians alike!

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austin stone christianity church missional

Churches Planting Churches

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This Sunday, The Austin Stone joined with many other Acts 29 Network churches to preach to our congregations about church planting and support the mission to make disciples and plant healthy churches.

I continue to be grateful for the Lord’s grace in my life to participate in church planting.  As we prayed for our entire church to engage in the Great Commission, two of my friends and their church plants came to mind:

Would you join me in praying for these men, their families, and their core teams as they seek to make disciples in their cities?

Additionally, I will be launching a two year residency for aspiring pastors and church planters in this coming year (see below for an overview).  Would you join me in praying for this cohort of men and their families in the coming year?

Pastoral and Church Planting Residency at The Austin Stone – PDF

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can be involved in church planting, let me know and I can help you plug in!

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church leadership megachurch missional pastoring

The Lobby – Day 2

Today has been another encouraging and challenging day of conversation, and has left me with some good thinking to do.

Session 5: Mission and Community

We began the day today talking through the idea of mission, and how it plays out in community.

My friend Spence Shelton gave me the opportunity to share the story of The Austin Stone and the strategy we employ of missional communities.  After some processing with Mark Howell, I have a stronger appreciation for how the context of our church has dictated our strategy, and that it certainly is not perfect.  

On the flip side, it was fun to challenge people with the idea that often our forms contradict our intentions, and in many ways we need to challenge the consumerism that is widespread in our churches.  I pray that there would continue to be a spirit of humility and gracious critique between our churches!

Session 6: Measurement

I’m a data nerd, so I always enjoy conversations around measurement and effectiveness.  There was a great dialogue on the idea that “metrics motivate your thinking, stories stir the soul”.

Measurements should include both quantitative and qualitative data, and leaders need both stories and data.  Stories are encouraging, but are easily used as anecdotal justifications for something that may not really be working.  Data, without stories, is to easy to misinterpret or make say what you want it to say.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of the conversation was that everyone struggles to capture stories.  The most effective churches at capturing stories were those who incentivized them.  Apparently a little bribery goes a long way!

Session 7: Tough Issues in Group Life

This discussion was probably the most spirited that we’ve had, because it dealt with much more personal and sensitive issues for many of us.  The specific dialogue centered around sexuality in the life of the church, and how our communities and leaders respond in circumstances of sin with both grace and truth.

The church doesn’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to same sex attraction, so how do we lovingly engage people in the church and those outside the church?  This discussion cause me to reflect on Jesus, and how he practically ministered in different circumstances.  Specifically, I thought of the woman at the well, and how Jesus addressed not only her sexual sin, but pointed to the unfulfilled longings of her heart that were designed to be met by Jesus himself.

The conversation also brought to mind the woman caught in adultery, and how Jesus dealt with the accusing crowd who lacked mercy and love, but also corrected the adulterous woman by exhorting to go and sin no more.  I pray that I myself would minister like Jesus, lovingly yet firmly, and also that our churches would not be like the self-righteous Pharisees, but the gracious Savior.

It was another fun filled day!

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church megachurch missional community pastoring

The Lobby – Day 1

It’s been a great day gathering with so many thoughtful and humble leaders here in Atlanta.  Today was centered around four different discussions:

Session 1: Disciple Making

Our first discussion centered around the idea of making disciples, and Rick Howerton provoked some good healthy discussion and serious reflections on whether or not our systems were actually producing healthy disciples of Jesus.

In processing through the different viewpoints that individuals had, my primary takeaway is that we need to allow Jesus to speak for himself through the Word.  It’s easy to distill discipleship down to a set of practices or core values, but fundamentally people need to encounter the real Jesus in His authoritative Word. To be a disciple of Jesus means we must find Him in the Word!

Session 2: Small Group Strategies – Multisite

In our second discussion, we split up into different strategic challenges we are facing as we lead in groups ministry, and I was particularly helped in our discussion on groups in a multisite church.  Everyone agreed that there is no “best-practice” yet, but all of us agreed that we needed clarity and simplicity to effectively lead in a complex environment.

My key takeaway from this discussion was particularly in the area of culture – how do you not only foster common practices, but common culture in a diverse set of contexts and campuses?

Specifically, as we continue to bring new people onto our team, whether staff or volunteer, we need to not only articulate our culture, but foster experiences and pose problems that help people understand why our culture is the way it is.

Session 3: Strengths and Weaknesses in Different Models

In our third session, we discussed the various strengths and weaknesses of our systems for groups.  It was really helpful to hear where others are succeeding and struggling, and how their systems are helping and hindering their ministry.

My key takeaway in this session was understanding the different tradeoffs in groups systems in general.  They primarily come in two flavors – connection-oriented systems and development-oriented systems.  Connection types are really effective at reaching into the unconnected and the lost, but struggle to maintain groups over time and cultivate depth.

Conversely, development-oriented systems are great at creating depth and longevity, but really struggle to connect new and different kinds of people.

The reality for most of us in the groups/discipleship world is that we must continue to adapt over time, and there is no problem free model, and my friend Mark Howell conveys so well.

Session 4: Trends in Culture

In our final conversation, we spent most of our time dialoguing through some cultural trends that directly affect ministry within the local church.  Primarily, we spent time on the impact of the virtual world with respect to community, and some implications for how we engage thoughtfully and theologically to a world dominated by new means of communication.

I am cautious, and yet also somewhat eager to see how we can leverage the tools of technology to strengthen the local church, as well as engage people whom we may not have been able to without these new tools.

There’s more to come tomorrow!