GARDEN CHURCH ​- Norfolk, UK

Garden Church ​

Contact: Dave Lloyd, david.lloyd@garden-church.org
Website:  garden-church.org
​​At A Glance:  
The Garden Church is a network of missional communities in Norfolk UK that is focussed around 5 core values (Devoted Worshippers, Loving Families, Equipped Disciple Makers, Suffering Sojourners and Spirit Filled Missionaries). We are part of the Church of England and so we have a particular interest in working alongside and in loving partnership with existing inherited or traditional models of church to provide fresh pathways to discipleship or to be a catalyst for growing lay leaders and new contextual worshipping communities. We want to see heaven on earth with every home, village and street in Norfolk worshipping the Lord in the way that they can. We believe that small is the new big.
OUR MISSIONAL STORY:

​1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized?
I used to lead an HTB resource church in Norwich, planting and revitalising other churches in the City. My wife and I went on sabbatical and explored We Are Church with Francis Chan. We were looking for a simple way of doing life, planting, sharing the gospel and being family that was low cost, closer to the picture in Acts 2 and healthier for us as a family. The Garden begun as part of a vision on returning to Norfolk in May 2019 after that sabbatical. We felt a call to "re-disciple the disciples for when the Church of England closes its doors". To encourage simple, replicable, deep discipleship in the home.
​

2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from?
The vision and conviction came from the Holy Spirit speaking into "casualty, context and character". I had seen how burn out can happen through striving and planting large scale churches with budgets, bands and buildings. I saw the context in Norfolk, which is often scattered, rural villages with hundreds of ancient buildings and not a lot of money to repurpose them. I saw how Jesus calls us to follow him and grow in character and the best place to learn this is in simple communities and relationship focussed on love and Scripture. The main conviction and clarity came from We Are Church and it was 'boosted' and encouraged by Todd Moor.

3.  What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church?
We seek to integrate our everyday lives into the source of life, Jesus by reading Scripture daily, and focusing on the Acts 2 values of D L E S S (Devoted Worshippers, Loving Families, Equipped Disciple Makers, Spirit Filled Missionaries and Suffering Sojourners). If we grow in these things we will be fruitful.
​

4.  How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision?
We are a decentralised collaboration of missional communities in varying contexts that have no building and no budget. We operate as a family or network of missional communities. We are united by core values and relationship.
​

5.  How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality?
I am still learning how to do this! Using videos, apprenticeship, raising up and releasing leaders. Sending experienced leaders to accompany new leaders. By living it and sharing it.

6.  What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church?
Communication for a scattered network is a real challenge. We need poly centred leadership - so some people leading on network gatherings, some leading on local gatherings, some focussing on encouraging mentoring and training, some on missional and outreach and so on. If it all points to one couple we hinder growth but if it is all flat level collaboration it also stagnates. Helping people co-lead a scattered network is key. Gathering as a large network and as small houses is key too. Resisting the 'normal' props and patterns of ministry is key too or we may as well just all do more of the same!
Missional Progress
Coming Soon...

North America

Canada

Missional Churches Coming Soon...

USA - West

Generation Church - California, USA

Generation Church

Contact:  Tim Parlier - tim@gotogeneration.com​
Website: gotogeneration.com
​​At A Glance:  Mission: To lead people into healthy relationships with Jesus and each other.

We are convicted that all the things we hope to see in people's lives will be the FRUIT of ROOTS that are growing in health and in deep dependency to the soil of Jesus.

​​We have a very diverse and multi-generational church family so we use that as a strength to get people out of their comfort zones and also to find deep meaningful connection. Many of our leadership is drawn to seeing people grow in emotional and relational health so we put a lot of resources into marital health, discipling students, and pursuing mentors outside of our age groups. We see this impacting guest/not yet believers that truly seek mature Godly wisdom in difficult seasons of life.
OUR MISSIONAL STORY:

​1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized?
Our church was originally planted in 1952 as a Southern Baptist Church to reach military families in our city which borders the largest U.S. Marine Corps base in the western U.S.A. Most of the population was affiliated with the Marine population in our city.

70 years later the church has been through many growth and decline cycles. Under the current leadership (some of which have been around the last 5-10 years) there has been a gradual shift "from the stage to the table". When the prior Pastor transitioned out in 2020 and I stepped in (Tim) it was our expectation that we would continue this revitalization effort and expand missional mindedness to every person in the church through a focus on missional communities with call "Life Groups", DNA groups, and other various ministry functions that allow us to live be on mission together as God's Family in Oceanside.

