One of the things that we at 3DM coach people to do is to start a Pilot Missional Community before launching any real ones. It doesn’t matter if you’re a mega-church, medium sized church or church plant. It’s not enough to explain the theory of Missional Communities for people who have NEVER experienced anything like it. They need to experience and understand it before they go and lead this.

That’s just good sense, right?

What I’ve noticed, however, is that some people struggle with what to do with this Pilot MC. In fact, I probably get 4-5 emails a week about this topic. So I figured it might be helpful to lay out some basics on Pilot MCs and give a rough outline of what it can look like.

THE BASICS

What is a Pilot Missional Community?

A Pilot Missional Community is a collection of 25-50 Christian leaders who are learning to lead a future MC by participating in the pilot. Like all MCs, they will regularly do UP (things related to their relationship with God), IN (thing related to their relationship with each other) and OUT (things related to their relationships with people who don’t know Jesus yet).

What is the purpose and outcome of the Pilot Missional Community?

The purpose of the pilot is to teach these future MC leaders how to lead an extended family on mission. The purpose is not to grow the group or do long term mission. This group will exist for a season for training and then the leaders will be dispersed to lead various MCs. The desired outcome of the pilot is:

ONE. Leaders have an experience of a group of 20-50 adults doing UP, IN, OUT. Most people are familiar with how to lead smaller sized groups but are wholly unfamiliar with this larger sized group. You want them to walk away thinking, “Wow, I really like how a group that size feels and functions together.”

TWO. Leaders have a chance to lead a few missional community experiences within the Pilot before they are released to lead their own. Rather than expecting someone to lead something they’ve never tried leading, the Pilot allows leaders a safe environment to lead something new.

THREE. Leaders get to feel out the natural rhythms of UP, IN and OUT over an extended period of time and how that pattern of life builds a center of gravity for the MC.

Is there a good metaphor for understanding a Pilot Missional Community that I can share with our leaders to help them understand it?

Giving people a metaphor really helps them understand the purpose of what you’re doing and what you’re asking them to do. The metaphor I’ve used before is Boot Camp. We aren’t in the heat of battle yet, but we are training for that. Currently, we’ve got a bunch of paintball guns and when something explodes, it’s just paint. But you’re doing your best to create an environment that simulates what it’s actually like and give them the training they need to succeed. I’m sure there are other great metaphors, this is just the one that I’ve used.

How long does a Pilot Missional Community last?

I’d strongly recommend 6-9 months. Particularly if you yourself are relatively new to leading a Missional Community. I know some people shoot for 3-4 months (because they can squeeze it into a Sept-Dec or Jan-April time slot), but ultimately, I think you’re doing yourself a disservice. If the desired outcomes are the three things mentioned above, I don’t know how to do it in less than 6-9 months. I know we are excited about sending people out to the missional frontier. But we want people who have been adequately trained so they can succeed. Perhaps the only thing worse than never sending people out to lead is sending poorly trained, ill-equipped people out. If you don’t sent people, at least there’s a chance you will in the future. If you send people out and it goes really poorly, they aren’t going out again. And everyone in your community will know why.

Look. I know you’re excited about doing this and are hoping to see results. But don’t let your excitement lead to impatience. Your leaders will be the collateral damage in this scenario and then you probably won’t get a second chance.

How many times a month does the Pilot Missional Community need to meet?

The down and dirty answer is you’ll need to meet 3-4 scheduled times a month. Now, there might be other times you choose to get the group together for an organic, unscheduled activity. That’s normal for families, right? So while you have some things scheduled, there might be movies, baseball games, girls nights, bbq’s, etc. This may mean, however, that people might need to shift their schedule a little or pull back from some church activities during this time. As the leader, you’ll need to help them navigate this.

How do Huddles play into the Pilot Missional Community?

ONE. Huddle is a discipling vehicle for leaders that involves training, discipleship, support and accountability. If you haven’t read it, you definitely need to pick up the book Building a Discipling Culture which is all about Huddles and discipling leaders.

TWO. The people in your Pilot MC will need to learn how to disciple leaders through the vehicle of Huddle. That means they will need to be in a short-term Huddle within your Pilot MC. In many ways, it will feel like a “Pilot Huddle.”

