Missional Communities: How to Assess Health
Over the years we have used a number of different metrics to determine the health of Coram Deo's missional communities. Last year I sat down and asked the question: what are the intuitive marks of a healthy MC? When the movement leaders around me point to an MC and say "that's healthy," what are the common denominators we're identifying? Here are the four indicators I came up with:
- Stories: are there ‘good gospel stories’ coming out of this MC – stories of conversion and/or significant spiritual transformation?
- Discipleship: are disciples being made? Are leaders being trained? Are the people in the group maturing into disciples who make disciples?
- Spiritually Formative Community: are the people in this MC truly instrumental in each others’ spiritual formation? Are they taking responsibility for each other and for the mission?
- Replication: would we want to replicate this leader/group? Does this leader/group reflect the goal of our ministry? (If not: is it an issue of character, competence, or compatibility?)
For those of you leading missional churches... do these sum it up adequately? Any additional markers you'd add?