2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from?
We were heavily influenced by the Soma Communities family of churches, Saturate, City to City, Verge Network, para-church movements, etc. We as Elders see the church as a missionary sending entity so that conviction for us is essential to our understanding of the Gospel Identity of every follower of Jesus. We believe Charles Spurgeon nailed it when he said "Every Christian is either a missionary, or an imposter."
​
Personally I also come from a family tree littered with full-time vocational international missionaries on my mother's side. My conviction toward reaching the not yet believer has been something I've carried my whole life and desire to see domestically/internationally.​

3.  What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church?
The Elders, staff, and increasingly the church family see mission not as something we do, but who we are. Our Elders and staff are leading by example in living missional lives and inviting others into that. Missional living seems to be caught more than taught. We are increasingly living from our missionary identity and trying to equip everyday people for Gospel ministry wherever God has placed them.​

4.  How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision?
We're structured to have our Elders and leaders investing in life on life missional living with others. This allows for transference of knowledge and application.

We also organize with both - Church gathered, and church-scattered.
​
Gathered: Sundays and events have equipping/sending/attractional elements to them.
Scattered: We have missional communities (we call Life Groups) and DNA groups that provide a framework for ongoing discipleship and multiplication. We have men's / women's ministry and other events that are great first steps into relationships for not yet believers as well as local missions partners that help us step into opportunities to serve our city with and alongside not yet believers.​

5.  How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality?
We currently have a bi-monthly leader roundtable for DNA/Life Group leaders to attend for ongoing support, training, prayer. During our New Member classes and intentionally on Sundays we also talk and explain our emphasis on missional living as part of what it means to be a healthy contributing part of the body of Christ. Every function or our staff we consider the missionary opportunities that could come from our efforts. Gospel Identity is the lense with which we make decisions and plan for the ongoing rhythms of the church.​

6.  What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church?
1. There's no silver bullet... other than Jesus. He's the savior, and He alone changes hearts... no system, mission statement, or group structure will ever be our savior. This is good news.

2. Missional opportunities are often in places you find life and joy. Mission doesn't need to be found on some wild excursion or crazy restructuring of your life.

3. Growing into Missional people is what we're after. Not changing what you call your groups or what content you're using.

​4. Amidst the discouragement of life... We MUST celebrate the small and big wins... God is always doing vastly more than we're noticing and if you're a leader you probably only see what God "hasn't" done yet or "isn't doing". Our people need to celebrate and notice what God IS doing! Myself maybe as much or more than anyone.
Missional Progress
Coming Soon...
CHURCH INSIDE OUT - TULSA, OK USA

Church Inside Out

Contact: Mike Lehew - mike@mobile missionsnetwork.com
Website: churchinsideout.com    mobilemissionsnetwork.com​
​​At A Glance:  
We are a church of House Churches with each House Church being led by House Church Shepherds who help our church become a family of missionary servants sent to our neighbors, community, and city to make disciples who make disciples.

Our accountability comes from the Word of God, Elders and House Church Shepherds who help shepherd our church.

We simply want to equip ordinary people to Be the church.
OUR MISSIONAL STORY:

​1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized?
I been at a church for 14 years and saw God do some great things. We saw kids and students becoming missional partners in the Gospel and had a vision to see if it might work with parents of making disciples who make disciples..

We stepped down from our church one week and started a gathering of believers the next with the sincere desire to simple gather as the church and then Monday-Saturday be the church in our contexts.

I simply asked a few people who had the same vision if they might want to partner to make this a reality. There were about 10 others that joined Sarah and I.

What started as a House Church gathering grew into eventually 90 people and we knew what we knew to do and that was to go to a school and meet weekly while being the church daily.

That is when we officially became Church Inside Out. For two years we met at a school and then COVID hit and it allowed us to change gears as simply meeting each week doing the "same-o, same-o" was not what God called us to do. He called us to equip ordinary believers to be the church, so we stepped out in faith through that COVID season and went back to House church utilizing our small group leaders as the new House Church Shepherds.

Our leadership grew as we gave it away and empowered them to shepherd a small group of people. It gave ownership, it gave ministry, it gave purpose and belonging.

So for the last two years we have been meeting in house churches three times a week and once a month all of our house churches meet together for Family Reunion Sunday where we celebrate all that God is doing in our House Churches.

