Partnership for Missional Church
Partnership?
It’s a Partnership in that it involves several congregations working together in a ‘cluster’ supported by experienced trainers and consultants. This partnership is strategic and spiritual, including times of prayer, worship and fellowship which strengthen the common journey into mission.
Missional?
It is Missional in that the focus is on equipping each church to participate in God’s mission of reconciling, restoring and redeeming the world to himself. Being missional is more than just doing more social service activities or increasing the
membership of a church. A missional church looks for how God is at work in the world today in light of how it knows God has worked in the past, especially through Jesus Christ. A missional church chooses to join God in that mission in the world, to let God call and send it in that mission
Church?
The focus is on Church because we believe that the local church is God’s primary instrument for reaching his world. The PMC process is non-denominational and builds on the traditions and strengths of each local congregation.
How does it work?
To change from seeing mission as something that the Church does, to seeing mission as the underlying raison d’être of the church, is no easy task, which is why Partnership for Missional Church proposes a three to five year process to enable the change to take root in the ongoing culture of a congregation. The process has three initial phases:
Discovery, Experimenting, Embodiment
Phase 1 Discovery
This could best be described as a time of learning to listen.
We listen to Scripture, our congregations and our communities – and for the leading of the Spirit of God in allowing ourselves to be shaped and formed for sending into the world. We also learn to listen to our partners, those who help us understand ourselves and the context in which we live and work.
A number of inventories, self-studies and evaluations will be used to take the pulse of each congregation, which will aid in the second phase of the project.
Phase 2: Experimenting
After learning about who we are, where we live and who we are sent to, the next logical step is to take action.
The information uncovered during the first step will hopefully lead us into developing plans of action for innovating missional transformation. This involves more risk taking, and while not ever y risk will be rewarded, there is as much to learn from the mistakes as from the successes.
Phase 3: Embodiment
In phase 3 congregations will begin moving toward living in God’s preferred and promised future. After discovering and learning from the successes and failures of the experimenting phase, churches and their leaders will develop their own plans for congregational transformation, and will better know how to focus attention and energy toward attaining those goals.
Spiritual Disciplines
One of the distinctive features of the PMC approach is that it recognises the need for a deepening spirituality to accompany enhanced strategic planning within local churches. Underlying this three-phase process is a strong emphasis on Spiritual Disciplines including:
- Dwelling in the Word
- Prayer
- Journaling
- Silence
- Emptying of self
- Longing for home, the reign of God
What are the criteria for participating?
The basic criteria is a deeply held desire to see the local
church used by God to make an impact in its surrounding
community. Additionally, churches considering the PMC
process should have:
- A willingness to take risks and to ‘go deep’
- An awareness that something needs to be done to meet the changing needs of a society with a fluid relationship to the gospel
- Stable leadership in the church
- Willingness by the leadership of the church to make a three-year commitment to the process.
- Willingness to meet the cost of training (up to £750 per year)
See www.churchinnovations.org for more information. Partnership for Missional Church and PMC are both trademarks owned by the Church Innovations Institute.
Click here to download the leaflet, or contact us for more information, here (368KB).