One of our values as a church is “Missional Community”.

We believe that the church is meant to be a missional community that gathers consistently to learn, live, pray, worship, care & proclaim the gospel among unreached people groups to the glory of God. (Acts 2:42-47)

We are constantly working to measure, assess & revamp our ministry based upon our values so we are often asking “How does this activity flow from our value for missional community?”

We don’t hold special prayer meetings but instead intentionally incorporate prayer into every gathering we do whether it’s Sunday morning, mid-week gospel community or monthly leadership huddles.

So on Sunday mornings how does our setup & tear down team embody our missional value? What about our greeting & welcome teams? What about our kid’s ministry? Our coffee & hospitality ministry? Our music ministry? Our preaching ministry? Our prayer & response ministry? Our transportation ministry? Our nursery ministry? What about the videos we use during our gathering? What about mood music prior to the Sunday gathering beginning? What about our announcements? Why do we do a 3-5min intermission between music & preaching? What about the powerpoint before, during & after our gathering? What about the information table? Tithe & offering box? Should we do rows of chairs or round tables in our gathering space?

In all honesty we are still a very young church with a long ways to go in terms of keeping it missional in our gatherings.

While we really do want everything we do to be informed & embodied by a missional perspective this takes careful cultivation, continued reassessment & intentional redirection.

If all of the above is just preamble (or rambling) then here are a few things we do to keep it missional in our gatherings:

  • Sunday gathering space is set up 45min before the gathering begins so that people are welcomed into a clean, friendly, familial & organized atmosphere.
  • 2-3 different greeters welcome people as they arrive and help guests find their way around, get a cup of coffee, fill out a guest card, get introduced to 2 other people and find a seat with someone they can become acquainted with.
  • 1-2 different people follow up with visitors throughout the week.
  • Our music teams are intentional with using theologically robust song selections & community readings that are explained when needed in a way that isn’t condescending to guests but invites people into the presence of our missional God.
  • We do a 3-5min intermission after our time in worship through music so that parents can take their children to kid’s church and so that people can take a smoke break because many of our church family are new to church and find it difficult to go 5min without a smoke!
  • Our coffee and hospitality ministry isn’t just another way of attracting seekers (which is a phrase we don’t agree with anyway) but it is a way of building relationship. Most people really enjoy showing up early to our gatherings to grab a free refreshment and catch up with a friend while our music team jams or soft music is playing.
  • We are very engaged with a local homeless shelter and an addictions recovery center. We often partner with both for community projects and we utilize borrowed vans to transport people from those places to our Sunday gatherings and our mid-week gospel communities.

I could probably go and on and dissect this topic in regards to our church because it really is something we work at (and we believe that keeping it missional is about way more than just Sunday gatherings) but there are a few things we would like to begin doing…

  • We are slowly producing videos that are short 3-4min personal stories of people who’ve been affected by the ministry of our church in respect to the gospel at work. We want to begin incorporating these into the life of our church through various piplines, Sunday gatherings included.
  • It would be cool to add a short time of spontaneous/Spirit led elder facilitated story sharing so that people could share how the Lord is at work in their lives.
  • We are discussing what it would be like to begin a benevolence box where we encourage our people to drop notes of benevolence needs or benevolence offering in the box. We have a long way to go on that conversation but we are dreaming right now about how that will look and be administered.
  • It would be cool to find a space between our time in worship through music and our pastoral prayer which closes that time to be utilized for prayer requests from the community of gathered people that would drive the pastoral prayer. This too is a bit of a dream right now.

I’ll conclude by drawing attention to our mission and vision statement at The Well for further reflection…

“We are running a rescue mission within a yard of hell to become a gospel centered church family that grows disciples who glorify God.”