Tag Archives: missional communities

Monday Morning Mind Dump…

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  • What a day yesterday at Revolution
  • The first week of Meaning was incredible
  • So many guests yesterday
  • I had a couple of friends come yesterday that God is definitely working on
  • Love seeing the gears move in people’s heads and hearts as the gospel takes root
  • We had our highest non-holiday attendance yesterday for the past year
  • Crazy how God is working in the lives of people
  • If you missed it, you can listen to it here
  • We’re having a baptism next week and I’m blown away by the stories of redemption that we’ll hear as people take the next step of publicly declaring their faith
  • Yesterday we kicked off sign-ups for our new spring missional communities that are launching at the end of month
  • Stunned by how they continue to grow and how God continues to use them
  • Can’t believe we will have 10 of them
  • Jared shared about his MC yesterday and how they were able to work with office depot to give over 1400 dry erase markers to Magee middle school
  • Office depot dropped over $1,000 off the price
  • Can’t wait to hear how the teachers react
  • We have another home study today for our Ethiopian adoption
  • It’s been almost 3 years that we’ve been in this process
  • Definitely teaching me endurance as we wait
  • Always makes me wonder why it has to take so long
  • Started a great leadership book yesterday
  • Read great reviews about it, so I’m excited about the angle
  • It is about why what the leader believes is the most important part of the leader
  • Definitely a different take on leadership
  • Next week at Revolution I’m teaching on a topic I’ve never preached on: handling boredom in our lives
  • Everyone is bored, we all wish we had someone else’s life, so we’ll see what the gospel has to say about that
  • Should be fun

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What is a Missional Community?

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A Missional Community consists of a committed core of believers (FAMILY) who live out the mission of God together (MISSIONARIES) in a specific area or to a particular group by demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms (SERVANTS) and declaring the gospel to others, both those who believe it and those who are being exposed to it (LEARNERS).

To clarify, a Missional Community is NOT primarily a small group, Bible study, support group, social activist group, or weekly meeting.

Family

When you think of a family that is working biblically, what things come to mind? They spend time together, they laugh, they cry, sometimes they rub each other the wrong way, the lean on each other, rely on each other, they eat together. The main idea? They are together. In a missional community at Revolution, we make a commitment to be with each other, to spend time together. Whether that is a game night, on a holiday, after church, watching a game, seeing a child’s play. They are together. They schedule regularly to be together, to make each other a priority, to include each other in their lives. If someone has a need in a missional community, the family comes together to meet it.

Missionaries

A missional community is on mission together in a specific area or a particular group of people. That might be a school, a neighborhood, international students, teachers, single mom’s. Together as a missional community, they seek to be the gospel to a particular group or area. Answering questions like:

  • What truths of the gospel do they need to hear specifically? (The gospel is the same for everyone, but different people need to hear specific parts).
  • What are some barriers to the gospel to this group of people?
  • Where do they spend their time? What do they do with their time?
  • How can we include ourselves in what they are doing on their turf?

A mission should not be anything new to your life. Too many people miss this and then burn out. Your mission should be something you already do, a place you already spend time. Before embarking on a mission as a missional community, make sure you already do the mission you are heading into. As a leader, you simply want to invite people into something you are already doing.

Servants

Each missional community then looks at their mission and determines how to serve together to fulfill that mission in their world. They also make commitments and seek ways to serve on a regular basis together and in everyday ways on their own. Their time together is then a celebration of what God has done throughout the week and the ways they’ve partnered with Him in their world.

Learners

Followers of Jesus grow and mature in their relationship with God. The goal of a missional community is not to simply study the Bible, but for the Bible to change us. Questions we often ask about a passage:

  • What does this passage tell us about God? What characteristics do we see about Him in this passage? Why are those important?
  • What does this passage say about humans in general? What does this passage say about me and what I’m like?
  • What does this passage call us to?
  • Why do we need Jesus to fulfill the call this passage has placed on our lives?

Why They are Important at Revolution Church

If you don’t get into a missional community at Revolution, you’ll miss some of the best parts of Revolution. This is the space where discipleship, mission, shepherding  care and community happen. This is where life happens. This is where counseling is able to take place in the context of relationships. Discipleship happens in the context of being a part of each other’s lives.

This is also the step of “membership” at Revolution. While we call it partnership because member sounds like a golf club. Each year, those in a missional community create a covenant together, that they sign. This covenant not only lays out what a particular missional community will be about, how they will live out their mission and the identities, there is also a piece of it that each person makes a commitment to Revolution Church at large. By “re-upping” each year instead of a once and done approach, this allows us to have more accountability. Every year, we commit to a group of people and to the church, once again saying, “I’m in.”

If you aren’t in a missional community or have questions about how we do them at Revolution, please contact Mike Miller.

Living out the Family Identity

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We talk a lot at Revolution about our identity in Christ and what that means. One of the identities we seek to embody in the life of our church and our missional communities is the identity of family. This one can be the toughest to figure out because we simply think of the family we had growing up and either try to be that or the opposite.

One thing I think is easy to do in the name of family or community is in the area of sharing things and how we listen. I think it is easy to listen to someone vent and then be done and say, “Look, we’re being family, they had room to share.” That’s only part of it and I think if we stop there, we fail as family. Family then has a responsibility to appropriately challenge that person with the gospel. To ask why they are reacting that way, what their sin in the situation is, what they are believing about themselves, the other person they vented about and God. What does the gospel have to say about all of those answers?