These five years have been quite the adventure.

(We are now in the process of replanting as we have taken over leadership of an aging congregation and will have a home base. It will operate like a house church, but in a traditional setting)

We also started a non-profit called Mobile Missions Network whose purpose is to "Be a Bridge to the Church." Our aim is to go where there is no Gospel presence and establish and on-going ministry hoping to connect them to a follower of Jesus or a local church.

We have mission teams come in through the year to help us go into our communities to do ministry. We also buy mobile homes, remodel them and put them in these communities as a Gospel outpost. Through this we do free meals, after school programs and camps.

2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from?
It all first started by just thinking, "There has to be another way."

I loved what I did as a Families pastor overseeing preschool, children and students, but it felt complicated and I felt each Sunday like all I was doing was a re-run: Convincing saved people to keep loving Jesus.

There was a tension. So, while we were focusing on that, my heart grew for those that didn't know Christ and so I engaged our students and kids to help me reach the lost. We saw a great movement in our family ministry of kids and students and adults taking up the mantle of making disciples who made disciples.

God was also opening up doors in mobile home parks to go and BE the church. We went into these communities to love them and give our people an avenue to GO and BE. This soon spread to multiple communities and we sensed God moving us forward to not just go to church, but to be the church.

It was hard to find people that didn't think I was crazy. I read a book called "The Gathered and Scattered Church" by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay and the same concept was literally what I had been thinking and I realized I am not alone. I shortly thereafter, joined a cohort through Forge America just to put my "feelers" out there and the very first thing that Terry Ishee said in that cohort was, "You are not crazy". I had found a tribe!

As I maneuvered through this season taking one step at a time, I came across SOMA, Leaders in Training (out of Ft. Worth) and then when I went through our church planting assessment, our leader Jimmy Kinnaird, introduced us to this concept of missional communities and put us in touch with Todd.

Through all of this, the Lord has, one step at a time, revealed what's next. I just knew from the very beginning that if I were to survive in ministry, I couldn't keep doing the same thing over and over.

Could there be a church of missionaries already set to make disciples who make disciples? Could we invite new believers into an already made culture of making disciples who make disciples?

That is our goal.

3.  What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church?
Our gathering is important but equally important is that we have a mission outside of that gathering to pursue people so they can know Jesus.

Our aim is that every house church and hence, every person in our church, has a mission whether that is their work, one of our mobile home communities, neighbors or a specific calling for a specific ministry.

Our aim is that missions is not an event or activity, but it is a lifestyle that permeates not just our gathering but our homes.

4.  How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision?
1. We have D.N.A. groups which really is the most important element of what we do because it is through these that we learn to abide in Christ. This is the fuel for ministry.

2. We have our House Churches. They are designed to be our opportunity for worship but each House Church is intentionally placed to be a lighthouse to their neighborhood.

3. We have multiple opportunities to be on mission through our mobile home parks, our homeless ministry and house churches.

4. Our leadership consists of me (Lead Missionary), Elders, House Church Shepherds, and our Church Inside Out Lead Team that serve in various leadership capacities.

5. We also have a whole other arm which is a non-profit called Mobile Missions Network which helps us get into communities to share the Gospel.

5.  How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality?
I meet monthly with our House Church Shepherds to train and coach. I also meeting with each House Church individually once a quarter to encourage and equip.

House Church Shepherds meet weekly to worship and to continue to keep the vision in front of them.

We have a training center for up and coming DNA Leaders and House Church Shepherds to multiply.

We have a yearly SERVE retreat to bring all of our leaders together to encourage, train and equip.

6.  What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church?
1. Abide in Christ. It is so true.....apart from Him we can do nothing. I recognized when I operate in the spirit and when I operate in the flesh. Things go terribly wrong when I do it my way. Even through the obstacles, pressing in to our Savior has been the key to remaining joyful and optimistic in times of deep peril.

2. I can't do it alone. I need voices of encouragement who are on the same journey with me. Our Missional Made Simple cohort has been so helpful as each of us are at different places and I take away something new each time we meet.

3. Empower people. They most of the time do it better. It will always be a tension, but to see people "get it" is worth it all.

4. There is no such thing as failing. To a degree, we are in uncharted waters and we simply say yes to Jesus. Obedience isn't the outcome, it's simply saying yes. If you "fail", try again. Admit when we do and try again. My church has been so gracious to follow through the crazy steps of faith.

