A group of us launched a new training called StartAMicro.com. You can go to that site to get the “front facing” experience. This article, however, is a bit of the “insider’s look” at why we need it and how it is designed for a very particular purpose.
Below you’ll find a bunch of the “under the hood” motivations for the site—things we wouldn’t say over there, because the target audience doesn’t need to hear those things. They are the “hidden menu” reasons we need to do this in this way.
In the process below you might learn a bit about leading in the kingdom of God, because there are pointers here that apply much broader than MICRO. So here are seven of the reasons we did StartAMicro.com the way we did:
Accessible language is essential.
It is difficult for those with advanced ministry training to sometimes say what they mean in ways that relate to those without Christian ministry or seminary degree. We become educated out of relevance. I enjoy long conversations (and books) about Christology, ecclesiology, the early church, the creeds, the Eucharist, etc. But it can sometimes be hard for people like me to have understandable faith conversations even with those who have been in church for decades, much less newcomers. With MICRO, we chose to call these environments “safe spaces” or “host meetups” so people can “talk with friends about Jesus” because it is understandable for those without any extensive church background. Note below the language “above the scroll” on the page:
Our thinking is that such training should be accessible to even someone who just started a relationship with Jesus Christ, they might even still be in High School.
We need to talk about evangelism without saying the word “evangelism.”
Whether I like to admit it or not, evangelism is a problematic topic for people inside and outside the church. The subject can be perceived as “aggressive proselytizing.” Many Christian people don’t like the idea of “sharing their faith” because it is too overwhelming, pushy, or they might forget what they were “supposed to say.” So we determined we needed to talk about this subject without using the word at all. Our attempt to relanguage that is below, for those who struggle with the idea or the task of sharing their faith.
It’s not about us.
Although the quote can’t be cited to him with confidence, Temple may have been the first to say this:
"The Church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members" - William Temple (see Greggs, Dogmatic Ecclesiology, 117).
We need to start with those our audience cares for and loves: family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. If people start a microchurch or house church and they don’t have the right motivation the model is moot. We all have stories of people starting such communities just because they are angry at some other church. Is there a lot to be angry at “the church” about these days? Sure. But that motivation won’t last long enough. We need to start with why we should care.
It could be seen as “off topic” to start with evangelistic motive (without using those words) but in the planning it continued to be the missing link for anyone who might want to be trained in the first place. There is only one truly selfless and resilient motivation to do it: others. If someone is starting a microchurch for any other reason they are likely going to lose their way.
If it won’t make new disciples what’s the point?
In the end the point is to get people together in real flesh and blood life to have conversations about Jesus. (see Kim, Analog Church) Those conversations are the context of disciple-making. Does it get more complicated than that? Oh yes! Jesus gets pretty complicated right away. Jesus delves into all kinds of subjects and complex ideas. The 147 commands of Jesus in the New Testament are so in depth and complicated that every Christian alive that truly grapples with Jesus is still trying to figure out all the radical things he said that cause us to live life completely differently than before (see Snyder, The Radical Wesley).
The key for us, however, was to let Jesus bring up the hard stuff. Why put barriers between us and Jesus? Let’s introduce people to Jesus, and then get into the complicated stuff that keeps discipleship always fresh and fun until death. That’s not “bait and switch” that just how each relationship we have begins. You meet someone, they have a name and a job and a birthplace… and then the fun and complicated stuff of learning all of who they are begins. The same happens with Jesus. We can never end in learning more and more about the Son of God.
This is why we say, “leading intentional conversations about Jesus shouldn’t be so complicated.” Throughout history people have been doing life together in intentionally small church communities that were the best first step for those outside the faith (see Van Gelder, Essence of the Church, 45-72). Micro is just training people to start one of those without all the fuss.
Most trainings have diminishing returns after 90 minutes
“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” - Albert Einstein
Einstein gets at the problem that develops in much of the training we develop. It’s not that they aren’t full of great content. They are! The problem is that someone wanting to do something starts to forget what was said at the beginning of the training. When we have 6, 8, or 10 session long trainings people start to lose confidence, not gain it. In fact, the most often thing that happens for someone with serialized training is to think they “don’t really know enough” to do it themselves at the end. If they take good notes, they may be able to reproduce the training themselves, but they won’t be able to simply do what they wanted to do in the beginning. This is why when you take most trainings they are full of people who already have advanced ministry training. They become enclaves of continual education for the already educated. And sometimes, as Einstein surmised, it is not a sign of knowing what we mean more clearly, but instead we are obfuscating the real point in the first place.
