Most of the church planters I work with plan to develop a "Core Group" to help them launch their new church. I affirm this. I believe it is a much healthier and more effective approach to launch with a good "team." But what is a good Core Group?
Most planters are thinking of a Launch Team, a small group of workers to run the Sunday morning program/event. However, I think that is a small part of what you need for a Missional church plant. I like to refer to the core group as the "Missional Core."
What I mean by "Missional Core" is that this is a group of people who see themselves as missionaries, thus they do the work of a missionary in an unreached context. They engage non-believers and unchurched people. They build relationships. They do research into the culture. They think and strategize about how to make meaningful connections with people who are far from God. They draw these people into a friendship and over time, they create a new community of faith explorers.
The most important role of the Missional Core is not running a Sunday program or event, although many of them may help do this. The most important role is to be a missionary & evangelist, to be a pursuer and a gatherer. Their job is prospecting, and they do this by entering the world of the unchurched, by networking, by serving the community, and by building relational bridges. Research, outreach, relationships, prayer, and evangelism are the focus of a missional core.
Yes, you probably need a launch team (depending on your model). But don't settle for that. Build a missional core!
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6 comments:
Hey there Glenn,
I am totally on board with the terms we use, both in how they are birthed from what we desire to create and in how they teach others. Launch Team and Missional Core connote different images.
I have a couple of questions that I have been working through and would like your input:
1. I have been reserving the term "Core" for those 4-5 leaders that provide vision and leadership within the larger team. What term, if any, do you use for this team?
2. Many church plants today attempt to draw in scores of non-believers to their pre-launch group. Is the term "Missional Core" appropriate to define such a mixture? I believe they could be part of the 'mission' in action and presence, but would they really be 'on mission'?
Thanks for your ministry brother.
Jacob,
Good questions. I would guess that it really doesn't matter much what you call what group as long as everyone knows what your terms mean. So the question is what terms do you like and what communicates the best to others. Personally, I would call that small group of 4-5 leaders my vision team or executive team. In my current church we called them the Pastoral Advisory Team (PAT). I like the idea of a larger "core" because they are the missionaries that really penetrate culture and gather people to join us. It is important to define what the "Core Commitment" is. I would want my core to be committed to incarnational outreach & evangelism, to intercessory prayer, to our leadership community, and to support our work financially. This is obviously not a commitment non-believers can make (unless they want to become Christ followers). However, with that said, I would still leverage relationships with non-believers, having them invite others, looking for a Luke 10 "man of peace" to invite me into their oikos. In that way they are a part of our mission. A lot more could be discussed here. Thanks for your question.
Thanks for the thoughts Glenn. I think what we want each team to do is so multi-faceted that many terms can imply a reduced function. I think asking more about what the 'core commitment' is will help with this. Thanks again sir.
Hi Glenn,
Thanks for the great insight. I am not sure if you have any recommendation for resources on building a Missional Core?
Kum Meng (Singapore)
Glenn,
Great advice. In many ways I do think we kind of get it upside down. I often wonder...is the mission of church planting more about organizing an organization or 'friending' dreamers?
In one sense. church planting involves many disciplines, and best practices can be built around all of them. On the other end of the scale, I think its good to get a clear idea of the core essence of the mission. I like to think of a church as a "community of God's dreams" and the call to worship (to losing our life to find it), to both saved and unsaved, churched and unchurched, is a call to the 'God-given' dreams burning (or smolderng) inside each of us. In that respect (and not to diminish the need to the comprehensive perspective one bit), the planting mission in its simplest, most basic level, is about having a meaningful conversation around God-given dreams... then finding creative ways to deepen and multiply that rich experience in as many ways as you can.
Blessings!
Michael
Breakthrough Media Group
Cityreaching Strategies
Breakthroughchurch.com
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