5. Obstacles:
a. people will think you are crazy. It's hard to get church people to see a different way. Simply love them and just go. Don't wait.
b. The enemy WILL discourage you from moving forward. Keep following Jesus and what He told you to do.
c. Time. It just takes time. Think crock pot rather than microwave. Let things simmer and follow the lead of the Holy Spirit.
Missional Progress
Coming Soon...
CHURCH OF THE VALLEY - SANDY, UT, USA

Church of the Valley

Contact: Justin Bindel
Website:  cotv.church
​​At A Glance:  
We are a suburban church located outside of Salt Lake City, UT.
We exist to see the Salt Lake Valley saturated with the good news of Jesus.
OUR MISSIONAL STORY:

​1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized?
In 2014, our family moved from Wichita Falls, Texas, to Salt Lake City, Utah. We had a desire to move to a city that was growing, a city that would encourage family flourishing, and a city that lacked a diversity of churches. As we moved to the city, we spent a year gaining vision and participating in a church planting residency to be equipped to live on mission effectively. We made friends, gathered people in our home, and began serving the needs of those close to our family. We also received coaching that would allow us space to process what we were learning. This led us to our first vision night in February 2015. We gathered people in the living room of our home and began modeling what it looked like to be a family of missionary servants. We would continue this rhythm for several months until we began to meet publicly in a local art theatre. In September 2015, "Church Of The Valley" began its mission to see the Salt Lake Valley saturated with the good news of Jesus!
​

2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from?
Our conviction to be a Missional Church first came from the life and modeling of Jesus. We see in the Bible the mission of Jesus to seek and save those who are lost. In the same way, we have been sent and given the great commission to go and make disciples of all nations. As we moved into a new city, we began envisioning what it would look like to reach people across the valley with the good news of Jesus. We became convinced that we could not station up somewhere and solely invite people to come to us but that we needed to go to them. This wasn't just a practical solution to grow our church or effectively reach more people. Just as Jesus looked out across a city and had compassion because he saw people that were like sheep without a shepherd, our hearts broke for our city, and we longed to share the good news of Jesus with them!

3.  What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church?
Our mission is to see the Salt Lake Valley saturated with the good news of Jesus. We make it a priority to reorient our lives around others and discover how we can bring the gospel into our everyday conversations and engagements. Just as Jesus was a friend of sinners, we long to be known as “friends” to our city. We live within the mission of God as missionaries, not as an additional task we add to our already busy lives but with gospel intentionality as we go about our daily lives, schedules, and rhythms.
​

4.  How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision?
Along with our vision statement, we believe gospel saturation begins with the individual and then moves outward into the community. We continually ask how our lives are being saturated with the good news of Jesus and how that is pouring over into our families, work, neighborhoods, and acquaintances. We also adopted a few ministries where we are seeking to have gospel influence. Through a local organization called Care Portal, we are given the opportunity to connect with the needs of families who are working with the Department of Family Services. We are also partnered with planting other churches in the Western United States and Brazil.
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5.  How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality?
Missional intentionally surfaces in all of our disciple-making environments at Church Of The Valley. This is present within our Sunday Gatherings, Community Groups, and Equip Groups. As an example, all of our community groups follow an acronym, R.E.A.D, which stands for Read, Examine, Apply, and Do. We close every Community Group by praying through the text and reflecting on what God has declared to us. This practice helps usher the Bible from the head to the heart/hands. We ask the Holy Spirit to give us direction/wisdom/opportunities to share what we have learned with others throughout our week.​

6.  What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church?
One of the most important lessons I have learned as a leader in a missional church is the need to model mission for God's people. There is a lot of teaching on what it means to be a missional church, but people still struggle to discover what it looks like in the everyday. I have often told our leadership that more is caught than taught.

