Defining Missional Communities

Since we've decided to officially partner with Renew Communities in the launching of our Missional Community here in Cleveland Heights, I thought it'd be a good idea to share the definition of an MC as stated on their website.  If it sounds a lot like the kind of thing I've been talking about, that's because it IS the same thing.

Missional Communities:
A Missional Community consists of a committed core of believers who live out the mission of God together in a specific area or to a particular people group by demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms and declaring the gospel to others— both those who believe it and those who are being exposed to it.
To clarify, a Missional Community is NOT primarily a small group, Bible study, support group, social activist group, or weekly meeting.
Our hope is that every person who is committed to the Renew family and mission will be fully involved in a missional community and eventually the missional communities in a region will multiply and together form a new expression of Renew Communities.

 Defining Characteristics of a Missional Community

• Is a group of between 10-25 people
• Is unashamed about following Christ, in values and in vision
• While you don’t have to be a Christ Follower to belong to an MC, MC’s center on Jesus, helping people become and then grow as disciples
• Has a defining focus on reaching a particular neighborhood or a particular people group
• Takes place in community and often revolves around shared times of food and fun
• Has a healthy balance of UP, IN, and OUT
• Conducts worship, prayer, and Scripture reading as core practices
• Looks outwards through a mixture of service and verbal witness.
• Has a common mission focus that is the key glue for the shared sense of togetherness
• Gathers informally throughout the week, not just at formal meetings
• Has leaders who receive ongoing help, coaching and accountability
• Has leaders who do not do everything – they facilitate and release others to serve and lead.

The Missional Church ...simple [VIDEO]

Here's a video, which was shown at the [RE]new Communities launch this morning.
It sums up a lot of what I've been talking about in 2 minutes.

What needs renewal?

This morning Melissa and I attended the Official Launch of Renew Communities down in Berea.  We are going to be partnering with Renew Communities in the launching of a missional community here in Cleveland Heights.

The big question for the day was "What can you think of that is in need of renewal?"

What places, businesses, relationships, people, schools, situations, etc. are in need of renewal?

Much as Andy did in setting out to launch Renew Communities in Berea, I ran the numbers for our area:

Population
Cleveland Heights: 47,097
S. Euclid: 23,537
Lyndhurst: 15,279
University Heights: 12,571

That's 98,484 people.
60% of them, some 59,090 people, are not receptive to the current model of church.
What does it look like to bring renewal to these people?  What does it look like to show the transformational power of the gospel to these nearly sixty-thousand people?

Let's work that out.
Join us this fall for the launch of our MC, and contact me IMMEDIATELY if you'd like to be involved.

Sheffield 2011 (Boilerplate edition)

Dear Friends, 

We are writing to you with near overwhelming excitement about an opportunity that we have to participate in an experience that will change our lives and help shape our approach to ministry.

Melissa and I have developed a heart for our local community of Cleveland Heights and intend to start an Christ-oriented missional community here. We hope to see God's Kingdom move in this city in new ways and touch the hearts of the many young adults we've met who may not know Christ. To this end we are looking to expand our horizons regarding what we think a church could look like in a city like ours.

We have been invited by Church Doctor Ministries to participate in the Pilgrimage Gathering at the St Thomas Church, Sheffield, UK June 1 – 9, 2011. This is an immersion experience unlike any other. It is an opportunity to encounter God, be immersed in the life of the pilgrimage center in Sheffield, evaluate the ministry taking place there, and apply the learning here in North America. The program will combine worship, teaching, processing, outreach, and practical mission application in ministry.

Participating in this experience will equip us to help other pastors, ministry leaders, and churches discover how to best live out the mission of making disciples and reaching more people for Jesus Christ. We are living in challenging times and there is not a better time than right now to equip Christians to fulfill the Great Commission.

An important ministry endeavor like this is never done alone and not without the support of friends and family that share in a passion for a transformed and renewed church in America. Please consider this my personal invitation to you to join the “Heffelfinger Support Team.”

We are putting this team together to not only help with some of the costs of this immersion experience but to also become a part of a special prayer team. This prayer team will not only pray for us during the time we are traveling and attending the Pilgrimage Gathering but also pray that God, through this experience, will use us to help bring about revival and transformation in both our lives and yours, as well as those we touch.