If we stop at simply listening to someone, we fail them and the rest of our missional community family.

Here’s how. We don’t give them an opportunity to grow, we miss an opportunity to grow in how we talk about the gospel and challenge people with it, our MC misses seeing it happen, they miss hearing the gospel and its implications for someone’s life.

Question: What is the hardest part of living out the family identity in community? I’d love to hear thoughts. 

This Weekend @ Revolution || More than You can Imagine

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Hard to believe that we have been meeting at Magee for 5 weeks, but each week feels more and more like home for us. Each time I go there, I think, why didn’t we do this sooner. God has been so gracious to us since we moved in and I know that will just continue.

  1. This week, we are continuing our series Image is Everything and we’ll be looking at Ephesians 3:14 – 21 if you want to read ahead. We’ll be looking at how God’s love, plan and power are greater than we could imagine. 
  2. If you haven’t signed up for a missional community, you can do so here. They all kick off next week around the city. Some of them are full, but there is still space in many of them. We say it all the time, if you aren’t in a missional community, you are missing one of the best parts of Revolution Church. I’m excited to hear all the reports of what God is doing in our city through our MC’s in the coming weeks and months.

This is definitely a week you don’t want to miss at Revolution Church. So, bring someone with you (you never know when a simple invite will make an eternal difference)

Remember, we meet at 8300 E. Speedway Blvd. at 10am

See you on Sunday!

This Weekend @ Revolution || Freedom through Forgiveness & Community

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Really excited for this week at Revolution. Here’s why:

  1. We’re continuing our series in the book of Ephesians and I’ll be looking at the practical implications on our lives of what God’s grace does for us. How we are able to find freedom by forgiving those who hurt us because God has forgiven us. How his grace and forgiveness helps us to get past our hurt and fear and join into community. We’ll be looking at Ephesians 2:11 – 22 if you want to read ahead.
  2. Speaking of community. If you haven’t signed up to join a missional community yet, you need to get a jump on it. Some of them are filled up or filling up and I’d hate to see you miss out on one of the best parts of Revolution Church. We will have sign-ups at the church this week, so I’ll give details on that.
  3. We are having a child dedication this week during the service. I love the steps families in our church take as they seek to honor God through their parenting and raise up their children to know the gospel and to disciple them. Then, for our church family to commit to being a part of that as a church. If you’d like to dedicate your child, email Jared Carter.

This is definitely a week you don’t want to miss at Revolution Church. So, bring someone with you (you never know when a simple invite will make an eternal difference)

Remember, we meet at 8300 E. Speedway Blvd. at 10am

See you on Sunday!

Monday Morning Mind Dump…

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  • Blown away by what God is doing at Revolution Church right now
  • Loving preaching through the Ephesians, easily one of my favorite series so far in the history of our church
  • Speaking of our church history, we celebrated 4 years as a church yesterday
  • Blown away by God’s grace to allow to reach 4 years
  • I truly believe the best is in front of us as a church
  • We celebrated by moving as a church
  • One of the highlights yesterday was praying with so many Revolutionaries for their unsaved friends to find Jesus
  • Love that passion, seeing people moved because their friends don’t know Jesus and the life He brings
  • Yesterday was one of those days as a communicator that you have angst the whole way leading up to preaching
  • The topic of the Holy Spirit, what the Holy Spirit does and how to live in the power of the Spirit in our lives is crucial, so important in the life of a believer
  • Yet, so hard to make relevant to someone
  • I kept thinking all week, how is this relevant to my unsaved friends? To those who will be there who don’t know Jesus?
  • Apparently, when you talk about the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit likes to show up
  • It was a powerful day
  • If you missed it, you can listen here
  • Here are two books that helped me in learning about the Holy Spirit: Forgotten God and Spirit Rising
  • One added bonus to Revolution moving to Sunday morning is getting my Saturday back
  • I didn’t realize how awesome Saturday was because I worked on it
  • So cool being able to do random things with the family on Saturday and get a family day
  • Got to check out a used book sale and then went to the insect fair at the U of A
  • The kids loved both, got tons of books and touched tons of bugs
  • We announced yesterday that we are starting our sign ups for our fall Missional Communities this week
  • You can hear from each leader and the vision of their MC here to get a head start on figuring out which one you want to get plugged into
  • Be sure to sign up as they’ll fill up
  • We are also planning to launch at least 4 more in January
  • Got to spend the afternoon with some neighbors yesterday digging up a tree in our front yard
  • Amazing how yard work brings neighbors together
  • Being on mission in your neighborhood isn’t that hard
  • Simply pick a hard job at your house and ask a neighbor to help
  • Relationships happen
  • Then, return the favor when they ask
  • I even got to see my first 2 tarantula’s yesterday, thankfully outside of my house
  • So gross
  • Pumped for next week at Revolution Church
  • If you’ve been thinking about bringing a friend, next week is the week
  • Excited to dive into the topic of how far God’s grace goes next week as we look at Ephesians 2:1 – 10
  • We’ll look at if there’s a limit to God’s grace, what grace does, what our part in grace is
  • It will definitely be a week you won’t want to miss
  • See you next Sunday

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