I also have learned the importance of teaching people the role the Holy Spirit serves in the mission. We are to listen and depend on the Holy Spirit to know who, how, when, and
where to bring gospel influence.
​​
Missional Progress
Coming Soon...
PROVIDENCE ROAD - NORMAN, OKLAHOMA, UNITED STATES

Providence Road

Contact: Jeremy Hager - jeremy@provroad.org
Website:  provroad.org​
​​At A Glance:  
We are a church in Norman, Oklahoma with the mission of glorifying God by leading people to find freedom and joy in Jesus. To accomplish this mission we prioritize five Biblical values: 1) Gospel Centrality, 2) Formative Community, 3) Everyday Discipleship, 4) Missional Living, and 5) Planting Healthy Churches. We want to see these things happen through rhythms of gathering and scattering throughout the week in contexts such as Gospel Communities, Discipleship Groups, and Sunday All-Church Gathering.
OUR MISSIONAL STORY:

​1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized?
In 2010 my wife Nicole and I (Jeremy) moved from Austin, Texas to Norman, Oklahoma. We were joined by five others to begin planting the seeds of what would become Providence Road Church. We wanted to begin being the church from day one, so we began doing the things we believe the church should do from day one. We wanted Biblical Church DNA to be in the church so that as we grew we would be healthy. We emphasized and trained in things like Gospel Fluency, Community, Everyday Missional Living, and Discipleship from the very beginning. We waited almost two years to have weekly services to make sure the people who were a part of the church were living out the values/DNA we wanted.

We chose to plant in my hometown of Norman after several years living in Texas. We felt God leading us back to Norman for many reasons, but primarily it was for strategic purposes. Norman is a city of 125,000 people and home to the University of Oklahoma, the largest public university in Oklahoma and one of the largest schools in this part of the country. At the time of planting, Christians made up under 20% of the population, well under the typical numbers for a city in Oklahoma. Norman is strategic, mainly because of the University. Approximately 12,000 graduate each year from the university and most of them leave for larger cities, making it a great sending location.
​

2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from?
We believe that God through His Spirit has chosen the church (big "C" and little "c") to be the center of His Glory being made known to all nations. From God calling Abram (Abraham) in Genesis 12, to Jesus gathering his disciples, who would be empowered and sent by the Spirit, to plant churches (Acts 1:8); we see the "sent" nature of God's people throughout the Scriptures. Therefore, we believe the church doesn't just have a mission, or a missions department. We believe the church is the vehicle for mission. Or to say it another way, Jesus the groom is awaiting His bride, the Church, to be complete so that he may return.

3.  What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church?
Within every area of the church (Gospel Communities, the larger Sunday Gathering, Students, etc) we have missional DNA/thread running through everything we do. We teach and equip toward demonstrating and declaring the gospel in everyday life. We are intentional and work hard at evaluating and measuring progress in these areas.
​

4.  How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision?
In our large Sunday morning gathering, we create a Biblically hospitable environment where any person joining us can clearly hear and understand the gospel. Our liturgy is intentionally centered around the gospel story and done in a way where believers and unbelievers understand it. We also have Gospel Communities which consist of 10-15 adults who commit to doing life together in normal everyday activities. When believers gather in these "GC's" we hold each other accountable to living on mission. We encourage each GC to have a few "third places'' so people outside the community can experience what life looks like inside the community (John 13:34-35). It is also the primary environment where demonstration and declaration of the gospel takes place. We also are "minimalist" in our church calendar and programming, so our people spend less time at the building and more time out amongst people in their GC's and neighborhoods.
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5.  How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality?
We've set up our larger Sunday Gatherings to model what mission might look like in everyday life through things like hospitality, prayer, teaching, and the language we use. We have quarterly trainings that are for our GCs' core leadership teams, but anyone can attend. We give the core teams practical ways to take the content back to their GC and reproduce the training within their GC.
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6.  What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church?
First, we've learned to be patient with our people and the church as a whole when it comes to bearing fruit in mission. We've learned we need to lean in to God's sovereignty in mission and trust He is moving in his timing. Secondly, we've learned that we must be ok with and train towards flexibility within mission. What being on mission looks like for a 19 year-old college student will look different than what it looks like for a married couple in their 30's with three kids under the age of nine. We've learned we have to equip our people toward an end goal, have a few simple things we are training them in, and then allow individual people and families, through the leading of the Spirit, figure out what this looks like for them.
​​
Missional Progress
Coming Soon...
REDEEMER CHURCH - NORMAN, OKLAHOMA, USA​

REDEEMER CHURCH

Contact: Paul Kingery - paul@redeemerchurch.cc
Website:  redeemerchurch.cc​
​​At A Glance:  
At Redeemer Church our vision is to see all of life redeemed through the life, death, and resurrections of Jesus Christ. Our values are: renew, relate, restore.

