Reaching a whole town or city with the gospel. Saturating a place with good news. Completing the great commission where I live. If any of these thoughts excite you then you’ll be pleased to know that a number of places are beginning to ask the questions ‘what might that look like round here?’
As I’ve had the opportunity to explore and experiment with some of these ideas in the Liverpool city region in recent years, I’ve been asked to input to a number of other places – specifically Chester, Ipswich, Newcastle and Basingstoke this term.
What would it look like if in 10 years in your place everyone knew someone whose life had been transformed by Jesus? What if every neighbourhood had a small group of Christians living out life together, praying for their streets, practically blessing their neighbours, finding the people of peace, creating pathways to faith, and producing disciple-makers?
What if we did this so that everyone knew where to get spiritual bread, to get practical help, and to find Jesus? What if we multiplied these groups so that there was one missional expression of church (an MC in our language) for every 1000 people (#1in1000)?
This is our dream for seeing people and places transformed by the gospel.
Here’s a bunch of 15+ of those kind of Christians in Liverpool who are praying and plotting to do just that for their neighbourhood. Current plans for the next couple of months include:
helping a neighbour with an overgrown garden.
continuing to befriend the night-time security guard who watches a particular footballer’s mum’s house in our street.
serving and blessing the local catholic primary school in our street (flapjacks for the receptionist so far).
taking round bunches of daffodils for the women in our street over the mother’s day weekend and inviting their families to the Easter service.
We love Form! An intense year of discipleship, rooted in a culture of leadership and mission running in several Kx family churches. Last week we shared some stories from Form USA, here is a video of similar stories from Form UK trainees.
There are three ways you can get involved in form.
Give a year to form as a trainee yourself and see see what God can do!
Recommend form to one or two young adults from your church and send them off on a life changing adventure!
Start a Form training centre at your church.
To find out more about each of these head to www.form-uk.org.
FORM is an intensive year-long discipleship internship for young adults, currently running in 4 locations in the UK and also in the USA. Here are a few stories from this years trainees at Form Fort Wayne, Indiana about what God has done with them over the past year.
“FORM Fort Wayne year number two was a great success! We had nine new trainees and three young adults returning for a more intense year of leadership training. Here are some questions we asked them with answers…
How has FORM been worth the investment of the cost and nine months of your life?
Without FORM it would have taken me probably nine years instead of nine months to learn to hear the voice of the Lord – Hannah
It help me grow in commitment- Ross
FORM has been worth the cost because it has made a substantial and lasting difference in how I view my relationship with Christ, my relationship with others, and what following God with my whole life really means – Malachi
FORM has drastically changed my life. It has pruned my character, altered my life goals, produced many skills I was unaware I had, and has given me a deep hunger and thirst for Holy Spirit, His presence and His power – Wardell
It has taught me how to live opposite the American dream and truly live a life worth living and for a worthy God -Hayden
I think Form is an amazing opportunity. Giving up a whole year to hear/pursue God I think is something God really honors. If you allow Him, God can radically change your life through Form. It is definitely worth your time because it teaches you how to live in community and gives you some great tools to help you in your relationship with God -Brandy
It has shifted my perception of ministry and forever changed my approach to reaching people with the Gospel. Form experience = Priceless – Daren
How have you changed the way you live?
I consult God more with my decision making – Ross
I have an increased focus on intentionally making room for God’s will in my days and decisions both through more set aside time to spend with Him and a greater awareness of His desires for my life – Malachi
I no longer chase money, relationships, or self gratification. I now prioritize my time to read the word, pray, seek Holy Spirit, and share the Kingdom with everyone around me by sharing the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection – Wardell
I’ve gained freedom from sin struggles, as well as I don’t spend all my time worried about the pursuit of the American dream – Hayden
I quit neglecting the “little” stuff and do them despite not knowing the end results – Dan
Creating predictable patterns and rhythms. Used to fly by the seat of my pants, now I’ve learned to keep my belt on, and fastened tight – Daren
I’ve started to see my life differently than I have in the past. Everything is an opportunity. I have started to become more aware of God in day to day life. I’ve started to put on the armour of God before I go to work. I’ve started to see ways I can fight against the enemy. Praying/talking to God is becoming even more important to me – Brandy
You can find out more about Form USA here. Look out for some stories from the UK Form Trainees soon!
Our Missional Community’s vision is to reach our neighbours around the area we live in Liverpool.
We started with 2 other families, so 6 adults and 6 kids in total. We wanted our MC to be an extended family on mission, so it was important from the start to build it around stuff that works for the kids and with people that were willing to share their lives with us.
So every Friday, 5pm we gather together for food. We rotate between our houses (all spitting distance from each other), and we do it ‘bring and share’ style. Easy – no fuss. So 5pm till 6pm we eat, chat, catch up. We draw the kids into a bit of prayer. Occasionally we’ve had a kids bible story. We regularly have neighbours join us. Then 6pm till 7pm we alternate between dads and mums accountability. So one week the dads take the kids back home and the mums meet together, then the following week the dads meet.
We try and focus this around the learning circle and 2 discipleship questions (What is God saying & what are you going to do about it?) We pray together. We find that because we’re sharing what’s going on in our lives through our Facebook, when we do meet, we can pray for one another with greater understanding. More recently another family have joined us that we led to faith a while back, but have been on the fringes for some time. It’s been a real joy to see them get committed and grow in their faith.
Once a month we do something more outwardly focused, so we tend to invite neighbours over for a drink, or extended one of our birthday parties out to the MC and neighbours so we can connect with them. We have a cycle of bigger outreach events for our housing estate, summer BBQ, bonfire night, Christmas carols and christingles, Easter egg hunt etc. Loads of people turn up to these and we’re building relationships with our neighbours.
We gathered for a KX leaders day at the Bluecoat venue in Liverpool this week.
Right from the start it was obvious that this is an extended family with a big vision. The tone was relaxed and informal yet intense in its clear goals and prophetic vision, an amazing combination of urgency and refreshing companionship. From the corporate worship time to the end where we stood and cried out to God in intercession and prayer of our family of churches there was a real feeling of movement and seeking God for every step of His direction for us to impact this nation. We were small in number but large in our influence I felt.
Nic’s prophetic guidance on spiritual warfare was very timely and there was an apostolic weight to the call, I pray we heed it, pursue it and become intentional in all we do to model praying with passion and faith for a new generation and for taking new territory. I also feel the timing of what Ruth Perrin spoke on about the millennials and the opportunities with that generation was really where God wants us to be more intentional. The call from both Ruth and also Josh Cutting from FORM I felt was very much a call from God’s heart for this time. It simply must be on our prayer agenda, our time agenda, it must be built into our discipleship culture and our lives to coach, raise up and walk with that generation. Jesus himself chose most of his disciples from just that age range and it was clearly effective!
I came away with a greater sense of family, a clearer prophetic vision and the feeling that as a family of churches on a mission we are living in an amazing time with amazing opportunities. The day lifted my gaze, clarified my priorities and bonded me with a great group of friends all living our lives in the same direction – it doesn’t get much better than that for a leader.
So every Friday, 5pm we gather together for food. We rotate between our houses (all spitting distance from each other), and we do it ‘bring and share’ style. Easy – no fuss. So 5pm till 6pm we eat, chat, catch up. We draw the kids into a bit of prayer. Occasionally we’ve had a kids bible story. We regularly have neighbours join us. Then 6pm till 7pm we alternate between dads and mums accountability. So one week the dads take the kids back home and the mums meet together, then the following week the dads meet.
We gathered for a KX leaders day at the Bluecoat venue in Liverpool this week.
leader.