Classroom Oikos: Information, Imitation, Innovation: Teaching

   In teaching, there is a strategy we use to model new ideas to students called "I do, we do, you do". This follows the information, imitation, innovation discipleship triangle. It is not only important to go through these steps for your own discipleship but also to help those you are discipling through these stages as well.

"I do"

       When I am teaching a new concept to students, I need to not only show them how I work through the concept but I have to share with them my thought process as well. When we want to introduce a new idea to those we are discipling, we have to show them how it looks in our lives and be open with our thought processes. 

"We do"

       After I have showed students how to do something, then it's their turn to practice. They practice in a safe environment where I can help them if they get stuck. It also helps me to see their thought processes so I can clear up misconceptions. When we are discipling, we have to let those we are leading practice what we teach. We need to be there while they practice so we can help them if and when they stumble. 

"You do"

       Once the students have seen me do something then had some practice with me there to help them, they are ready to work on their own. In discipleship, our goal is to make disciples that make disciples. At some point, we have to be ready to let them go and make disciples on their own. 

       If you aren't discipling people yet, what's stopping you? If you are, what stage are your disciples in? Do they need you to show them a living example of what you want them to know? Do they need guided practice? Or is it time to let them go?  Comment below!

Classroom Oikos: Information, Imitation, Innovation: Becoming a Teacher

One of the best things about the teacher training I had was that it followed the discipleship triangle of information---> imitation---> innovation. Discipleship is kind of like apprenticeship, learning to become like someone, do what they do. This is how I became a teacher.

Discipleship Triangle

Information

In college, I was majoring in elementary education. I had professors at Valparaiso University that introduced me to guided reading, professors at Joliet Junior College who taught me the psychology of children and professors at University of Missouri- St. Louis that introduced me to teaching philosophies. Then I went to graduate school and had professors that taught me behavior management strategies, strategies for working with students with special needs and strategies for working in urban environments. I was chock-full of helpful teacher information and ready for the next stage. 

Imitation 

In my last year of graduate school, I had a practicum where I worked with small groups of gifted fifth graders on math and a small group of second graders on reading. I observed their teachers to learn how they put strategies into practice. Then I had my student teaching. I watched a second grade teacher in her room, watched her pacing, her questioning and her organization. Then I took over her class to do what she did. After that, they said I was ready for the final stage. 

Innovation

I was given my own first grade classroom starting Fall 2013. I used my knowledge of guided reading, behavior management, and working in an urban environment coupled with my experience of building student-teacher relationships, lesson pacing and organization to start teaching the group of 18 six-year-olds. I had many questions and several mentors. I was able to go to them to get information or watch them to imitate them with things I had never done until I could start doing it in a way that fit me and my classroom. 

Doing missional community requires the same three stages. Get information about missional communities, what they are, how to do them and where to start them. At this point there are two common mistakes. One is that in our information-saturated world, it is easy to stay in the "information" stage. There are many people in the education that have a lot of information about classrooms that make decisions about how classrooms should be run without any of the imitation or innovation and that cause a lot of damage for the classrooms they oversee. Information is important. However, it is impossible to make effective changes with just knowing a lot about something. 

The other mistake we tend to make is to go from information to innovation without doing any imitating. Any teacher that I know that didn't do student teaching, did not survive a year. These are intelligent, strong, loving people that did not have the proper support to succeed. No one showed them how to do it. With that said, find someone who is doing missional communities and follow them. We do coaching huddles, partake in a learning community and are a part of TOM to network with other people "doing the stuff". Set yourself up for success. 

Once you've read about and followed people doing missional communities, then you're ready to innovate. Find new ways to integrate yourself into the community you are reaching out to. Take the things you learned from the people you read and people you followed and make them work in your context. 

So where do you find yourself? Do you need information? What topic can we help you find information on? Do you need people to imitate? What is your goal and how can we help you connect to people doing that? Do you need to innovate? Tell us your thoughts below. 

Classroom Oikos: Introduction

I have decided to start a new series I'm calling "Classroom Oikos". It will be on lessons I've learned as a classroom teacher about living as a family on mission. This series will take any series that Jarred comes up with, monthly updates from our Oikos and guest writers' series, all of which are in the works. 

As a note of privacy, students names will be changed as will any coworkers that have asked me to keep their names private.

The classroom is not a perfect example of Oikos for a few reasons:

1. The students are assigned to me as opposed to me finding people of peace. This means they might not want to be a part of the family but they don't really have a choice. 

2. Although we do have a mission of sorts (different depending on who you ask), there isn't an "out" component as far as trying to bring outsiders in.

3. There is no multiplicative element to a classroom that you would want in an Oikos. 

Despite those differences, the classroom is a GREAT example of Oikos for a few reasons:

1. Discipleship is the number one focus within the classroom, building both character and competency in every area of life

2. The student-teacher relationship is very similar to the spiritual children-spiritual parent relationship that is seen in Oikos.  

