Saturday, October 17, 2009

House Church Action Plan

LEAVE your comfortable Christian activities, go outside your comfort zone, and take the time to build and invest in relationships with those around you like workmates, neighbours, and students.

FOCUS on living in such a way that Jesus’ message is clearly expressed through our lives. We can trust God to do the rest.

LIVE as a participant in the natural activities of culture while maintaining lines of clear conscience and non-compromise.

LOVE generously, genuinely, and with no sincere strings attached.

LISTEN in a way that demonstrates interest in others.

BRAINSTORM and pray for specific ideas about living on mission. For example ... Adopt a park. Adopt a family. Help a neighbour. Start a storytellers group. Donate to a food bank. Volunteer at a homeless shelter.

CHOOSE an activity you can do as a house church.

GO and just do it.

FOLLOW-UP the activity with a meeting as a group to prayerfully determine what worked and what did not.

READ Hugh Halter and Matt Smay’s book The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community.

Used with permission from @oikosministries. Taken from the latest edition of Starfish Files (Canada's house church magazine), now available for download from the Oikos Ministries Web site.

Friday, October 09, 2009

10 Marks of a Missional Community

  1. It's members love and talk positively about the city/neighborhood/pocket of people they're sent to.
  2. Members speak in language that is not filled with pious tribal or technical terms & phrases.
  3. Members don't use disdainful and embattled language about their city/neighborhood /pocket of people.
  4. They apply the gospel to the core concerns and stories of the people of the culture/city/neighborhood.
  5. Engaged w/ the lit/art/thought of the culture & can discuss it both appreciatively & yet critically.
  6. Deep concern for the poor and generosity with their money.
  7. Purity and respect with regard to opposite sex.
  8. They show humility toward people of other races and cultures.
  9. They do not bash other Christians and churches.
  10. Seekers/non-believing people will be invited & will come & will stay to explore spiritual issues
I got these 10 Marks of a Missional Community from a series of tweets posted by the Austin Stone Missional Community twitter account starting on September 28th. You can follow them on twitter at @AustinStoneMCs.