Launching Missional Communities, by Mike Breen, Alex Absalom
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Launching Missional Communities, by Mike Breen, Alex Absalom
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Most Christians appear to approach the Bible with awe, much in the same way that they would approach Shakespeare or opera - deep mysteries understood by a few and veiled to the rest of us. However, understanding the Bible depends upon understanding two simple, yet fundamental themes which weave together all of Scripture: Covenant and Kingdom. The whole Bible from beginning to end is about these two things - God forging a relationship with us and then working through us to express his love and power. It is the DNA of the Bible. The better we understand this, the better we grasp the Bible as a whole. This will only lead to good things for us - confidence about what God is saying and a more certain and sure journey of faith as the Scriptures come alive in our hands.
Launching Missional Communities, by Mike Breen, Alex Absalom- Amazon Sales Rank: #262267 in Books
- Published on: 2015-06-02
- Formats: Color, Box set
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 11.02" h x .60" w x 8.50" l, 1.46 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 284 pages
- Covenant and Kingdom, Mike Breen,
- Relationship, Responsibility, DNA of the Bible
- 5 Disc Box Set
About the Author Alex is a visionary speaker, consultant, writer and practitioner on mission and discipleship, especially the practicalities of building a movement around missional communities. Originally from England, Alex has served in church leadership for over two decades, and has helped many churches and denominations develop intentional disciple making processes. Married to Hannah and with three sons, the family are part of Grace Church in Long Beach CA, where Alex also leads Dandelion (www.dandelionresourcing.com), an organization that empowers disciple making leaders and churches.
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Most helpful customer reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful. Perfect blend of theory and practical--a must read By WheatonGuy18 I think it's easy to be cynical when you approach a new book about anything missional, particularly a book with one of the defining characteristics being that it's practical and will help teach you "how" to launch, sustain, disciple people in and multiply missional Missional Communities. I certainly was that cynical person. (BTW--Missional Communities as defined in this book are a group of 20-50 people who are on the same mission together with community and spiritual life within the group beginning on the mission field, rather than an added thing).But just a few pages in, you realize this book is something very different. Rather than being a book written a year after the authors discovered something "new", this book was written after 20 years of experimenting, failing, succeeding and growing Missional Communities. It is a wealth of thoughtful reflections, suggestions, cautions and practical steps that could only have been learned on the front line of mission for a LONG period of time. Perhaps more impressive is that the church where this all began (in the UK) became one of the largest churches in Europe quite some time ago through using Missional Communities...and they are just now getting around to writing a book on what they've learned! Also, littered throughout the book are story after story after story of churches that have done this in the United States, so they are often able to illustrate a point with an actual story of an actual MC doing it.So for me, the length of time that went into compiling the information and the array of examples and stories through the United States did a lot to keep down my more cynical nature.The book is divided into 5 Sections: Opening Thoughts, Key Concepts, Launch Guide, MC Life and Case Studies.Part 1 | Opening Thoughts. The book begins with an excellent Introduction that really paints the landscape of the American church in a helpful way. What's strong about the Introduction is that it's written by someone other than the authors who stumbled upon what these guys had been doing and was able to capture that experience well. Essentially, the Introduction captures the feeling of knowing that things are broken, wanting to change it, but not even quite knowing where to start: "Many people were writing about the social theory and theology of movements and mission, but there were no clear practices for doing it. Only a few people were writing practical books on the way forward, and even then it only seemed incrementally different from what had come before. It really wasn't any more "missional." It seemed like there were a lot of thinkers who didn't practice and a lot of practitioners who didn't think."The rest of Part 1 gives a little history as to where Missional Communities came from, a little bit about the authors (which was actually quite interesting) and then defining the terms the authors would be using throughout the book. This was definitely helpful as different people use different terms...well...differently!Part 2 | Key Concepts. The point of this section was to show the broad principles that have shaped MCs in the past 20 years. In other words, what are the BIG THINGS the authors learned along the way that led them to MCs as they are expressed today. If you've read a lot on missional theology or practice, the first half of this section will probably be re-tread, but still helpful for setting the stage for what's to come. However, what got interesting was when they dove into the reason for the size of the groups (20-50 people). They laid out a few very compelling arguments for having groups this size. First, they said while some people define missional communities