Renew: As believers, we must be made new in the work of Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, to the glory of the Father every day of our lives.
Relate: We have been adopted into the family of God. It is through the fellowship of this family that has been forged by grace, that we are most filled with the fullness of Christ.
Restore: God is working to restore all things to Himself. Our labor here at Redeemer is to be ambassadors of this ministry of restoration.

We aim to live out these values through our corporate Sunday morning gathering and our scattered regroup communities throughout the week!
OUR MISSIONAL STORY:

​1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized?
Redeemer Church was planted out of First Baptist Church in Newcastle, Oklahoma in 2010 by Andy McDonald. Since then we’ve moved through several gathering spaces and at the end of 2021 merged with another congregation in Norman! We moved into their building and their entire church came under our leadership, constitution, and name. This has become our permanent church home and we couldn’t be happier! God is faithful!

2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from?
Our vision to be a church that was outward-focused came from our lead pastor’s decade of college ministry in Norman. Through his time in that community he was given a vision of church-planting that has helped shaped Redeemer over the years.

3.  What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church?
Redeemer Church is heavily focused on our Regroups, our version of missional communities. We gather together, collectively breathing in on Sunday mornings, and then exhale as we scatter into our regroups throughout the week.

4.  How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision?
We believe that all of life is redeemed through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because of that, we are catapulted into our communities through our regroup gatherings.

5.  How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality?
Through preaching on Sunday mornings, weekly gatherings in our regroups, seasonal discipleship trainings, and gospel coaching (our one-on-one discipleship program).

6.  What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church?
All church work is messy, but the messiness involved in being “missional” is significant. Living and breathing in the real world while trying to maintain an apostolic view of ministry is extremely difficult. That’s why we believe our people become best equipped to love Jesus in their neighborhoods by consistently being told the story of the gospel in their regroup communities, week after week.
Missional Progress
Coming Soon...
RESONATE CHURCH - PULLMAN, WA, USA

RESONATE CHURCH​

Contact: Craig Lovelace craig@resonate.net
Website:  resonate.net​
​​At A Glance:  
We are a network of collegiate churches reaching, discipling and sending the next generation of church leaders. We believe that in Christ every college student can find life-changing community and world-changing purpose.
OUR MISSIONAL STORY:

​1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized?
On most college campuses in North America, less than 5% of the campus is being reached with gospel community. The harvest is certainly ripe. Resonate Church was first planted in 2007 to reach the campus of Washington State University. A group of Texas transplants felt called to plant a collegiate church with the capacity to reach the mission field of the college campus.

The church grew quickly and within two years multiplied to plant a church at the University of Idaho about 10 miles away.

By 2012 roughly 600 students and community members were gathering between two churches to worship Jesus and reach their peers with the gospel. In 2014 we began to look beyond our local area and planted a church at Central Washington University. In the years following, we pursued a vision to become an urgent, multiplying, collegiate church planting movement. Since 2014 God has allowed us to plant churches on 15 collegiate campuses across the Northwest. This fall we'll send a team to plant at Colorado State University and we're asking God for more.
​

2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from?
Our vision and conviction came from a wrestling with scripture, the limits of historical, collegiate models, and a couple of influences like Alan Hirsch.

In particular, we began to read the book of Acts more carefully and see that missional action as the assumed posture of the new testament church. Paul didn't often teach on mission in Acts, nor in his epistles because it was an assumption built on the great commission. Instead, he taught principles for right christian living so that the churches witness would be bolstered and strengthened by their character and love for one another. Just as Jesus taught.

3.  What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church?
We firmly believe that all believers can identify unique ways God has called them to engage his mission and love their neighbors into the Kingdom. We work hard to make sure that every believer is a disciple seeking to obey the commands of Jesus and how others how to follow him.

We also strategically work to train leaders and teams to plant new churches in new places to see gospel saturation on college campuses.
​

4.  How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision?
We are structured as a network of churches each led by local pastors and elders. Our churches are supported by a central hub that provides administrative systems and support. This has allowed us to rapidly plant churches that are relatively low cost to start and it provides and onramp toward growth in areas that typically require significant time and resources before a team can move and engage the mission field.

In addition, our self-funded staff is primarily charged with developing leaders to lead missional communities and coaching those missional families to grow and multiply.
​

5.  How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality?
Every believer is invited into discipleship groups called huddles where we teach them a missional worldview, tools for missional engagement, and help them identify their missional focus.