3. We are in the classroom over 30 hours a week which gives us the life on life component that Oikos strives for. 

I hope you enjoy the stories and more than that, I hope you can gain some insight into the workings of missional communities. 

This is the school where all the magic happens. 

October 2015

       Unfortunately, the Cubs were out of the running for the World Series very quickly into October. That allowed us to stay focused on family, church planting and investing in some key people. 

Most of the energy of the month went to my new fourth grade class. Because of the staple rhythms we had in place, we were able to help a friend in crisis, prepare a sermon, cast vision for our family, do the Residency + intensive, and continue to build covenant with new people despite the class being one of the highest priorities. 

October ended up being a time of God really continuing to build into us.  We realize that as pioneers within our context, we are going to be looked at and to by people wanting to learn more about and/or do missional lifestyles. Since we are not doing it great yet by any stretch of the imagination, our strength will be in transparency and relationship. God is continuing to bring avenues for us to build relationships that are also making us more visible. 

Our missional community is getting ready to move into a new season in which we will be raising up new leaders. With Katy and Jarred foreseeing a lot of energy going towards the bakery in the coming months we are looking for the next group of people the we can start a huddle with to bring up leaders that can continue breaking ground in the community.

Katy and Jon handing out candy to the neighbors. We over doubled the amount of kids we handed out candy to from last year (up from 10 to 25). We are counting it as a measure of growth!

Robert decided that Hope Vineyard would take part in a Learning Community. We have realized that this is still the best way to get connected with the 3DM movement. Because of the current nature of the LCs, I personally won't be able to go to the immersions.  Jarred will be able to go. Besides the people in Robert's huddle, there are two more people going, one out of personal interest and another to observe. 

As we look to getting into the swing of the holiday season that is upcoming, we are excited for a few things. First, we will be completing the first quarter of Residency + which is exciting because the next quarters will be more hands on as far as church planting goes. Second, we will be doing some covenant time with the people in our family that we will start huddling in the next season. Finally, we are looking forward to our annual time of retreat that happens in this season. 

This is the final post that we will have about our story for the foreseeable future. Our purpose in writing this blog was first and foremost transparency. We also wanted to share with people who wanted to start doing missional communities how our start looked. We still have a wealth of knowledge/access to knowledge about starting missional communities so we would like to offer the upcoming season of the blog up to those of you that are desiring to start missional living in your own lives. So tell us, how can we be supportive? What questions do you have? What information do you need? What strategies can we help you with? We will be looking to have guests writers and the more direction we get from you our readers, the more applicable it can be! Thanks for your input!

Love, 

The Irby's

September 2015

        September brought less rhythms than we had anticipated. We realized we might be in a longer period of rest than we had thought. The rhythms that have stuck so far have been really great. 

We have continued to do family dinners every other Sunday. The attendance at the dinners has been much like it was a year ago at this time; we have a few regulars and many people coming through for a visit. 

There were three "Irby family" rhythms that we tried to keep up. In order of least successful to most successful:

1. We made dinners for the week on Saturday. Jarred and I kept up with that and one time we had an apartment full of people join us. It was tons of fun and everyone who came was super grateful for the meals. We will still try inviting people in October. 

2. Our "Fear the Walking Dead" nights were pretty regularly attended but not by the same people. With the end of the season approaching, we will decide if it is a rhythm to keep up for "The Walking Dead". 

3. Every morning Jarred and I eat breakfast together. We realized that we eat breakfast at around the same time Courtney gets off work. Since she's near by, we invited her to come over when she gets off and eat with us. It has been a great time of connecting and fellowshipping.

Full freezer after a Saturday of cooking with friends. 

       We had another 3DM pilgrimage.  The day before was a TOM dinner. It was awesome to connect with people of the TOM family and break bread with them. Several people we had met before and many we had met through covenant huddles or Facebook so it was nice to finally see them face to face. The 3DM pilgrimage was almost an extension of that. There were about 50 people, many of whom were in TOM and the covenant relationship was definitely forefront. 

Our Residency+ class started. We got off to a slow sort which caused us to do a little cramming. The dynamics of the group are not what we would have expected. Jarred and I are the only two that are church planting and Jarred is the only male. We are excited to see what God will be teaching us through this process. 

In the later part of the month, my class assignment got changed from first grade to forth grade.  It did not start right away because my principal was trying to prevent the change from needing to happen.  The assignment starts the first Monday of October. 

As we look forward to October, the new group of kids is only the tip of the iceberg for what we are excited about. We are hoping to begin forming the team we want to launch our church plant with.   We are exited to continue in the Residency. And we are hoping to watch the Cubbies win the World Series.

August 2015

        This is the first blog I write in "real time" pervious to now, it has been a summary of where we've been with a pretty good idea of what had happened next. If the tone changes at all, that's why. 

