In a recent article, I posted the differences between house churches and microchurches. Since then, I have been asked about delineating between missional communities and microchurches. While the objectives are a bit different and each unique, delineation is not exactly the purpose. The objective of delineating between church planting strategies is for gospel engagement alignment.
One disclaimer, for more in-depth study on the subject, one of my recently published books, Multiplying Jesus: Planting Churches describes these strategies in more detail. The book examines and explores the pros, cons, procedures, and steps for each church planting model, as well as provides a biblical and theological underpinning for church planting. For the purposes of this article, the examination will be as brief and concise as possible—illustrating the major differences.
With that stated, and to reiterate the opening remarks, the purpose of strategic church planting models is not to indicate the superiority of one over another, but how to align vision and mission for gospel engagement. Strategies are tools that must have implementation and application. Since we have already surveyed microchurches, we will first address and spend more time describing missional communities.
Missional Communities
Mike Breen defines a missional community as a “group of approximately 20 to 40 people who are seeking to reach a particular neighborhood or network of relationships with the good news of Jesus.”[1] I would define missional communities as a measurable expression of a reproducible kingdom movement that exists for regional gospel-saturation. With committed oikos’ that thrive and learn together for spiritual growth in Christ, missional communities are made up of a network of believers impacting a specific area or community.
Examining the above diagram, there are two sets of “homes.” The darker shaded black represents a missional community, while the lighter shade is households that are not within the “community”; those homes represent believers or non-believers. The solid and squiggly black line represents the community street that separates particular neighborhoods. While a microchurch may consist of several households of people that gather together (in community)—their mission is “micro,” it is defined as reaching something, someone, or someplace (more elaboration below). Yet, the missional community has an objective to saturate an entire community with the gospel (everyone). They may have multiple outreaches, events, and expressions of church that are variously aligned.
For instance, the missional community breaks bread together, lives life together, takes care of one another’s needs when assistance is needed, supports missions, community, neighborhood outreach, social justice endeavors, and worships together. Missional communities tend to have multiple elders that serve as pastors. While each home is a household, the community serves and exists as a whole. This means that two or more households may create an oikos for devotions, baptisms, Lord’s Supper, and worship. It is possible to have several different oikos’ within a missional community. For example, out of 12 homes in a missional community, maybe there are 3 collective oikos’. Without delving into a rabbit hole, one might observe the difference between a missional community and a house church, too.
A house church can have members that travel into a community and worship within a particular oikos. It is possible for a house church to have believers from other communities that believe in their mission and vision. Additionally, the house church does not need to focus on their specific neighborhood—they may focus on their city, region, or even abroad. Whereas, missional communities are focused on the people that live within their explicit community. Basically, the missional community desires to see all blue homes (diagram) turn to black, participating in the community gospel-saturation mission. However, just because the homes are blue does not mean that the people inside are non-believers. Those people could be part of a microchurch within their region, traditional church-goers, a house church, or any other ecclesial observing formation.
Looking at some of the benefits of missional communities, it is apparent that disciple-making would arrive at the top of the list. The principles of missional communities are highly attractive to people that are seeking spiritual growth, intimacy, open and honest accountability, and spiritual transformation. As well, people that are seeking companionship, true friendship, and a more communal aspect of life will become excited with this strategy.
Actively and intimately growing with others is appealing. When a member of the missional community becomes sick and needs care, more than a pastor or deacon visit; the missional community mows the grass, buys groceries, cooks meals, and eats with the family (not merely dropping off), they help alleviate lost income (if needed), or any other need. The missional community is immensely connected to another one in prayer, fasting, devotion, and the navigation of the daily rhythms of life. A person with cancer, a teenager with problems, a dying pet, the loss of job, or the death of a loved one would not be able to be hidden from a missional community. They do life together, every day.
Microchurches
Having examined microchurches in another article, we will keep this brief. Recall that micro does not signify small but rather the fine-tuned vision and mission. A microchurch has one objective mission that encompasses gospel engagement—the goal is not saturating an entire neighborhood or community (unless they live within a cultural ethnic enclave), but a focused mission to a particular people, place, or thing.
The common misunderstanding with microchurch is defining it. In a recent conversation with Warren Bird, we discussed how many contradictory definitions were being promulgated. Even among well-known evangelical individuals, there is a misconception that micro means small and intimate. Some evangelicals identify microchurch with micro-expression.
However, a micro-expression of the Kingdom is a broad missiological term that surveys the many different ecclesial forms. Missional community, house church, microchurch, oikos, and any intimate or disciple-making fellowship can exist as a micro-expression of the Kingdom. Yet, microchurch is defined not by the overall intimacy or fellowship size but by the unified mission that exists within the covenant cruciform community of believers. For instance, in the previous article, the development and mission of a microchurch were described by the prodding of the Holy Spirit to call a skateboarding church planter to seek a person of peace (another skateboarder) within a specific culture or subculture (in this case, skateboarders). In turn, the skateboarding person of peace lives within the daily rhythms of his or her life with other skateboarders (skateboarding subcultural enclave). The microchurch only focuses on reaching and making disciples among skateboarders—that’s it—their mission is micro.
Conclusion
As stated earlier, delineating between missional community and microchurch is not to examine the superiority of one model over another, but to assist in gospel engagement. Strategies help church planters stay focused. Maintaining mission-focus is not only vital for planters but for everyone invested and involved. Regardless, can a microchurch decide to be part of a missional community, or vice-versa, a participating missional community oikos decide to become a microchurch—absolutely—they can. The strategies are not denominational or doctrinal, but ecclesial. Models help cultivate movement.
[1] Mike Breen, Leading Missional Communities: Rediscovering the Power of Living on Mission Together (Pawleys Island: 3DM, 2013), 6.