However, we're learning that there are some gaps in their understanding at times and that can sometimes lead people to engage mission with immature or improper motivation. We're addressing this by developing a more robust training pathway to help every disciple understand the call to make disciples.​

6.  What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church?
Missional Living must be personally and corporately motivated: if it's only personal, you won't see the multiplying effect of family on mission. If it's only corporate, you'll have people sacrificing with the wrong motivations and it won't be sustainable.

Your shepherding capacity must match your sending capacity: While the prevailing church model is too heavy on shepherding and lacks urgency to send people out to seek to the lost, the missional church can sometimes swing the pendulum too far to the apostolic. It's important to match shepherding with sending if you hope to sustain movement. If you don't, people will eventually hit a wall and begin to think mission is the problem.
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Missional Progress
Coming Soon...

USA - East

HEIGHTS COMMUNITY CHURCH - COLLINSVILLE / IL / USA

Heights Community Church

Contact: Corey Johnston
Website:  weareheights.org​
​​At A Glance:  
We focus on Gospel, Community, and Mission. The primary way that we make sure we are walking these values out are through Missional Community, Sunday Gathering, and DNA (smaller group discipleship).
OUR MISSIONAL STORY:

​1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized?
Our church plant originated 10 years ago. There were seven of us who felt lead to start something different in the St. Louis Metro East Area! We spent a year together reading the scriptures and learning how the gospel lead us to be a community on mission. After that year, a really interested argument about communication (imagine that!) we asked a simple question, "Is this what it looks like to be family?" That moment proved to reveal just how formative our time together had been. From there, we invited 40 other people to help start Heights. Ten of those individuals were not yet believers. They were in our lives regularly, hearing and seeing the gospel work itself out, and wanted to help! That set the standard for how our whole church has functioned as a family who aims to live on mission in the everyday stuff.

2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from?
I was not raised in the church. As I started reading how Jesus engaged people, and how the church in acts engaged people, it seemed clear to me that there has to be a high value for the church Gathered (Sunday gatherings, for example) and also a high value for how the church scatters out into the community. Spending time in the word lead me to aspire to not let the pendulum sway too far either direction.

3.  What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church?
We have a regular rhythm for teaching folks to process through the gospel as a story, and we aim to equip them to learn how their story fits into the grand narrative of the gospel. Once people have this understanding they are what we call "gospel fluent". That is, they can speak the story of God into the lives or story of other people. We have seen countless people come to faith through this process. 90% of people who are actively involved in all of the environments within Heights have come through relationships, CrossFit, the grocery story, work place, etc. The people of Heights have actively sought out sharing the story of God with people in an effort to show how their story fits into the gospel. Our programs are our people, and they seem to be effective for the last 8 years.

4.  How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision?
The primary way that we ensure mission and discipleship is happening is within our Missional Communities. We have incredible leaders that share the responsibility of leading within those Missional Communities that we call a Shared Leadership Team. This helps to disperse the weight from landing on only one family. Our elders/pastors are all assigned a Missional Community to help oversee through engaging with the primary facilitators of that Missional Community. This allows us to keep a clear pulse on how people are doing. Just as we do not want a single family to bear the weight of all the responsibility, so also, we do not believe only one elder/pastor should bear the weight of overseeing all of the Missional Communities. This is how we oversee, and from this oversight, this is how we begin to resource our Missional Communities to actually take the gospel into the community as a community on mission.

5.  How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality?
First, you have to model what you want to see modeled. Second, we do monthly "Huddles" where we discuss what the facilitators are experiencing. We take time to reinforce the vision and direction, gospel our leaders through their needs, celebrate, and have quality time with one another. Ultimately, we try to be available to model what we want to see being modeled from our Missional Communities and the leaders that exist therein.

6.  What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church?
The most important lesson is that you cannot live on mission for the sake of living on mission. If mission becomes the main thing, it is because the emphasis has drifted from the gospel. Just as too much of anything can be a bad thing, so also too much of an emphasis on mission can actually lead to legalism and a hardened religious heart. The gospel must always be what drives the mission, and if we are not FIRST seated in front of Jesus to be reminded of our place in the story of God why would we ever want to go out and try to share these beautiful truths with someone else? The goal is not mission. The aim is not mission. The means is not mission. The goal, aim, and means is Jesus and relationship with him. It is subtle, but it is really important that mission flows from the gospel.
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Missional Progress
Coming Soon...

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