All members of the support team will be invited over to our home for a gathering after we return from the trip so that we can share our appreciation and the experience with you. Any member wanting to receive email updates from us about the trip can provide their email address and we will add you to a mailing list for updates on how we are using this experience in our ministry work.

The costs associated with attending the Pilgrimage Gathering including, travel, lodging, and fees associated the gathering experience total around $7000 for the two of us. We are personally committing $2000. We are seeking to raise an additional $5000 to cover the remaining costs of the trip. I have made arrangements with Church Doctor Ministries for all contributions to be made directly to them so that they may be considered tax deductible. You will just need to write, “Sheffield – Heffelfinger” in the memo line of your check. Please send any contribution you feel called to give directly to Church Doctor Ministries using the donate button at either of our blogs.

In these tough economic times I know it may be difficult for you to support us financially. Please know you are invited first and foremost to join this team as a prayer partner in ministry – we know God will provide in all other ways for us.

Should you have questions or would like more information please feel free to contact us directly at adamheffelfinger@gmail.com or melissapaoloni@gmail.com . 

God bless,

--Adam & Melissa Heffelfinger

The Button

With the house show a huge success (and more on that topic to come) Melissa and I are now turning our attention to planning our trip to Sheffield, UK to see the Missional Community model of church in action at St. Thomas's Anglican/Baptist church.

To do that, though, we've got a lot of money to raise.  So while I'll be explaining A LOT more about all this in the days (or hours) to come, the main purpose of this post is to try to test the best way to implement the new "Donations" button that we'll be utilizing for taking some of our donations.

My Missional Thesis

So in my endeavor to really figure out how missional/incarnational Christian community is going to work in my life and in my community I've put together a more well-formed thesis than the so-called "manifesto" written below. I wanted to take the time to re-state the entirety of my thought processes so far, and also bring to your attention how exactly I want to get started. I'm excited about all this, hopefully you are too.

I've got several points here:

I think that society "at-large" sees a disconnect in Christians and Christianity today. I've explained it like this: If the church was actually embodying Christ on Earth the way it intends to, and the way it's expected to, there would be people out there saying "I don't agree with the religion of Jesus, but you have to admit that his followers accomplish great things."  Instead, what we get (despite there being some truth to the "greatness" of the works of the Kingdom) is that most folks will tell you that they think Jesus has some great ideas, but that his followers are judgemental jerks.

I think that modern evangelicalism is faced with a huge problem in that the Church has lost nearly all of its intrigue, status, and attractiveness. Since Constantine, The Church has been, especially in the eyes of the outsider, an establishment and not a community.  The Church is a brick and mortar building: a place you go to be with God.
Unfortunately, in modernity, and moreso (I guess) in post-modernity the Church is seen as place you go to be JUDGED by God's people, and--if that's any indication--by God Himself as well.
There's an obvious need here to transform the church into something that less resembles this unattractive "establishment," and more resembles the kind of community that Christianity was built upon prior to Constantine's legalization of the faith.

I'm very, very interested in the prospect of doing church differently. And not in the cliche way of doing it exactly the same but with rock music (though I say that with tongue firmly in cheek as I continue to attend, and love, a church body doing something approximating that).
What I am proposing, and I'll be very forthcoming in explaining that this isn't a new idea, or even my idea, is organically putting together a community of likeminded folks with the goal of living a Christian life together.  We'll simply enjoy life, enjoy each other, enjoy our marriages and food and fun and all that God has provided us. We'll seek to grow together in maturity in Christ and we'll study His word.
This community will be constantly "on mission," helping out in our community and loving our neighbors and our world.
This community should be so attractive, and so powerfully changing lives both within the community and outside of it, that people will constantly take notice of it and desire to become a part of it.  So we'll invite those folks along to live life with us, to do mission with us, and to enjoy life in Christ (maybe that should be capital "L" Life?).
This community will therefore turn evangelism on its head.  Rather than "believing and then belonging", (or after an alter call, handing out Bibles and pamphlets welcoming folks to community and helping them with what they should do with their "new Christian faith,)" we will instead have a "belong then believe" approach where people will be free to join our community and do life with us and, we think, in so doing will see WHY we do life the way we do and come to believe the way we do.  And, frankly, if they DON'T come to believe the way we do, they're probably still welcome to take part because a) there's always hope and b) we're going to need all the hands we can get to accomplish all the good we hope to accomplish for His glory.