as small groups with a missional edge/focus to them, they believe it needs to be larger. Why? Because they started there as well and found that "these groups were small enough to care but not large enough to dare." Basically, it's hard to be really effective in mission with such a small group of people. It's not that it can't be, but it's difficult. The second really compelling argument was looking at research done in the 1960's by Edward Hall that showed the different "spaces" that people inhabit: Public Space (75 people or more), Social Space (20-70 people), Personal Space (6-12 people) and Intimate Space (1-2 people) and how we group ourselves in those different spaces. What I really took away was that the research showed that people derive their primary identity from the Social Space...the group of 20-70 people, which most churches don't even have. So rather than having people find their identity for "church" in the big, more anonymous Public Space (the worship service), people will naturally gravitate towards the Social Space, where it's "small enough to care, but large enough to dare." In other words, people know when you're missing, but there's still a mass of people to do something significant. Really good stuff here.The rest of part 2 looks at Missional vs. Attractional, Leadership in MCs, the story of a Missional Community that exemplified all of these concepts (which was really helpful) and a great section on discipleship (which I thought was of particular importance as they made the case that if you don't have a way of investing in, discipling and holding your MC leaders accountable, it will all fall to pieces pretty quickly. Glad they hit on that and how they've learned to do it).Part 3 | Launch Guide. This section is aimed mostly at people looking at making a paradigm shift in more established churches using a Sunday-centric way of being the church. But it also has a GREAT addendum for church planters launching with Missional Communities rather than a worship service, as well as a fascinating chapter on how to grow Missional Communities. Some of the Launch Guide for established churches was a little dense at times and a bit confusing, but it was heaving on details and practical help from people who have done it before. Helpful and really practical.Part 4 | MC Life. This is easily the most practical section of the book. After you've launched Missional Communities...what do you do next? How do you do real mission? What about worship? Teaching? Kids? Finances? Can teenagers be in Missional Communities? How does it relate to the wider church well? What about leadership? How do you define the vision of the group? On and on and on. This was where the authors 20 years of experience with MCs really came to light as they addressed thing after thing. What was really helpful is that they didn't always give an exact answer but a few answers. For instance, on the issue of kids within a Missional Community. Rather than saying, "kids should be in MCs 100% of the time and here's how to do it" or the opposite of that, they listed out three different ways of dealing with kids in a MC (kids are fully integrated, kids are fully separate, kids are integrated some of the time and separate some of the time) and gave pro's and con's from their experience in doing it and helpful for suggestions for how to do each of them. In the end, they said it depends on the MC and the context they find themselves in. Things like that were very helpful and underlined the flexibility of MCs in almost any context. This section will definitely service as a resource guide for people to come back to time and time again. It's a "how-to" book without saying there is only one way to do it. There's a form, but not a formula.Part 5 | Case Studies. The case studies were really helpful in seeing this play out in real life, but I only found the first two to be helpful. They were both church plants that had done it. The second two, both done from established churches starting to use MCs, weren't as strong as one was a newspaper article taken from a local paper about the church and the other was Q&A with the pastor. While interesting to read, they lacked the clarity of the first two case studies.Lastly, the Appendix is full of more notes, details and information that you'd want to reference in the future.Overall, the book was EXCELLENT. It is by far the best book I've read on both the theology and practice of being the church differently in the United States in a way that actually has worked both in Europe as well as North America. If you're at all interested in the future of the church, I'd pick up this book.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful. Best Resource Available on Missional Communities By Benjamin Sternke (Originally reviewed on my blog at [...]A few weeks ago I read through Launching Missional Communities, a new book by Mike Breen and Alex Absalom. The super short review: it is the single best resource available on Missional Communities (MCs). I absolutely loved it.The main reason this book is so good is that Breen and Absalom are practioners, not just theorists. Now, as an INTP, I can certainly get excited about a robust and elegant theory! But I shared the frustration of the church planter who wrote the introduction to the book. As he was searching books and podcasts for help on cultivating and implementing MCs, he found that "There were a lot of people writing about the social theory and theology of movements and mission, but no clear practices for doing it... It seemed like there were a lot of thinkers who didn't practice and a lot of practitioners who didn't think."The authors of LMC step into this void as practioners who think. Breen practically invented MCs 15 years ago when he was leading St. Thomas' Church in Sheffield, England. Absalom was there with Breen, and has