Jarred and I weren't quite ready to start our rhythms after our brief break in July so we decided to wait until September to start figuring them out. By the end of the month, we knew we wanted to be spending more time with the Goldsteins as we transitioned to them being the spiritual parents of our MC. We also knew we wanted to see Courtney more because she had continually showed herself as a person of peace to us and we wanted to invest in her because of that. 

Most of our rhythms were getting established around food.  In order to see Courtney more, we decided we would start inviting her to our morning breakfasts on the morning she would be getting off of work. We had also been trying to make our meals for the week on Saturday so we are going to invite people to join us to get some cooking done and hang out time in. 

We officially got the building for the deli/bakery in August so although there are no firm plans for how to get a consistent rhythm with working on that, it is very exciting and something we are looking forward to figuring out. That will be a major contributor to spending intentional time with the Goldsteins. We know we have to be careful to get covenant time in too so it's not all work, work, work.

Katy and Jon in front of the bakery. 

Katy and Jon decided to start family dinners in August so our MC got back into the rhythm of dinners once every other week. At our first dinner we met together with the core people to talk about what our mission-vision might be. It was decided that we would focus on the LGBT community because that seemed to be who we were attracting. 

Our second dinner we opened it up to invite people we had met at the block party. We had 6 new neighbors show up. All the people that showed up were church going people. They were excited about what we were doing and started becoming consistent (so far). 

Through the new people we met at family dinners, Jarred and I found another thing to start inviting people into. We got cable which meant access to AMC which meant "Fear the Walking Dead" and "The Walking Dead". There is not a shortage of people who don't have cable but want to be current with those shows so we obliged. Each episode we have had more people come over than the last. It has been a blast. 

As we look forward into September we are excited about a few things. First, there is a pilgrimage coming up of 3DM and TOM members and we can't wait to see some friends and family again. Secondly, Jarred and I signed up for the Vineyard's Residency+ to prepare for church planting. Finally, we are eager to start getting into some rhythms. 

July 2015

       July was the big block party.  We were all very excited because we knew at the very least we were going to have fun.  I borrowed my godchildren for the weekend ages 4, 3 and 2 since none of us had kids so we needed a kid element to get the families out.

It was a great success!  We had over 60 people come out that were not part of our family.  The washers tournament was the biggest pull that brought everyone together confirming that we do in fact live in the south.  

        Everyone was so grateful that someone had put this together.  There were neighbors that had lived in the neighborhood 20, 30, 40+ years who said it had been about a decade since they had had a block party but that they had done them every year for a very long time before that.  The newer neighbors were glad at the opportunity to meet other people in the area.

After the party was all said and done we realized we really did more work than was necessary.  Very little of the planned activities actually happened in the time that we planned them.  Kids pretty much just played with everything the whole time.  Water was a big hit.  We made WAY too much food because most people brought out their own food.  Even our music became obsolete when the neighbors brought out their karaoke.

Block party!

As had become our rhythm, after a major event, we did some resting.  We took the month off in July from organized time which meant no huddles and no family dinners.  We officially stepped out of Robert’s huddle because we needed to focus energy on our family as opposed to transitioning the church.  Not only did we want to rest and prune back to make space and conserve energy for the fruit that would come, but we also were all going to be on various vacations for the month of July.  Also, with the bakery on the table, we wanted to take a step back and pray into what the next season would look like since it was potentially much different than what we had been doing up until now.

One of the “vacations” that Jarred and I went on was the Vineyard Global Gathering.  There was so much from that week that God did in our hearts, confirming we were to plant a church, the blessing of our family and connecting with other TOM members (only one of whom was at the Vineyard conference.  The other three were just in the area so we visited them).

Robert signed up for a side meeting about missional communities.  He had three extra tickets so he asked those of us in his huddle to come having one representative from each household.  It ended up being me, Robyn and my mom.  At this meeting, we realized that the Vineyard did not officially have anything to say about missional communities so we were at the “Damn Historic Meeting” that started the conversation.  Of the 20+ people that were there, 3.5 of us were doing missional communities.  Robyn and I were two of them, mom was the .5.  When we got back from the meeting and I talked with Jarred about it, we realized that we had accidentally fallen into the forefront of the MC movement with the Vineyard.  That was the genesis of this blog.

June 2015

       In June, our MC was focused on preparing for the Fourth of July block party.  We were getting the word out to the neighbors and planning the festivities for the day.  It was probably the most labor/planning intensive thing we had ever done as an MC.

One day, Katy was looking around online and came across a property for sale.  It was a fully functioning industrial kitchen with office spaces and two apartment buildings up above.  Currently, it was being used by the catering company that owned it.  The property was 3 blocks away from where she and Jon lived.

