Josh Walters on Seacoast’s Missional Community Strategy

One of the most important grouplife trends right now is the development of missional communities.  One of the churches on my radar right now is Seacoast Church.  They ought to be on yours, too.  Here’s my conversation with Josh Walters, Seacoast’s Life Group Pastor.

Mark: I know Seacoast has been moving toward the missional community concept.  What have been the main reasons for this change in direction?

Josh Walters: Community, mission and study have always been key aspects of group life at seacoast.  Focusing on these values have effectively allowed people to connect with others, impact the community and grow in their relationship with Christ.  However, these values have not been the most effective blueprint for discipleship.  This transition has been a cultural shift, a DNA change for us that will impact every aspect of group life.  Instead of working to cast vision, convince and align people to fulfill our vision/mission, we are helping people identify, build community around and commission them to fulfill theirs.  This allows us to focus on Discipleship and ensure that our people are being led well.

Mark: From some comments that Geoff Surratt made to me in late 2010, I know you’re making some strategic moves in the new direction.  Can you give us some sense of the steps you’ve taken so far?

Josh: Strategically, we have been thinking evolution instead of revolution.  We want the fruit of this transition to reveal who we are more so than what we do.  It’s about people not programs.  In order to ensure that we introduce change that is sustainable and creates culture we’ve been intentional about modeling it from the top down.  This is the “Year of the Huddle” at Seacoast.  100% of staff members will be in a discipling relationship with a leader that is driven by relationship/calling and not organizational chart.  We have been intentional about drawing a distinction between our ‘Discipling Huddles’ and our ‘Operational Meetings’, to ensure that our ministry flows from who we are and its not just something we do.  By the end of the year we would like to see 75% of our staff leading huddles.  Those who are already huddling leaders have prayerfully considered who God was calling them to invest in, extended an invitation communicating their expectations and entered into a discipling relationship where they calibrate both invitation and challenge.  Some key words to guide the process have been educate, expose and immerse.  Begin speaking the language and casting vision to help identify persons of peace, once they are identified exposing them to a taster and/or some of the resources and content, upon which they are invited into a huddle and immersed in a discipling relationship.

Mark: Seacoast has a long commitment to grouplife.  You probably had quite a system in place.  How much care are you taking to not blow up what you already have?  Or are you?

Josh: Over the last year, we’ve adopted several different approaches.  Initially we thought we were building a new bridge alongside the old one and once the new one was in place the old one would be torn down.  Though this works well in construction its not the best approach for group life.  In that season we didn’t ‘blow up the system’ but we did allow it to atrophy a bit with the thinking that you water what you want to grow.  We couldn’t invite our key leaders/coachs into a huddle without releasing them of some of their current responsibilities.

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There are some key insights into how a church with a strong grouplife emphasis can begin to move in a new direction.  Don’t miss the rest of the conversation as we talk about how they made adjustments to their approach midstream in order to keep the process moving toward their preferred future.  We’ll also talk about the role of their lead pastor.

Click here to read the rest of our conversation.  If you’re not signed up to get my updates, you can do that right here.