Missional Communities in the Suburbs

Over on his blog, Jonathan Dodson asked several questions about doing missional communities (what we call community groups at our church) in the suburbs:

1. How would you describe a missional community?
2. Some argue that MCs are only effective in an urban context. Would you agree or disagree?
3. Have your missional communities grown by adding non-Christians?
4. What are your top three best practices for your MCs?
5. What has been your biggest struggle in creating MCs?

My response:

1. Missionaries in community empowered by the gospel.
2. Disagree. The suburbs create additional challenges - such as geographic distance - but there's nothing about any particular context that renders missional communities ineffective.
3. We're in the middle of retro-fitting our existing group system to a more missional DNA. What we're seeing so far is that people are becoming more aware and concerned about the spiritual condition of the people they're around every day. Conversations are taking place. We're starting to make decisions with a particular group of people who don't know Jesus yet in mind.
4. Involve everyone in the life of the group, according to their personality and giftedness. Be intentional and repetitious - use the weekly gathering of the group to bang home your values. Create a compelling and irresistible environment that non-Christians want to be part of.
5. Community groups are a journey, not an event. Mission is more than a series of disconnected weekly events.