I have just been to a Learning Community at St. Thomas, Philadelphia in Sheffield. We are learning how to be Missional Leaders who will lead our churches into greater fruitfulness. The challenging question being asked is how many Mission Shaped Communities will you plant in the next 2 years? What do you need to do in the next six months to move in that direction?
Most of the time we were focussing on what we could develop from the congregations as it is now, but once again I find myself wondering about the need to think in a more adventurous fashion. It is good to foster the growth of Missional Communities, and at St. Mark's we have just started 3 new Life Groups in a "Cafe Church Cluster". My hope is that this will multiply within 2 years to become 2 clusters with about 7 Life Groups.
When I say more adventurous I find myself coming back to the idea of Simple Organic Churches in homes based around the Person of Peace. My dream is that these churches could multiply rapidly in a mission movement to reach our nation.
The picture which the Lord gave me was Bluebells. Bluebells multiply and spread vigourously, so much so that I have been given two bags of them to plant in my garden by some people who found that they had taken up too much space in their garden.
I just pray that I will soon have time and energy to stop dreaming and start doing something about planting some of these Organic Churches.
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