In this new series we interview leaders of churches and other Christian outreach organisations to find out what evangelism strategies are currently being blessed by God. Here we talk to Dan Saunders, pastor of Arkhouse Church—an Acts 29 church plant in the inner Melbourne suburb of East St Kilda.
TGCA: Dan, Can you tell us a bit about some of the ways Arkhouse Church seeks to facilitate evangelism?
Alongside our Sunday gathering, Arkhouse members meet in mid-week Community Groups (CG) where we seek to live out our gospel identity through gospel intentionality on gospel mission.
CGs are – micro-gospel communities that support and encourage their members to follow and grow in Jesus, and to reach out with the gospel through the everyday rhythms of life.
A CG is our main discipleship engine, driving the pistons of leadership development, caring community, evangelism, and pastoral care. A CG structure is nothing new; it’s simply organizing as a church to call people to active participation in the mission of Jesus, seeking to fulfill the Great Commission.
TGCA: How’s a CG different from a traditional Bible study?
A CG differs from a traditional bible study because a CG does more than just bible study! A CG meets weekly to share a meal together, a tangible way of being servants to one-another and living out shared family community.
After the meal, we meet for DNA—Discipleship, Nurture and Accountability. For “Discipleship” we do Bible studies based on the previous Sunday’s sermon. For the rest of DNA, we meet in gender groups (because we’ve found people in these groups are more open and honest) with male and female leaders for “Nurture” (pastoral care & discipleship) and “Accountability” which is about being accountable and praying (i) for each person’s everyday mission and (ii) the collective mission of the group. This is our way of keeping gospel intentionality and gospel mission on the agenda.
TGCA: How do CG’s do Evangelism?
CG’s try to obey the Great Commission: firstly, by encouraging each member to live with “gospel intentionality”—being intentional about sharing their faith in Jesus. CG members actively pray together for their friends and for opportunities to be honest and open about their faith.
CG’s also undertake collective mission. Members focus on something within the local neighbourhood (eg. a playgroup, a school, a uni campus, a street, a particular disadvantaged people group) and make it a joint project for outreach.
As a church we then provide opportunities throughout the year for each CG to do Scattered Worship—where they’re active in their collective mission space. This may involve holding a party, attending a working-bee, running a games night, doing a prayer walk, whatever ways and means are available to them to connect within their collective mission.
TGCA: Can you give us some more details about how you form these connections?
As we try to develop pathways for gospel engagement we pay close attention to the culture around us. We notice its rhythms and patterns and try to fit within them. We also ask “missiological questions” about what we should reject (eg. Melbourne Cup parties), what we can receive (eg. Christmas/Easter celebrations) and what we might seek to redeem (in the sense of using them to point to the greater gospel meta-narrative, or simply to build community and create space for conversations), eg. Grand Final BBQ’s/Birthday celebrations. We encourage our people to always invite both believers and unbelievers to their events, in order to promote relationship building and conversations with those outside the church.
We also encourage our people to look for opportunities to build intentional relationships in their networks and neighbourhoods and actively train people in how to have gospel conversations, how to talk about Jesus and how to share the gospel in life-on-life relationships and situations.
TGCA: How is it working?
After 5 years we’ve found that CG’s are a very effective model for making disciples, growing community and raising leaders. It’s always an effort to keep a focus on evangelism, but CGs help combat spiritual inertia and apathy toward the lost.
We’ve found that a collective mission is more effective when most of the group live, play and work in the same neighborhood they’re trying to reach, but even then, it takes years and years to build relationships with unbelievers where they trust you enough to talk about matters of faith. We’ve also found that CG’s are more effective when they identify those with the gift of evangelism and focus their prayer and mission activity around those people and thankfully, by God’s grace, we’ve seen a few completely unchurched people become Christians by using these methods.
TGCA: Would you recommend CGs for other churches?
Regardless of which structure or philosophy of ministry you adopt, every church needs to think carefully about its evangelism strategy. The church in the West is in decline and we live in a growing antagonistic, post-Christian culture. If we don’t seek creative and new ways to connect to unbelievers, the church will continue to be seen as irrelevant and anachronistic. Community Group’s, having both an internal and external focus, training believers to live out gospel identity with gospel intentionality on gospel mission, are an effective structure for any church to reach out to it’s surrounding community.
Photos courtesy Arkhouse and Bull and Arrows
