Community

Repentance here starts with rejoicing in our salvation. It is gratitude and thankfulness for God’s holiness and mercy. It looks like compassion for our dying neighbors. Repentance is living with a passion for Jesus and a desire to see people worship him. If we can kill indifference, we will remove another barrier to transformational community.

As Baxter points out, there are some common sins that keep us from living missional lives. As a pastor over community groups, the three I see that cripple the mission the most are apathy, indifference, and fear of man.

The captain of the ship doesn’t hang out in the engine room checking the gauges. He has an engineer for that so he can drive the boat. Moses was the captain and needed to cast the vision and lead the body. Third, when you do all the work yourself, you never develop leaders. Jethro challenges Moses to develop leaders and trust God by giving away som

This is how many of us see sin, as a mischievous puppy to be managed, as if we can control it with a firm tone. The problem is that sin is not a puppy but a small fire. Spurgeon posits that managing sin is like setting a small fire and attempting to control it with the sound of your voice.18 Sin that is not destroyed will set the whole house on fir

When it comes to leadership, never take a risk on character. If you have concerns about one’s character, then this person should not be considered for leadership. It will take a long time of consistency in the right direction before that person should get the green light. Leaders reproduce themselves. When you take a risk on character, you put the

The first thing we did was redefine the leader role. A facilitator of a discussion would never address the need for real community or pastoral care. So we called our leaders to be shepherds, caring for the ten to twelve people in their groups. This was a significant paradigm shift for our leaders, but it began the transition to groups that felt lik

Consider the message to the church at Ephesus recorded in Revelation: I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have

Taking my family out for pancakes on a Saturday morning becomes an opportunity to invite another family that we want to get to know and encourage. Garage sales become a time for fellowship. When going to the store, we think of one another and pick up an extra gallon of milk. We help build fences and paint houses. We live as a community.

Keys: Meet practical needs. Find common purposes. Use local organizations. Combine passions.