10 practices of a micro church

(Acts 20:20, Romans 16:3,5, Colossians 4:15) If you had no history or exposure to the church at all other than reading the New Testament, what would you expect to see if someone invited you to a gathering of a church? We’ve thought about this question a lot. Based on the more than 50 “one another” commands in the New Testament, we would expect to see a lot of love between Christians when they gather. Based on the way Paul describes the church in 1 Corinthians and Ephesians, we would expect to see various people contributing their spiritual gifts and interacting together. We’d picture people living like a true family inside and outside of the gathering. We’d expect to see a lot of smiling, a lot of hugging, a lot of crying together, a lot of meals shared, and a lot of life connection throughout the week. We wouldn’t picture a huge auditorium or rows or a stage or everyone being quiet while just a few people lead. We’re not saying it’s wrong to do this, but the question becomes if our structures undermine or contribute towards God’s commands in Scripture, especially those which are emphasized and repeated? And if there are more than 50 “one another” commands that call us to radical, intimate, deep love for each other, why would the thing we call “church” be something where we don’t interact or know each other?

In order to help us truly love each other, we’ve committed to having churches of 10-25 people who meet in a home. We’ve seen that once we get to 30 or 50 or 100 people in a church it becomes increasingly more difficult to live like a family, truly know each other, carry each other’s burdens, and build each other up. Now many churches will do this in the form of a community group which is great, but far too often people view a Sunday morning big gathering as the primary context of church and the community group as something that is optional for those who want to opt into loving one another. For us we want to ensure that anyone who joins our church cannot choose whether or not they want to opt in, and therefore the primary context of church for them is a spiritual family of 10-25 people.

(Heb. 5:12, Titus 2:4) Discipleship is hard and messy. It involves intentionally getting to know someone, having hard conversations at points when sin is evident, working through conflict, spending extra time with them when life gets hard, etc. Our temptation in the church has been to replace discipleship with various other programs. If there is a married couple struggling, we might often suggest they read a book, enroll in a marriage class, or go on a retreat. But what they need most is older couples who love Jesus to come alongside of them to walk with them through life’s challenges. Though these programs could be helpful, we often hide behind them and ignore our responsibility to make disciples, which includes teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded. Jesus modeled discipleship to His twelve, and then He told them to go and do likewise in Matthew 28. You cannot be discipled without, in turn, discipling others.

Being a part of micro church includes taking responsibility for others. We will intentionally restrain ourselves from starting classes or programs that could start making people feel like discipleship isn’t needed as much. It’s not that these programs would be bad, but they might undermine what is best and most important. In our church the leaders are not responsible for discipling everyone, but rather they will each disciple a few and then ensure that those disciples are also discipling a few. And for those who are new to the faith, though they might not be fully responsible for the spiritual care of another person, they are actively engaging in discipleship relationships and being trained to take responsibility for others.

(2Cor 5:18-21) Jesus’ life was not about career, family, money, worldly success, traveling, etc. Though he dealt with those things, ultimately He was sent by God to the earth solely for the purpose of the mission of God. In John 17:18, Jesus speaks of the disciples in His prayer to God, saying “as you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” In verse 20 He makes clear that He is not just praying for the twelve disciples, but rather for all who will eventually believe in Him. So according to Jesus, our purpose on the earth is the same as His: We’ve been sent. Our life and everything in it is for the purpose of the mission of God. Yet are we living like that? Is that the expectation in our churches? Or do we lower the bar?

            We are all missionaries. As a church structurally we try to fight the temptation to create ministries or programs or events that make things feel more like a country club than a training ground. As was mentioned earlier, Jesus will draw people and we don’t need to make things attractive or easy. Actually if we do that we will undermine the level of commitment within the church, which undermines everything, but especially our missional perspective. We do evangelism together as house churches and regularly encourage and dialogue about our evangelism throughout our weeks, whether it be to classmates or co-workers or neighbors. We encourage each other to B.L.E.S.S. others, which stands for Begin with prayer, Listen, Eat, Serve, and Share.

(Acts 9:31) So many churches begin small, relational, discipleship focused, and healthy but aren’t able to maintain those characteristics as numeric growth happens. Before they know it, they have become more and more of a machine rather than a healthy family. Meeting in homes sounds great, but what happens as the church grows? How does a church adapt as the Lord adds to their number? One word: Multiplication. The true fruit of an apple tree isn’t apples, but rather more apple trees. The true fruit of a strong leader is not followers, but more strong leaders. The true fruit of a healthy church is not congregants, but more healthy churches. God has designed the world to be one that reproduces and multiplies. The apple trees that can’t multiply are ones that are genetically modified. We have too many GMO churches, and not enough reproducing churches.

            As mentioned earlier, we place a high premium on leadership development largely because we are preparing to multiply each year and need new leadership ready to step up to care for the new believers that have been added. We multiply for a few reasons. First, in order to preserve the healthy number of 10-25 people in a church as mentioned earlier. Second, to prioritize the mission of God over our own comfort. When we do church like this we fall in love with each other and hate the idea of separating from half of the family we’ve been a part of for a 6-18 months. But for the sake of going to new area, making room for new people to join, keeping things healthily small, and raising up new leaders we are willing to do it. In order to be able to multiply effectively, we must structure our churches in a way that is reproducible. Churches where one or two people are always on the stage leading with big budgets and amazing programs are not reproducible. Our leaders have to be intentional to lead well, but also not to make people too dependent on them so that when it comes time to multiply, people have no problem going with the new leader even if his “gifting” isn’t as strong. Effective leadership always involves allowing others to have opportunity to lead, and it is imperative in the multiplication process.

(Acts 2:42-47) According to Paul, non-believers are marked by a focus on earthly things and Christians are marked by eagerly awaiting Jesus because their citizenship is in Heaven (Philippians 3:19-20). Throughout the New Testament, when we see Christians we see people who are so excited about their hope of eternal life with God on the new earth that they care very little about their possessions and life here. Their lives are “hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). We should hold things so loosely in light of this. Also, our love for each other in Jesus should be so deep that “if one part (of the body) suffers, every part suffers with it” (1 Cor 12:26). Though the early Christians were marked by their love for one another, that’s unfortunately not usually the marker of Christians today.

We want to make sure that we are talking about eternity a lot in our churches to help us remember and meditate on the hope that we have in Jesus. We also want to structure things in such a way to not allow people to isolate away from other people and their problems. We won’t meet needs if we don’t know people and their needs. It starts with depth of relationship. This is why we meet in homes and prevent churches from getting too large. The bigger it gets, the harder it is to truly live like family and care for each other the way we are called to.