She posted the link to the property on Facebook and said, “Anyone want to dream a little with me?  This is in our neighborhood and I would LOVE to buy it, rent out the apartments upstairs, and start a bakery in the bottom portion.”  No one who knows Katy was at all taken aback by that status.  The thing that took us by surprise was what happened next.

The post that started it all. 

There was a man, Fred that we had started to build relationship with in our neighborhood.  He owned a bakery that employed people in transition.  They had a kitchen down the road called Bridge Bread and mostly sold bread to churches.  Upon reading Katy’s post, Fred emailed Katy saying that a man in his church had just approached him about that exact property.  This man, Doug, wanted to do a neighborhood bakery/deli in that building.  He had the money but not the experience.  He had asked Fred if he was interested in going in on it with him and expanding Bridge Bread in that way.  Fred was not really looking to do that but as soon as he saw Katy’s post, he knew he needed to get Doug and Katy talking.

Doug and Katy quickly connected and started to realize their vision for the space was more than just compatible.  Katy told Doug that Jarred would be a great General/Deli Manager because of his experience and she could run the bakery side with her experience.  Doug was sold.  He put a bid in on the property.

Over the next three weeks, there was lots of prayer from the handful of us that knew this project was in the making.  It was an excruciatingly long three weeks.  There were offers and counter offers just about every third day.  By the end of the three weeks, Doug had the building.  As soon as the inspections were finished, we would have 10 days to write up our business proposal.  The catering company was going to rent the building from Doug through the fall and then we could start renovations in the winter with an extremely tentative opening in the spring of 2016, right in time for Katy to finish up her schooling.  

        Update: Currently, the catering company is going to continue to rent the space into next year. The apartments are ready to rent out. Katy, Jarred and Doug have been in constant communication from things about the name of the place to the menu.  Katy and Jarred have quickly brushed up on writing business plans so they can be prepared when the time comes.  Doug also bought a warehouse building in our neighborhood and 500 chairs and is asking Katy for ideas for the building. We have not formally said a church building, but we are all thinking it!

May 2015

        May was a big month for Robert’s huddle because of the Discipleship and Mission Workshop.  Things had started to come together as far as what we were going to share and how we were going to share it.  Everyone in his huddle had a part to share/teach.

One thing that we had learned was the value of a huddle beyond the discipleship of leaders.  We realized (and not without having been told at least two times/ways) that we could use a huddle as a vehicle for processing information as well.  We had been put in huddles in the workshop that we had gone to and Jarred and I had been in huddles for the pilgrimage.  So, we planned to use a huddle for the attenders of the workshop so they could process what they were learning and really pause to see what God was telling them about what they were learning.

We had about 20 people show up to the workshop that were not already part of a huddle/MC.  We had another 10 or so people come that were part of a huddle and 6 of those people lead the processing huddles over the two day workshop.  The huddles were a major selling point for the people who had never heard of huddles/MC.  There was a lot of challenging information shared that overwhelmed a lot of people.  When they were able to take a step back and focus on one or two things they felt God was telling them, they felt more empowered.  

         After it was all said and done, we felt it had been a successful first jab.  We learned some things about what worked and what didn’t.  We also realized that for some time, as a church, we should probably do this workshop quarterly so that everyone had a chance to come.  It took 10 people to run the operation not counting worship.  Next time, for the same size group it should hopefully take only half the man power.

         In our MC, two major things happened.  First, Rhonda’s girlfriend started to become more a part of the family.  They invited us over to their house a couple of times for drinks.  Mari wanted us to do a block party for the Fourth of July so she and Katy headed it up.  The two of them invited us to play in a softball league with them.  Courtney, Jon, Jarred and I signed up to play.  There was no one else from the neighborhood that was in the league but we were building in to Rhonda and Mari’s networks.

The next big thing that happened was that Kelsey moved in with Jon and Katy.  This became a big deal because for the foreseeable future, the three of them were getting some intense practice at doing life together.

Kelsey was quickly turned into a 3DM junky while living with Katy and Jon. 

        Finally, Jarred and I went with my family to Michigan for my brother’s graduation.  On our way back, we visited Roger’s church and then spent all day with him and his family.  They were preparing to launch an MC and had spent the better part of a month trying to nail down their mission-vision.  It was again so refreshing to meet people and quickly connect with them because of being able to speak the same language.  Never before had we met someone and then hung out all afternoon on their couch in the same day.  It felt like family.

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's

April 2015

April was a lot of fun but it went by really quickly.  During the cold months, Greg and Eddie had been staying with a friend to get off the streets.  As it was warming up, they were able to start coming back to family dinners because they were staying in the area again.  When they came back, they started bringing along Kenny too.  He quickly became part of the family.

For Easter, the three of them went to church with Katy and Jon.  They spent the whole day with their extended family after that.  Later in the month, they came to church with me and Jarred.  This was the first time that we had brought anyone from the family to church (who wasn’t already part of a church) so it was monumental for us.