So I guess this thing begins in a somewhat real way in the Fall of 2011 when Melissa and I expect to hand off leadership of our 707/CVC LifeGroup and will begin leading a curriculum based Bible study of some kind from our home in Cleveland Heights.  More info on this will be forthcoming. But that day is still 10 months away, and intentionally so.

Obviously, though, planting a sign in our front yard that says "Missional/Incarnational Church Starting Here 2011" is the first step in becoming, not a community, but an institution. So the first step is actually in beginning to foster an intentional Christian community organically and naturally.  This calls for inviting along all the friends we can, but also making new ones.
The first step for THAT is in an event Melissa and I are currently planning for January. Which is where this post began.
I've been in contact with a couple of local musicians and am intending to throw a house show at our home in Cleveland Heights.  It will, hopefully, be a really big deal of a show and will pull in folks we know as well as folks we don't.  In keeping with the missional aspect of this entire thing, the show's proceeds will benefit a local Cleveland Heights charity organization.

Watch this space for more information.  After testing the waters a bit over how exciting an endeavor this is (people seem to think "VERY") and beginning to generate a bit of buzz, I need to now work on planning the thing in earnest.  Once it's a bit more nailed down, I'll be posting more frequent updates on it and, y'know, INVITING FOLKS.
Thanks for taking the time.
God Bless.

P.S.- Want to get excited about all this, and get a (excuse the word considering their other publications) "primer" on this way of thinking? I still cannot recommend ENOUGH Hugh Halter & Matt Smay's The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series)

The Lord's "Supper"

Occasionally in the last two or so weeks I've found myself contemplating the act of communion as it exists for most of us today. I can't help but wonder if there isn't a way we could get more from this sacrament, and I've also been pondering whether or not it is at all what Christ had in mind.

Some background:  One of the holy traditions (sacraments) in the Christian faith is that of communion.  In remembrance of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection, we eat bread and drink wine as He did, and as He instructed his followers to do.  The bread represents his broken body, the wine represents his shed blood. (Gospel basics: He died in mankind's place so that the sins committed by mankind could be atoned for, despite mankind's inability to atone for these sins itself.)  Here, though, is Luke's account of things:

14And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Today churches act out this sacrament in various ways, and place differing levels of importance on both the act, and its elements.  In my experience though, when my church takes communion it has never resembled the act performed by Jesus and his followers. The only similarity, even, is that we're eating things that are vague approximations of what Christ ate. (that is: oyster crackers, King's Hawaiian(tm) bread, pita, wafers of unknown origin/makeup, etc. and, invariably, non-alcoholic grape juice from the smallest vessel you can imagine)

Now I understand that Jesus and the twelve did not sit down to a table of bread and wine.  They ate these things over the course of a meal made up of other things.  Even so, I'm reasonably certain that they did not partake of these things the way that we do today.  It was surely not a thimbleful of grape juice and a tiny wafer of bread each.

Furthermore, Jesus and the twelve were not partaking of this in the context of a church service at all.  It was a passover meal, yes, but it was not something to be done after the sermon and before the closing song while the worship band plays.  It was in an altogether more intimate, and less congregational atmosphere. It was thirteen guys around a table, and not a couple hundred sitting in rows (or worse, performing it casually on the way back to their chairs).

I wonder how much of the impact of this act we lose as a result of the way we perform it today.  I'm saddened that I don't even have an answer to that question because I've NEVER performed it any other way.

How different would communion feel if we actually had a mouthful of bread.  What if we each actually had a large piece, and it finishing it actually took a conscious effort.  What I'm not saying is "what if we had so much bread that it was difficult to finish it all (though... what if?)" I'm saying: what if we actually received enough bread that if we swallowed it without chewing it we'd NOTICE?  Imagine if we had a tall glass of grape juice, or even (gasp!) wine!  How would communion change if it were actually taken around a table? If it were actually taken with, and after, a meal?  How would it change if there were actually time to contemplate it while we were partaking, instead of in the moments before and then (ten seconds later) in the moments after?

I think it's a real shame that I have absolutely no idea what the answer to these questions are.  I can hazard a guess, though. I'll bet it takes on a bit more depth. I bet it's a bit less forgettable and feels a lot less like empty ritual.  I want to try this. Soon. Who's in?