Mobilizing Missional Leaders

When churches partner with a vision to see every man, woman, and child in their city know and experience the love of Jesus, it’s a beautiful thing. Last weekend, 9 churches under the banner Bridge Builders partnered with Church Movements staff to host The Changing Face of Evangelism & the Wellbeing of the City workshop– a seminar designed to equip and empower a growing number of everyday believers to have significant, gospel conversations where they live, work, learn, and play.

The Saturday morning training felt like the fulfillment of Philippians 2:1-2: if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Participants were so inspired by the practical, relevant, cool tools, they were almost willing to run outside to initiate spiritual conversations in sub-freezing weather!

Please enjoy this VIDEO below from Benjamin, the director of Bridge Builders, who also said, “I cannot express adequately my thoughts and gratitude for the training Saturday past. Amazing and timely. The content encapsulated the heart of Bridge Builders and it was encouraging to meet another group whose heart is the same as ours.” These churches represent an area of the city that has grown by 15% since 2010, and if each church can share the gospel with 500 people, they will reach their scope together!

Mobilizing for Multiplication

As one Church Movements staff member is famous for saying, “Training without follow-up produces disappointing results.” Being part of a Coaching Circle– on-going exposure to like-minded leaders to know each other, invest in each other, and increase each others’ missional effectiveness– is one of the long-term benefits to the SENT 6:7-Develop training. Sean, an emerging leader and worship pastor at a mega-church attended a SENT 6:7 training last July. As his church developed a vision for moving from a megachurch campus to a network of smaller, house churches, Sean was given leadership of House Churches & Community.

Here are his thoughts on the benefits of being part of a Coaching Circle:
 
The Christian pilgrimage is a journey we take with others, and it’s a journey we only get to make once. Every moment counts; all joys, all sorrows, all victories, all failures, all losses, all gains, all ordinary moments, and those we sacralize. There’s not a single square inch of the human experience that discipleship under Jesus doesn’t touch, define and direct. Only a passing consideration of these realities can be startling, and truly they ought to be, especially so when contrasted with the general malaise and meaninglessness that the digital age has bequeathed to my generation. Life is commonly dealt with insincerely, flippantly, as though life weren’t that important.
 
Participating in a coaching circle has been balm for my spiritual eyes and refreshment for my bones. Without our time together I’d be leaving much of my shepherding experience unexplored, which is dangerous for God’s shepherds, men and women who are called to study to show themselves approved, laborers who have no need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth. Walking this pastoral calling out alone is impossible and reckless. 
 
Success can be defined in local church ministry in so many ways. But some of those ways are…. numbers and figures that make us feel good about our work, when perhaps all we’re doing is making converts and not disciples, or swapping sheep instead of truly carrying the gospel’s light into the darkness of generational unbelief. 
 
The gospel-life of God in every believer is particularizing to the most infinitesimal degree, it speaks powerfully into every moment, every motivation, every pursuit, it corrects false notions of flourishing and bolsters good, faithful labor when we are tempted to find it futile. Perhaps this is the greatest joy I have experienced in my coaching circle– knowing God and myself more deeply by knowing the men I walk with, and the particularities of their ministries more deeply. 
 
One example to close: the very moment the crisis at the U.S. Capitol building was happening on January 6th (though we were at the time unaware), Simone Pierre, our French-speaking brother from Central Africa was praying over us in French to close our time together. Of course we had no idea what he said because he chose extemporaneously to pray in French instead of English, but we received his generous intercession with glad and thankful hearts and were deeply refreshed in Jesus, our Lord of every tongue, tribe and nation. That moment was portentous of the new heaven and new earth.
 
For Sean’s full Blog, Please READ HERE