What does a missional community mean in practice?
- bringing together the missional potential of Christians in a particular place—their time, desire, energy, resources and ideas
- uniting locally in prayer for people who do not yet know Christ
- seeking and putting into practice many different ways of mission in that place
- building community through personal meetings, small groups and Sunday gatherings
- organising Sunday gatherings in a way that is understandable to people outside the church
- creating a new network of relationships and a spiritual home with a clear missional focus
What unites us?
- we believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to reach and transform people today
- we long to see people who would never enter a church meet Christ in a setting and form they can understand
- we recognise the need for new missional communities that complement the existing work of the church
- we believe that a healthy church grows and multiplies
- we believe that starting communities is a spiritual calling and a process
- more than one community, each with a different focus, can exist in one city
- we want to remain rooted in the Lutheran Church and its theology
- we long to spread a missional DNA throughout the Lutheran Church in Slovakia
What are we not trying to do?
- rapidly create new organisational structures
- define exactly what every community must look like
- push for immediate results
- judge existing congregations as though “old means bad”
- seek an alternative to worship services out of dissatisfaction with church
- create a competitive environment toward existing congregations
- pretend that mission is the only important ministry of the church
How do we want to walk together?
- walk prayerfully, seeking God's guidance
- place emphasis on a personal relationship with God
- have open and honest conversations
- respect different callings and contexts of service
- learn from one another
- have the courage to make mistakes and grow through them
- avoid comparison and competition
- cultivate nationwide cooperation and mutual encouragement
- support the renewal of existing congregations
- go out to people more, and wait less for them to come to us
What do we commit to?
- hold Sunday gatherings at a different time from the worship services of the local congregation
- form communities with the blessing of the appropriate Lutheran Church leaders
- focus primarily on people outside the church
- recognise missional communities as part of the Lutheran Church
Where are we today?
- in many places, people are thinking missionally
- the first pilot missional communities are emerging
- we are learning from our first experiences and experiments
- forming new leaders is as important as forming the communities themselves
We would love you to join us
- you are already part of a missional community and are looking for support
- you would like to become part of a missional community
- you would like to start a new community with a team
- you support and believe in this initiative
- you are a church leader and want to support missional work
