Huddle for Mission

Since I started blogging in March I have been reflecting on the nature of Church. To reach the "gentiles" with the good news of Jesus and his Kingdom we are going to have to embrace radical church structures which are flexible and easy to reproduce. One church that had made great strides in this area is St. Thomas in Sheffield.

St. Toms has a Parish Church presence in Crookes - a suburb of Sheffield and a City-wide presence through St.Thomas, Philadelphia which has a base/resource centre in an old industrial unit near the city centre.

The history of St. Toms has been an inspiration to me over the years - I read Robert Warren's book "In the Crucible" around the time of my selection conference. I embraced his teaching about Missionary congregations. I have followed with interest the growth of clusters and cells under Mike Breen's leadership.

Out of this has now come TOM - The Order of Mission. The pattern of life is based on the Lifeshapes (originally known as Lifeskills). New disciples are taught these shapes as a way they can live in obedience to the teachings of Christ. They are simple, practical and memorable which means they can easily be transferred to a new disciple. Simple is important for movement and sustainable growth.

Leaders are mentored and trained in the use of the Lifeshapes through Huddles. The principle used is one of High Acountability - Low Control. It is very Apostolic in nature and it realeases people to lead missionary communities.

The following is a descrition of Huddles from a card that is used by Huddle members in The Order of Mission.

‘Huddle’ is the structure by which every member of The Order of Mission engages with on-going support and training. Reflecting our understanding that each one of us is both a follower and a leader, members are both called into a huddle, where they are led, and—over time—call others into a huddle that they lead. Christ-like character is the most fundamental issue for leaders. We also need to learn effective leadership skills. The questions on this card are a tool to help us identify where God is wanting to address our character.

There is a companion card with questions to help us identify where God is wanting to address our skills. In each case, we read through the questions, asking the Holy Spirit to highlight the issue He wants to address. It might be an area where we need to allow Him to change us, or an area where we need to recognise the extent to which He already has—in other words, we expect both the challenge to repent and the encouragement of seeing the kingdom break in.

The huddle leader is called to help the members of their huddle in this process. Lifeskills—the Pattern of Life of the Order—provides the tools to do so, and a summary of the shapes is found on this card. The relationship between the leader and their huddle should be one of ‘low control, high accountability’, whereby the leader is only directive where appropriate, with the aim of releasing the follower as a leader themselves; and the follower gives their leader permission to hold them accountable in both character and skills.

A bit more about huddles can be read on the St. Thomas website.