points of connection for missional leaders

POINTS OF CONNECTION FOR MISSIONAL LEADERS

Developing Strategies to Connect Your Church’s Mission to the

Larger Mission of God

First Glance

“Being connected has never been more important than it is today!”

A need to be connected

• To the digital world• To each other• To the Body of Christ• To the community• To God’s larger purpose, with the world

beyond the community

As a missional leader you must help your people connect to the

living God.

What is a “missional”church all about?

Chapter 1: MISSION AHEAD

What’s the difference between a missional church and a mission-

minded church?

A “mission-minded” church

• Financially supports missions• Pray’s for missionaries• Studies about missions• Periodically participates in mission trips• Has a missions committee

A ‘Missional” Church

• Has a passion for the mission of God and allows this passion to be at the heart of the life of the church. It is the DNA of the church.

• Everything the church does is aligned with carrying out the mission of God as it understands it.

The difference between a mission-minded church and a missional

church• Set up the box from page 8

Definition of a Missional Church

• “A missional church is a community of God’s people who live into the imagination that they are, by their very nature, God’s missionary people living as a demonstration of what God plans to do in and for all of creation in Jesus Christ.” (Alan Roxburgh and Fred Ramanuk)

The Two Great Commands of Jesus to the Church before His

Ascension• Matthew 28:18b-20 – The Great

Commission

• Acts 1:8 – Notice the movement outward

• Put the Acts 1:8 graphic on the slide

Stuff to Think About...• Based on the above definition, would our church

be considered a mission-minded church or a missional church?

• How well have we “exegeted” our community? Do we have a good understanding of the basic strengths, needs, demographics, and the heritage and future direction of our community? What would it take for us to gain such an understanding?

Stuff to Think About...

• How well do we release our people to engage in ministry beyond our walls? Do we tend to judge our health more by what happens inside our walls rather than what happens outside our walls?

• If our church were to disappear tomorrow, would it make any discernible difference to our community?

Chapter 2: A CLOSER LOOK

• What should a missional leader look like?

Different skill sets for leaders

• Traditional training prepares a pastor to “take care of the flock” as primary task...

• Missional leaders are a totally different kind of leader.

A Missional Leader

• Is faithful to the gospel• Is entrepreneurial• Is a catalyst, a cultivator of a missional

environment• Understands the importance of community

as a basis from which to embrace missional living

• Is an agent for positive, focused change

The Image is

•Not that of a map, which implies a known destination but that of a

compass, which implies heading in the proper direction.


• Do I have a leadership style that is more authoritative or empowering? To what extent am I able to fully trust the Holy Spirit to work in and speak through the lives of those in my congregation?

• How might I more effectively serve as a catalyst for the development of a missional mindset among our people?

Stuff to Think About...• How do I personally deal with radical change?

Is my natural tendency to embrace change or to avoid change? How can I become a positive change agent for my congregation?

• What are the road maps or paradigms that shape the direction of my ministry? Am I willing to become more of a “compass-driven” leader rather than a “map-driven” leader?

• What things could we jettison from our current structure to help us be more “lean and mean” for the task ahead?

NEXT STEPS

• A Prepared Leader

• A Prepared Church

• An Actualized Mission

At what point is one fully prepared to lead the church to be a missional

church?• Does my church have to wait until I feel I am

fully a missional leader to move forward?• How will I know when my church is ready?• How long will we be in the “preparation phrase”

before we can begin putting feet to our mission strategy?

• How much inward development do we need?• How much spiritual maturity should happen

before moving forward?

We don’t wait until we are mature to move, we mature as

we move! Movement and growth go hand in hand.

Strategies for Moving Forward

• Reach Upward• Relate Inward• Move Forward• Go Outward• Work Together• Pave the Way

Chapter 3: REACH UPWARD

• How can you connect your people to the living God?

We are all aware of spiritual efforts, however noble in intent, that have failed due to their being rooted in

human effort rather than in the power of God.

• John 15:1-5• John 5:19-20a• Acts 1:8• Philippians 1:9-11• Ephesians 4:11-15

WE CANNOT ADVANCE THE KINGDOM, WE CANNOT BE MISSIONAL, APART FROM A

VITAL GROWING RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST!

Stuff to Think About...• Do we have a process to assess the spiritual

health of our congregation? If not, do you know how and where to find and utilize such a process?

• Do you have a picture of what a fully mature follower of Jesus might look like? Do we attempt to raise the bar of spiritual growth and maturity so that our people have some sense of what they are trying to become?


• Do we bathe each activity and mission effort in sincere prayer, seeking to do all things in the power of the Holy Spirit and not in our own power?

• How closely would Paul’s desire for the church at Philippi be true for our own church?

Chapter 4: RELATE INWARD

• How can you connect your people to each other?

When a church exists only to meet the needs of its members, it has ceased being a New Testament

church and has become something entirely different.

In The Missional Church...

• Deep relationships lived out in authentic community is the desire of these congregations.

• The reinforcement for mission comes from the community.

• Many are drawn to our fellowship before they even share our beliefs because they are so hungry for friendships. This has been called “belonging before believing.”

Ephesians 3:17b-19 says...

• “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”


• Do we have sufficient structures and opportunities in place to allow for real interaction and koinonia to develop among our members?

• Would people know our church as a loving church? Is our church marked by loving relationships or by infighting, bitterness, and jealousy? If the latter, do we have any way of rooting out such negativity?


• Are non-believers being drawn to our church due to the quality of our fellowship? If so, are they being welcome and allowed to “hang with us” to the level of their comfort?

• Do our people see fellowship as an end in itself, or as a support for mutual encouragement to live sacrificial, missional lifestyles?

Chapter 5: MOVE FORWARD

• How can you connect your people’s passion and imagination with the mission of God?

