Directional Alignment in Church Planting

Though we are still a very young church, we’ve gone far enough in the journey to have some hindsight. Looking back at how we planted Church of the Cross, I think I would have done it differently. By no means am I complaining about where we’re at as a church family. I’m just saying that I think I would now do things differently. In fact, when we plant a church, we will do things differently.

We started with a corporate, gathered worship very early on in our growth process. To put it in different terms, we “led” with a Sunday morning gathering. From this, we developed Missional Communities, which we later renamed Community Groups. If we could put it into a picture, it might look something like this:

In many ways, in hindsight, I feel like we put up a church “structure” (not necessarily a building) and then felt like we had to “fill it,” to keep it going because that is what “churches” are supposed to do. I am by no means downplaying gathered worship, but after learning and preaching through the book of Acts, I’m not so sure I would do it the same way again.

Tim Keller has said that we should “plant the Gospel” and let church grow out of that. As we have moved to a more missional community structure (even though we no longer call them that,) I wish we had begun with our Community Groups, focused on getting ourselves to live in community on Mission and then let a corporate, gathered worship flower out of that. If the church’s primary task is making disciples,then I think we must ask where that happens best. I’m not saying that discipleship cannot or does not happen in Gathered Worship settings, but, when you’re together for an hour-and-a-half a week versus living life in community on mission throughout the week, which do you think will have more influence?

All of that to say that, if we had it to do over again, I think we would have “led” with our Community Groups. We define our Community Groups this way:

A Community Group is a family of learning, serving missionaries striving to live ordinary life together with Gospel intentionality.

Each Community Group is centered around a tangible, clearly-communicated mission with the end-goal of making disciples and we strive for them to be the heart of everything we do at Church of the Cross. In other words, they are the context in which we live together as community on mission. If we had it to do over, we would have led with these, flowing into a corporate worship, instead of the other way around. It might look something like this:

This diagram might require a little more explanation. Notice that in the first image, each of the circles is marked with a solid line. In most churches that adopt this approach, both Gathered Worship and Small Groups are specifically for believers. They are somewhat closed. But in the second diagram, our Community Groups and Gathered Worship are delineated by dashes. Those who do not yet believe in Jesus are welcome. Somewhere within, there is the “closed” circle of disciples, because, let’s be honest, some people are Christians and some are not.

In the second diagram, it is quite possible, and perhaps even expected that the Community Groups will grow faster than the Gathered Worship. Instead of inviting someone “to church,” we invite them into a communal life. This is not the same as “lifestyle evangelism” in which we simply hope that people will ask why we live differently, because we are intentionally turning everything back to Jesus, but the point of “success” or “failure” is not butts in the seats on a Sunday morning, but disciples.

I have come to wonder why it is that many of our church plant models “lead” with Sunday morning instead of with life on mission together. I wonder if it’s because life on mission together is not really all that natural to us. Sunday morning is easier to quantify, easier to track, but shouldn’t Sunday morning be a “gathering,” a celebration of what Jesus has been doing in and through us throughout the week?

There is certainly much more to be said on this, but I just wanted to share some of the things I’ve been thinking through.