Greg and Eddie with Katy and Jon celebrating Easter. 

In April, Robert had bugged Eric enough for free help with transitioning the church to huddles and MCs that he invited Robert to be a part of his huddle specifically for churches making the transition.  We also put on the calendar for the following month a Discipleship and Mission workshop for our church, modeled after the one we had done the winter before.

One of the men from that huddle that Eric was leading, Roger had been in relationship with 3dm through Eric for a couple of years.  Eric had him contact Robert and his huddle so that we could talk through our leadership pipeline which would help us focus our workshop.  He was very helpful at getting us to ask the right questions.

Robert’s huddle was planning the workshop but we were using people in all three huddles that were now going on to run it.  Since we had not taken/kept copious notes from the first workshop, it took a while for us to plod through all that we had learned in the past year plus to figure out what was necessary information to share.  This was going to be a big deal because we were introducing huddles and MCs to the church for the first time.  

Also at this time, Robert’s original coach was coming back to the States and he and his family were making their way across the US on their way to their new home in California.  They stayed with Robert for a week as they passed through St. Louis.  

        On one of their first nights in town, Robert invited all the huddles over to his house to meet them and hang out with them.  For most of the people that showed up, this was their first experience with being in relationship with people who spoke the language.  As it had been for us at the pilgrimage and (for those of us that were there) at the Fry’s for the vows, they were excited to be able to relate to people they had just met on such a deep level.  

        Shaun and his wife also happened to be part of TOM.  Since Jarred and I were very new to TOM and had very few connections to people in it, we were excited to spend time with them.  We took them out to the City Museum and the out for dinner at Pi’s.  It was great to get to know them.  The consensus from the people that got to hang out with them was that it was like they were part of the family already.

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's

March 2015

March was the final blow to our huddle.  Christopher said he was bowing out.  He had been absent most of February after Erin left the huddle.  He had gotten hurt at work which had prevented him from being able to come to many family dinners too.  He said he wanted to explore what God might be calling him into and that huddle and our MC wasn’t quite aligning with that any more.  Since he had been fazing himself out, it did not come as a shock.  As prepared as we might have been for the news, it was sad to see him go when it was finalized.

It wasn’t all loss in March though because March was when Jarred and I took our vows for TOM.  During the winter, we had done the exploratory huddle for TOM.  We had learned a little bit more about it.  From everything we learned, we realized this was something we had to be a part of.

The Order of Mission, as its name suggests is an order that is focused on being missional in daily life.  People within the Order support the church with its mission to make disciples.  They use a common language, specifically life shapes.  They take vows for purity, simplicity and accountability.  As we learned about the Order, it became clear that 3dm had actually been birthed as an economic arm of the Order in the US.

After talking with David and Susan, they told us the guardians who would oversee our vow taking were Mark and Wenda who lived in Omaha.  We had started to see the strength of networking amongst people in 3dm (and now TOM) so we knew we wanted to go to Omaha and take the vows in person.

We invited people from both our huddles as well as the huddle that Robyn and Kyle had started.  My parents and Courtney were the ones that made the trip up with us.  Almost immediately upon getting to Mark and Wenda’s house, our decision was confirmed.  It was like a breath of fresh air to meet people who spoke like we did.  Sitting around making jokes about life shapes with people we had just met was a new and exciting experience and for my parents and Courtney (who had not made it to the pilgrimage) it was a first.

The five of us spent a lot of time learning about Mark and Wenda’s story.  They had their share of ups and downs.  They also had a similar lifestyle to my parents which helped them get thinking about how they could do missional community and was very influential in what they now do for their MC.  

The day of the vows, Mark and Wenda invited over their TOM family which consisted of four other families.  We also had Robert and Kim and another TOM member David skype in.  After the vows, Mark and Wenda had everyone pray for us.  During the prayers we realized the significance of the date, March 21, 2015; exactly nine months from the date of our wedding.  God was birthing something through us and on this day, the second set of vows we had ever taken, there was a solidification of the family we were a part of to see the story unfold.

Our new TOM family. 

February 2015

In February we had another personnel loss.  Erin was in the end of her final semester of college and did not have time for huddle or doing much with the family outside of her studying.  We affirmed her decision and told her that of course when she was ready to jump back in we would be there with arms open.  Jarred had already offered her a job out of school as his assistant (which paid in friendship) and we anticipated her sticking around after school ended.

Now that we had more people from the neighborhood coming to family dinners, we wanted a more visible presence in the neighborhood.  There is a Mexican restaurant in a few blocks from Katy and Jon’s house that we decided to go to on the off weeks from family dinner at their place.  It was a little safer space for Rhonda and her girlfriend to get to know us and it allowed for us to support a business in the neighborhood as well as start building relationships, at least with the employees.