since planted hundreds of MCs and worked with several established churches at a more strategic level, helping them transition to a MC model. Because of this, this book is dripping with wisdom that comes from the blood and guts experience of actually doing this stuff for many years.Full disclosure, too: Mike Breen now lives in the US and leads 3DM, a coaching/consulting ministry helping American churches transition to a more discipling, missional way of being the church. The church plant I'm leading has been part of a Learning Community for the past eight months or so, and in that context I've been taught and coached by both Mike and Alex, so I'm perhaps biased to like this book from the get-go.But whether I'm listening to them in-person or reading their words in this book, I find their input to be refreshingly down-to-earth and eminently practical. They understand the process of transition, what kinds of battles and roadblocks will present themselves, and what kind of resolve it really takes to move a church culture into discipleship and mission. Because of this, a lot of we-know-how-you-feel-but-you-can-do-it! encouragement comes through in this book.There are three main sections to the book, along with a brief intro and a few case studies: 1. Key Concepts (theological, practical, and sociological reasons MCs work) 2. Launch Guide (practical steps to start MCs in your church) 3. Missional Community Life (practical nuts-and-bolts of leading MCs)The Key Concepts section is a great overview of the what and why of MCs: This isn't just re-naming something or making a few tweaks to the small group ministry. There is a qualitative difference going on here, and this section helps people understand some of the underlying ideas that make MCs work.For example, why is it so important for MCs to be "mid-sized?" Why can't we just add a "missional" element to our current small groups and call them MCs? I've written about this before ([...]), but it turns out it really is an issue. Size matters. A lot of churches are discovering these things as they go. For example, my friend Bob Hyatt, who planted a church in Portland several years ago, recently tweeted that they've been "trying to do mission at the Gathering (80-120 people) and home group (6-12) level. Too big and too small respectively."The Launch Guide is an extremely practical (and flexible) plan for introducing MCs into the life of an established church. Lots of great practical advice there.But the final section (Missional Community Life) was probably the most helpful for me. It's simply page after page of nuts-and-bolts on the ins-and-outs of leading MCs: what to do with kids, where to meet, how they grow, how to develop leaders, what to do first, creative ways to worship together, ideas for developing relationships, fresh concepts for mission... etc.In my opinion, this is the single best resource available on MCs, because it's not just about what they are, but also about how to start, lead, and multiply them, from two people who have probably been doing it as long as anyone on the planet. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking to understand MCs more fully, but especially to leaders who want some practical wisdom in leading MCs and/or transitioning a church to MCs.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful. A must-read By WheatonGuy18 I think it's easy to be cynical when you approach a new book about anything missional, particularly a book with one of the defining characteristics being that it's practical and will help teach you "how" to launch, sustain, disciple people in and multiply missional Missional Communities. I certainly was that cynical person. (BTW--Missional Communities as defined in this book are a group of 20-50 people who are on the same mission together with community and spiritual life within the group beginning on the mission field, rather than an added thing).But just a few pages in, you realize this book is something very different. Rather than being a book written a year after the authors discovered something "new", this book was written after 20 years of experimenting, failing, succeeding and growing Missional Communities. It is a wealth of thoughtful reflections, suggestions, cautions and practical steps that could only have been learned on the front line of mission for a LONG period of time. Perhaps more impressive is that the church where this all began (in the UK) became one of the largest churches in Europe quite some time ago through using Missional Communities...and they are just now getting around to writing a book on what they've learned! Also, littered throughout the book are story after story after story of churches that have done this in the United States, so they are often able to illustrate a point with an actual story of an actual MC doing it.So for me, the length of time that went into compiling the information and the array of examples and stories through the United States did a lot to keep down my more cynical nature.The book is divided into 5 Sections: Opening Thoughts, Key Concepts, Launch Guide, MC Life and Case Studies.Part 1 | Opening Thoughts. The book begins with an excellent Introduction that really paints the landscape of the American church in a helpful way. What's strong about the Introduction is that it's written by someone other than the authors who stumbled upon what these guys had been doing and was able to capture that experience well. Essentially, the Introduction captures the feeling of knowing that things are broken, wanting to change it, but not even quite knowing where to start: "Many people were writing about the social theory and theology of movements and mission, but there were no clear practices for doing it. Only a few people were writing practical books on the way forward, and even then it only seemed incrementally different