This is why we were adamant that MICRO feature training that can be completed after a long day of work (most people have day jobs) in the time it would take to watch a Pixar movie (90 minutes or less.)
Was that hard to pull off? Yes, it was brutal hard and took us years to perfect.
Did we leave things out? Oh my, yes. We are just dipping our toes in the water here.
But all we need to do is help someone learn enough to get started. In an age when typical church outreach training overwhelms most of us, MICRO has chosen the “YouTube Tutorial” level of training for this unique age. When you go to a YouTube Tutorial on how to repair your dishwasher or to fix your WiFi you’re not wanting to become a Plumber or Computer Programmer. You just want some simple steps anyone can follow to get things working. That’s what MICRO is doing for entry level conversations about Jesus.
Starting with a prayer list is easy and motivating.
One thing you’ll notice on the site is we are repeatedly driving people to the “Conversations Checklist.” Part of this is psychological. Some people go check out a website one time and kind of check it off their mental list. “Okay, I know that exists now, if I ever want to do it, fine, that’s there for me.” But if they download the checklist, it gets them something to work on now with no commitment. But the key for the checklist is it gets them doing the most important thing: praying over those they know who don’t know Jesus (or even those whose spiritual lives is unknown to them.) This is the next step for any of us: easy but essential, minimal but motivating.
Finally, people need options that match their style of learning.
You’ll note that MICRO features “Two Styles of Training” One is a self-paced online training, the other is an interactive online training via video conference. We’ve found that people that like one way don’t prefer the other. Sure, people could try out both, but they’re roughly the same length, and cover the same stuff.
The self-paced version is particularly designed for those who would rather just roll up their sleeves right now and learn what they need to know at their own pace, not attend an event. It’s best for visual/spatial, logical, or solitary/intrapersonal learners. The live event version is particularly designed for those who need to “attend” something and participate rather than do something self-directed. It’s best for aural, verbal, or social/interpersonal learners.
We thought it was key to not force everyone to go about it in the same way—and to give people options, since everyone is different.
That’s a look behind the curtain on why StartAMicro.com is the way it is. This may have triggered a bunch of other questions as to what we’re doing with these trainings. If you want to know those behind this, go here. For specific questions we encourage you to check out the FAQ here, and also to sign up yourself so you can experience and perhaps start using it for others. All we do is for free, and we’re not trying to “get people to wear our t-shirt.” Instead, we can help you equip people with something fast and free that likely helps you do what you’re already trying to do if you lead in the kingdom of God in any way.
Credits:
Grateful to Carrie, Hal, & the team at Exponential Ventures for their initial launch grant that made this possible in the first place. Thanks for choosing MICRO out of so many worthy possibilities.
We appreciate Ed and the team at the Church Multiplication Collective for their generous grant that made it possible for us to scale up this impact significantly. We love doing life & mission together in this broader family too!
Kenny, Kendra, & the team at Big Click Syndicate for their innovative thinking, design skills, and coaching on our core message and process which shaped this so well. We highly recommend them.
Sources:
(Cited above or suggested next reads on subjects raised)
Gary D. Badcock, The House Where God Lives: Renewing the Doctrine of the Church for Today (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2009).
Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community: Spirit and Culture in Early House Churches, Third edition (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, a Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2020).
Donald Dodge, “Micro-Kingdom: A Theological and Missiological Apologetic for the Microchurch Model as an Effective and Faithful New Testament Expression of the Kingdom Of God” (PhD Diss: Liberty University, 2021).
Tom Greggs, Dogmatic Ecclesiology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2019).
Jay Y. Kim and Scot McKnight, Analog Church: Why We Need Real People, Places, and Things in the Digital Age (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, an imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2020).
Brian Sanders, Microchurches: A Smaller Way (Independently published, 2019).
Howard A. Snyder, The Radical Wesley: The Patterns and Practices of a Movement Maker (Seedbed Publishing, 2014).
Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Books, 2000).
Kevin M. Watson, Pursuing Social Holiness: The Band Meeting in Wesley’s Thought and Popular Methodist Practice, 1st edition (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).