Rhonda was starting to become more comfortable with us.  She had lost her job at the end of January and was looking for a new one and pretty down about not having one.  We prayed with her that she would find a job.  Eventually she did but not in the field that she wanted.  We are still praying for something more suitable for her.

One time at Chimichanga’s, Rhonda and Mari simultaneously got talking about their past with the church (we were split between three table since we had so many people).  Mari had grown up going to Catholic schools.  Rhonda had not grown up in church but she had started going to a charismatic church with a friend in high school.  She got used to people laying hands on each other and speaking in tongues, the whole nine.  As she got comfortable, she realized she wanted to look in to other religions to see what they said since she was newer to the whole thing.  As soon as she started asking questions about other religions, she was quickly ostracized.  They both were very interested in coming to church with Katy and Jon.  As of yet that hasn’t happened but we are waiting on God to continue the work he is doing in their hearts.

During much of the previous year, Katy and Jon had been in a band with a group of friends.  That band had disintegrated but several of the people still wanted to play music together.  Katy started her own music project and most of the people from their band play and record with her.  Eventually, some of those people would make up the band The Resounding with her.

The Resounding

        One couple from that group started hanging out with Katy and Jon quite a bit.  It was easy to see that they were people of peace to the Goldstein’s.  Brooke and Randy started reading the 3dm books and were quickly hooked to the idea.  They realized they wanted to do something like Katy and Jon did in their own neighborhood.  They started figuring out that they would need sometime imitating Katy and Jon before they would be able to start off on their own.  They slowly started to become a fixture at family functions and became more and more integrated in what we were doing.

January 2015

In January, as is typical in a new year, we were excited to get back into our rhythms.  We hadn’t had a family dinner in a month and we were looking forward to possible fruit from the caroling.  Jarred and I had also started opening up our Wednesday dinners to more than just Christopher and Erin and we had about four other regulars by the time the month was out.

Before our first family dinner of the New Year, our huddle went around to the neighbors that we remembered from the caroling that had stayed out and interacted with us.  We went to about 10 homes but two stick out as important.

One of the first houses we went to was the one were the woman had come out and been so touched she had started crying.  We went up to her house and she remembered the event more than any of us particularly.  We invited her to dinner the next night.  She had a couple of questions for us trying to see who all was invited and why.  Once she felt sure enough about being invited she said she would try to come.  While we were at the next house, she ran out after us and asked, “I’m gay, is that ok?”  Jarred responded, “We’re straight is that ok?”  She has been part of the family ever since.

The second house of note was Don’s.  We were talking about how he had come out and sung along with us the night of caroling but we were having a hard time remembering his name.  Jon and I went to the door and we were listing off three letter names because that’s as much as we could remember.  Then, from down the street we hear, “Hey, it’s Don!  I’m over here!!”  He had been at Katy and Jon’s house to see if they had a coat for him from our yard sale stash.  He was just walking back to his place and ran into us.  We walked back to the house with him and tried to find a coat.  We invited him to dinner.  For a season he came with various members of his family to dinners.

Don teaching Jon how to dance. 

With the New Year and our newly solidified vision we had some time to take a little family inventory.  Besides those of us in the huddle, there were about 5 people that still came from Common Ground and about 4 people that had started coming when we launched in the fall.  We realized that they did not know our family vision and that they probably would not want to devote their lives to South City like we wanted to do.  So we started the ball rolling on what we would later call the Major Pruning of our MC.  We split up the list of people and each of us was going to talk one on one with them to cast the vision and see if they wanted to take part.  If not, we wanted to have one last act of discipleship and help them to see where God WAS taking them and what steps they could take to get there.  We estimated we would have between 0-4 people stick after that.  After all our conversations, we had three say they would stick around.  By the time the month was out, one of those people realized that he would rather pray for us because he loved what we were doing but wasn’t called to where we were.  When it was all said and done, Kelsey was the only one who stuck.  

Family dinners were smaller, sometimes 6 people, but we had made room for the fruit.

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's

December 2014

December was a fun month.  Because the holiday season was in full swing, our regular rhythms were put on hold.  We still had an intentional time of Out with our MC and an intentional time of rest and Up-In with our huddle.

For our Out, we did Christmas caroling.  We teamed up with the School of Kingdom Ministry (SoKM) from Hope.  We had about 40 people show up outside of our huddle, half of them from SoKM, another third were people who came because someone from our MC invited them and about 2-3 had actually been to our family dinners before.

We split up into two groups and went two different directions on Katy and Jon’s block.  We had a list of four songs and at each door we would sing one or two of them.  SoKM was with us to offer to pray for people after we finished singing.  We had a slow start but eventually people started coming out and listening.  Several families stayed out while we went to their neighbors’ houses.  One woman watched all the way down the block and was so overcome that she was crying the whole time.  One man, Don, recognized us from the yard sales and he came along and sang with us for a few houses.  When a SoKM student would ask people what they wanted prayer for, many people said pray for our city.  The Mike Brown case was fresh on our memories and it was impactful to us that so many people in our neighborhood wanted peace and reconciliation just like we did.