from what had come before. It really wasn't any more "missional." It seemed like there were a lot of thinkers who didn't practice and a lot of practitioners who didn't think."The rest of Part 1 gives a little history as to where Missional Communities came from, a little bit about the authors (which was actually quite interesting) and then defining the terms the authors would be using throughout the book. This was definitely helpful as different people use different terms...well...differently!Part 2 | Key Concepts. The point of this section was to show the broad principles that have shaped MCs in the past 20 years. In other words, what are the BIG THINGS the authors learned along the way that led them to MCs as they are expressed today. If you've read a lot on missional theology or practice, the first half of this section will probably be re-tread, but still helpful for setting the stage for what's to come. However, what got interesting was when they dove into the reason for the size of the groups (20-50 people). They laid out a few very compelling arguments for having groups this size. First, they said while some people define missional communities as small groups with a missional edge/focus to them, they believe it needs to be larger. Why? Because they started there as well and found that "these groups were small enough to care but not large enough to dare." Basically, it's hard to be really effective in mission with such a small group of people. It's not that it can't be, but it's difficult. The second really compelling argument was looking at research done in the 1960's by Edward Hall that showed the different "spaces" that people inhabit: Public Space (75 people or more), Social Space (20-70 people), Personal Space (6-12 people) and Intimate Space (1-2 people) and how we group ourselves in those different spaces. What I really took away was that the research showed that people derive their primary identity from the Social Space...the group of 20-70 people, which most churches don't even have. So rather than having people find their identity for "church" in the big, more anonymous Public Space (the worship service), people will naturally gravitate towards the Social Space, where it's "small enough to care, but large enough to dare." In other words, people know when you're missing, but there's still a mass of people to do something significant. Really good stuff here.The rest of part 2 looks at Missional vs. Attractional, Leadership in MCs, the story of a Missional Community that exemplified all of these concepts (which was really helpful) and a great section on discipleship (which I thought was of particular importance as they made the case that if you don't have a way of investing in, discipling and holding your MC leaders accountable, it will all fall to pieces pretty quickly. Glad they hit on that and how they've learned to do it).Part 3 | Launch Guide. This section is aimed mostly at people looking at making a paradigm shift in more established churches using a Sunday-centric way of being the church. But it also has a GREAT addendum for church planters launching with Missional Communities rather than a worship service, as well as a fascinating chapter on how to grow Missional Communities. Some of the Launch Guide for established churches was a little dense at times and a bit confusing, but it was heaving on details and practical help from people who have done it before. Helpful and really practical.Part 4 | MC Life. This is easily the most practical section of the book. After you've launched Missional Communities...what do you do next? How do you do real mission? What about worship? Teaching? Kids? Finances? Can teenagers be in Missional Communities? How does it relate to the wider church well? What about leadership? How do you define the vision of the group? On and on and on. This was where the authors 20 years of experience with MCs really came to light as they addressed thing after thing. What was really helpful is that they didn't always give an exact answer but a few answers. For instance, on the issue of kids within a Missional Community. Rather than saying, "kids should be in MCs 100% of the time and here's how to do it" or the opposite of that, they listed out three different ways of dealing with kids in a MC (kids are fully integrated, kids are fully separate, kids are integrated some of the time and separate some of the time) and gave pro's and con's from their experience in doing it and helpful for suggestions for how to do each of them. In the end, they said it depends on the MC and the context they find themselves in. Things like that were very helpful and underlined the flexibility of MCs in almost any context. This section will definitely service as a resource guide for people to come back to time and time again. It's a "how-to" book without saying there is only one way to do it. There's a form, but not a formula.Part 5 | Case Studies. The case studies were really helpful in seeing this play out in real life, but I only found the first two to be helpful. They were both church plants that had done it. The second two, both done from established churches starting to use MCs, weren't as strong as one was a newspaper article taken from a local paper about the church and the other was Q&A with the pastor. While interesting to read, they lacked the clarity of the first two case studies.Lastly, the Appendix is full of more notes, details and information that you'd want to reference in the future.Overall, the book was EXCELLENT. It is by far the best book I've read on both the theology and practice of being the church differently in the United States in a way that actually has worked both in Europe as well as North America. If you're at all interested in the future of the church, I'd pick up this book.
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