THREE. I’ve seen this happen best when the person leading the Pilot MC has already been huddling a group of 6-8 people in advance of the Pilot MC starting. Then, the people you’ve been Huddling will then lead the huddles that happen in the Pilot MC.

FOUR. Don’t add an extra night for Huddle. Huddle the people in the Pilot MC twice a month, but fold it into a time when everyone is already together. See more details on this a little further down.

FIVE. When the Pilot MC comes to a close and new MCs are launched, you just need to make sure you are Huddling those new MC leaders. They will need you even more.
What’s the purpose of the OUT weeks if we’re not trying to grow the group?

The best way to use OUT weeks is to do a variety of OUT activities together. The purpose of these times is not to commit to one specific mission for your 6-9 months together, but to give your future MC leaders a taste of lots of different ways to do OUT. You have the opportunity to expand their missional imagination. Chances are you will have kids in your Pilot MC, so you’ll need to think through that with your OUT weeks. Use some of them to do family friendly OUTs and others to do adult-only OUTs. See the end of this post for a list of OUT suggestions for a Pilot MC.

SAMPLE MONTHLY RHYTHM

There are many ways to structure your monthly rhythm in a Pilot Missional Community. PLEASE don’t see this as a formula or in any way prescriptive. This is simply a rhythm we have found helpful. After giving the rhythm, I’ll explain a little further for each.

• Week 1 : UP.
• Week 2 : IN : Thanksgiving meal + Huddle.
• Week 3 : OUT.
• Week 4 : IN: Thanksgiving meal + Huddle.

UP week

• 6:30 Give overview of night and opening prayer
• 6:35 Read the scripture for the night and 2-4 worship songs
• 6:55 6-8 people read a passage of scripture that’s impacted them in the last 2 weeks and talk
  about what God has been saying to them from it or a story of breakthrough
• 7:15 MC leader reads the scripture for the night again and gives a 5-8 minute (!!) thought
• 7:25 Break up into small groups of 6-8. Each group has a trained Huddle leader. Help people
  answer “What is God saying right now?” Then, people share prayer requests and engage
  in time of prayer with each other.
• 7:50 Groups come back together. If there are any “big” prayer requests coming out of small
  group time, the whole group spends time in prayer.
• 8:00 MC leader gives closing thought. Sing one last song. Blessing.
• 8:10 Dismiss

IN week

• 6:00 Everyone brings enough food for their family + 2 to share and eat together.
• 6:15 Every person, one by one, shares one thing they are thankful for. Pray.
• 6:30 Eat together
• 7:15 Break into Huddles of 4-8 people (same Huddle leader for whole Pilot MC)
• 8:25 Groups come back together. If there are any “big” prayer requests coming out of Huddle time, the whole group spends time in prayer.
• 8:30 Dismiss

OUT week
Here are a couple of suggestions for OUT weeks. Notice these are really “low bar” suggestions…these aren’t hard or intimidating. Again, these are suggestions of things we’ve done before that have worked well. I’m sure there are other things you’ve done that would probably be even better than the following suggestions. Before each time OUT, spend a few minutes praying asking that God’s Kingdom would come, that the relationships of this group would really show the life of Jesus.

• Family friendly suggestions
  1. Have a whiffle ball game in the park on a Saturday and invite your friends and their kids
  2. Snag a projector and some speakers and project a Pixar movie on the back of your house. Have everyone invite their friends.
  3. Take a Prayer Walk around the neighborhood and make sure to bring your kids too. Here are instructions for a Prayer Walk.
  4. Go to a family friendly restaurant like Chick-fil-A and intentionally talk to people who are there that aren’t part of your Pilot MC
  5. Have the whole Pilot MC go to someone’s softball or tee-ball game and get to know the other parent’s in the stands. They’ll be floored that all these people came out to support a kid.

• Adult friendly suggestions
  1. Throw a party and invite your friends
  2. Spend time working at a senior citizen’s house and lawn and invite people to come help out who don’t know Jesus
  3. Divide the people in your groups into groups of 4 and have each group throw a dinner and invite Persons of Peace to the dinner and just hang out
  4. Have the whole group run a 5K together that is raising money for a local charity through per-mile donations.