Between Christmas and New Year’s, our huddle went on a three day retreat.  We drove out to Kansas City to a retreat center called Precious Blood.  We spent the time casting vision for our MC and the movement we wanted to do at large.  We also spent a lot of time in prayer and seeking out the Lord’s love and direction for our own lives.  We ate breakfasts and dinners together and spent some time playing games and relaxing together too.  

Our Family Mission Statement that came from that time is as follows:

We are committed to:

Focusing our lives on Jesus

Serving others in love

Acting with humility

Seeking the Holy Spirit

to the best of our abilities.  We let God strengthen us in our weak areas and grow us in character as children of the Father.

This is the statement that guides us in our family decisions.  Multiplication is one of our goals and we believe one of God’s desires.  Through as many generations as our family grows, we want this to be their commitment as well.

First family photo. 

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's

November 2014

In November we did another yard sale.  It was similarly effective to the first yard sale. We met some new neighbors.  Some people remembered us from the month before and had been looking forward to seeing us again.  We had about as many donations from our MC but a few less people were involved in the set up the day before and the hanging out the day of.

The yard sale in action. 

We did not see the people from the month before who were potential people for us to come alongside.  There were also fewer conversations in general so we weren’t getting to know people as well as we had done the month before.  

One of the highlights of the yard sale was that Greg and Eddie came to help us manage it and invited some of their friends to come get things.  We knew then how much of a part of the family they felt since they contributed what they could in time and relationship.

By this time, we had started to see who would stick.  Very few people from Common Ground actually were there.  One young man, Brandon, who had been with Common Ground for over a year was a regular.  He had all the markings of a person of peace: he would listen to us, he would follow us and he served us.  We decided that because of all that, we wanted to claim him a little more so we invited him into the huddle.

We also realized that we were asking Erin to be a major part of what we were doing without her having any authority.  She was definitely a leader alongside Christopher.  We knew that she would be a key player in Christopher’s MC when the time came so we decided to invite her into the huddle as well.  

Compared to the first couple of times we invited someone into a huddle, we were much better at it with Brandon and Erin.  We were able to better define what we inviting them into and the implications of what it would mean if they said yes.  Erin had a much closer relationship to the huddle just because Christopher was in it so she quickly said yes.  Brandon only had our explanation to go off of but it was enough for him so he also said yes.

We did not start all over again with the shapes even though we had some new people because we knew there would be a time when we would go back over the shapes we had done.  What we DID do was split our huddle to be male and female.  After a while we realized that is probably how we should always do huddles, at least a majority of the time if possible.  

Unfortunately, soon after inviting Brandon into the huddle, there was some conflict between him and another woman in the MC.  For his own protection, we told him he should step out of things for a little while and focus on trying to hear from God what his next step should be.  Jarred and the other men had a plan to keep up with him in a less structured way than huddle and reconvene in a month or so to check in and see where God was leading him.

         It was evident that as the season we were in as a group mirrored the natural season. We were being pruned and moving into a time of rest. At this point the pruning was natural and unintentional. As we would pray into it, it would become more intentional in the coming months. 

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's

Five Tips for Food

I remember when my Dad taught me how to cook. My mother passed away when I was young, so he also taught me how to iron clothes, do laundry, make a home look nice, as well as the typical masculine things like shaving, cutting grass, working on the car, and drinking beer. Since I was a young pre-teen when I started cooking, my Dad limited my use in the kitchen to simple cuisine so that I would not start a fire or starve because I do not prefer to eat blackened pizza.
Until I started dating Ana, I rarely ever made meals for anyone else besides myself. I was an only child, my elder family members preferred to cook, and my roommates and I when I was a young adult would just eat Taco Bell all the time. I had no idea that if I were to marry this girl that I would occasional cook for, that this would somehow become a regular part of our lives. We have quickly realized we would not only cook for each other in the future, but often invite others to do so, and this would be a foundational part of our lifestyle. In the short few years I have begun to make food for others, these are five practical tips I have learned. I believe these are especially good tips for people who want to see meals become something significant in their spiritual and relational journey and may be single, dating, or newly married, others who may have a heavy workload, and those folks who absolutely think they could never cook for 10-30 people on a regular basis.
I will not share any of my secret recipes or kitchen secrets. Those are going to pay the bills in the future. Here are five points that start with a 'p' that start to sum up the simple things we do to see breakthrough.
Planning
Ana and I usually on Thursday plan our meals out for the next week. We then are able to go grocery shopping within the next few days for the week, and we prep a lot of our meals on Saturday with other people! The freedom to know that we have lunch and dinner for busy weekdays planned out allows for us to rest easy when we need to, and get a jump on the day every day! We also keep enough food available in case someone is over and we get hungry while playing board games or something of the sort. We save ordering takeout and dining out for special occasions or spontaneous trips.
Practice
I do not expect everyone to be at the culinary expertise of an executive chef in a French restaurant, but I think that the more knowledgeable one is of a trade, the less stressful it becomes to do that task. There are plenty of resources from the internet to Youtube to help practice quick prep without going to culinary school. We prefer to cook most of our meals to save on money, and time becomes very short, so we have made sure to hone in our skill on a few meals that we can make repeatedly and easily. The most success we have seen in our family dinners and gatherings is because we can have a very impressive meal with little effort! We can then focus on investing in our guests and building relationships rather than standing over a stove for an hour trying to feed kids and adults.
Predictability
Ana and I try to have dinner on certain days at certain times. The people that we want to invest in, and also the people that want to spend time with us are able to begin to know when they can find us! They will start to make a mealtime a regular part of their schedule when they see you having it as a staple during the week. Some people may only come to our dinner once every two months, but they always know when we eat during a season and they are not afraid to connect with us, or bring other people with them!