Missional leaders are called to be spiritual imagineers, connecting people to experience and living out the Story that guides all of

creation.

The missional leader helps a congregation imagine a future

where the Kingdom of God reigns and we all have a part to play. The process engages the right side of the brain as well as the left. And it always keeps the Story at the heart

of the dreams.

The Bible speaks about God being the God of new beginnings.

• 2 Corinthians 5:17

• Revelation 21:5

• For a missional leader, leadership is about cultivating the imagination and passion of the people so that the vision arises from the giftedness of the body. You must trust the work of the Holy Spirit to do his work in and through your people without the need to control everything that happens!


• Do we allow for times of creative dreaming in our church, engaging the right side of the brain, or do we focus only on setting goals and objectives, engaging only the left side of the brain? When was the last time we had a “vision casting” experience, when our people sat around tables for the purposes of sharing dreams and visions for a missional future?


• To what extent do the people in our church feel that they can each contribute to the collective vision of our church’s mission beyond the walls? Are we an empowering fellowship, one that encourages full participation in all facets of the body life?


• How readily can our people recite our basic mission statement and core values? If this is not so, then how can we facilitate strengthening this among our people?

• How healthy is the spiritual soil in our congregation? What can be done to enrich the soil so that healthy disciples can grow to maturity?

Chapter 6: GO OUTWARD

• How can you connect your church to the world beyond its walls?

4 Areas of Geographic Focus in the Lord’s Acts 1:8 challenge...

• Jerusalem, or your local community• Judea, or your region• Samaria, or your nation or continent• The ends of the earth, basically everything

beyond the above

It is vital that a church in order to be truly missional, include

strategies for impacting all four areas in its vision.


• Does our vision include our Jerusalem? What are we doing to impact our local community? Again, would our community miss us if we disappeared tomorrow?

• Does our vision include our Judea? Do we have strategies for our state or geographical region? How can we involve our people in mission action to impact these areas?


• Does our vision include our Samaria? How can we have a greater impact on our nation/continent?

• Does our vision include the whole world? Are we actively helping our people to see needs beyond our own nation? Are we raising up our people to be global Christians, with a global vision and awareness?


• In looking over the four areas, do we naturally tend to focus on one end of the spectrum rather than the other? What steps can we take to achieve balance in our mission strategies? Do our prayers include all four areas?

Chapter 7: WORK TOGETHER

• How can you connect your church with other partners to carry out God’s mission?

Missional leaders:

• Understand the value of networks and partners to accomplish the mission God has called them to do.

National Networks

• The International Mission Board• The North American Mission Board• LifeWay Christian Resources• The Southern Baptist Seminaries• The Women’s Missionary Union• Stewardship Development Association

Regional Networks

• State Conventions

Local Networks

• Associations• Area Churches


• How would I assess my networking ability? Am I connecting with the people and resources I need to help me in my work? How could I be more intentional in this effort?

• Have I fully considered the networking and resources available through my SBC partners? Are there areas that I may have overlooked due to any presuppositions on my part?


• What Great Commission Christians and churches are in my area that I might not have considered as network partners? Am I comfortable in stepping outside of my denominational boundaries to relate to those outside my network? If not, why?

Chapter 8: PAVE THE WAY

• How do you lead your church to support its missional vision?

Let us focus on the importance of leading your people to support a

missional vision and lifestyle out of the resources that God has

provided for them.• Stewardship is simply the wise

management of the resources God has entrusted to us.

Missional Churches

• Seek to maximize their resources beyond the walls of the church.

• Encourage their people to give from joy rather than from burden.

• Desire to minimize the use of resources for its own needs.

Truths about giving from 2 Corinthians 8:1-15

• Sacrificial• A spiritual discipline• Be consistent and

steadfast

• Comes from the heart• Equality and mutual

support are important

Developing a Mission Support Strategy

• Don’t be afraid to teach stewardship.• God gives his people a desire to give.• Don’t leave a recipient hanging that you

agree to support.• We should continue to give regardless of

our means.• There is the issue of mutual support.

Mutual Support: The Cooperative Program

• The CP is a giving channel where each person’s gift, and in turn each church’s gift, is pooled with other such gifts so that every part supports the whole.

• A church’s participation in supporting the CP is voluntary, and churches should find encouragement from the Macedonian Christians.

• Many SBC churches give 10% or more to support missions through CP.

• Every dollar given through CP goes to support the mission enterprise.

• The mission boards will assist you in putting faces to missionaries your church supports through CP giving.

Definition of the Cooperative Program approved at SBC Annual

Meeting in June 2007:• The Cooperative Program is Southern

Baptists’ unified plan of giving through which cooperating Southern Baptist churches give a percentage of their undesignated receipts in support of their respective state convention and the Southern Baptist Convention missions and ministries.


• When is the last time we’ve had any kind of stewardship or giving emphasis in our church? If it’s been a while could it be because I’m reluctant to address this issue?

• Are there any of the five principles that speak most readily to our situation?


• Which of the strategy recommendations are most appropriate for us to put into immediate practice?

• How can we promote an awareness of the value of the Cooperative Program among our people?

WHAT NOW?

• Within the Body of Christ, being connected has always been of great importance.

• “Philippians 1:3-6”– A “missional church” is connected not only to

like-minded believers and churches across the world but also to like-minded believers and churches across the ages.

– Why would any leader not want his church to be a missional church?

Close with the definition of a Missional Church:

• “A missional church is a community of God’s people who live into the imagination that they are, by their very nature, God’s missionary people living as a demonstration of what God plans to do in and for all of creation in Jesus Christ.” (Alan Roxburgh and Fred Ramanuk)

points of connection for missional leaders

Spiritual