Potlucks!
This is a great way to have all people in families participate in sharing their possessions with each other. We have taken a few spins on Potluck which we have found fun and successful. We have recently started experimenting with inviting others over and having them bring the side items for all the food we prep for the week. Everyone feels involved and like they are contributing, even if they only do minimal work in the actual prep of the food. We also do Potluck Pizza party when we provide Tortillas, Pizza Dough, and Sauce and everyone brings their favorite classic or crazy toppings. People are able to make their own mini pizzas and there is no debate as to what goes onto which pizza when you order out. We also want to have everyone who comes to a family dinner or missional community to feel that they can participate. When we have our friends and family who may be without a permanent home, they often want to make sure they can help out even though they may have a few dollars in their pocket. They have the monopoly on bringing chips to our dinner, and they love to be able to claim some ownership of a part of the meal on a regular basis.
Prayer
The people we share meals with have diverse spiritual backgrounds. Some have never prayed more than a handful of times, some have never prayed, and some pray in the "tongues of angels". We think that it's important to pray before every meal, thanking Jesus for his provision and continued mercy on us and our family. We're currently trying to make a song that is easy enough for children and guests to catch onto. Just as we want people to participate in our meals, games, and storytelling, we want to make it accessible for them to enter into a place where they can seek out Jesus through our family time. People start to see that Jesus is the center of our lives, and we are sharing the good news with them by just thanking Jesus for the food!
I would love to hear what family meals look like for others! Maybe we can share in a meal sometime in the near future. 

The Lost Son

In my last blog, I talked about how inviting people over to share a meal would change the world.  Today, I'm looking at the concept from a Biblical perspective.  Next time, I hope to give some practical tools for how I attempt to make a regular habit of sharing meals with others!

"But the father said to his servants, Bring forth quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and make merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.”

Luke 15:22-24 ASV

I remember the first time I ever visited my last girlfriend's house.  (Don't worry, this girlfriend I speak of is now my wife, so hopefully she will be my last girlfriend!) She was returning home from college and there were three parties in four days at the home of her family.  Her sister was graduating from high school, a brother had a birthday, and another brother had graduated from middle school.  

Milestone markers in people's lives are often celebrated with large meal or feast!  I will never forget where I ate on my 21st birthday (yes, I remember all of it), or what we ate on my wedding day, or the first place I took my wife to eat on a date.  These great moments had ritzy, five star cuisine, some of my favorite fried chicken, and slices of pizza.  

Not just the happy moments call for a "special" meal to be made.  When people are sick, or have loved ones that are deceased, it is not uncommon for others to bring food to support someone in a harsh time.  The act of a "last meal" request for people on death row gives a hope of civility into the tension of morality that exists in that arena.

I will ask this question, "If you could have one meal, what would it be?" But, I will follow it up with this question, "Who would you want to share it with?"

The story of the lost son, is a picture into the heart of a loving Father.  Christians and non-Christians can relate to this story because it is a story of redemption, which always makes for the best movies.  One son goes off from his family, asking for his inheritance before his father is dead, and then he blows it all away, only to return home to his father who loving accepts him back. 

His father not only accepts him, but throws him a massive feast, with the best meat!   This calf would only be slain for special occasions, and this was a meal that they would not forget.  The economic implicationsThe dad showed how he was still a part of the family, and they ate, drank, and were merry!  Family parties are no small occasion, and this was probably the best party they had in a long time.

“Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called to him one of the servants, and inquired what these things might be. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. But he was angry, and would not go in: and his father came out, and entreated him. But he answered and said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, and I never transgressed a commandment of thine; and but when this thy son came, who hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou killedst for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that is mine is thine. But it was meet to make merry and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”

Luke 15:25-32 ASV

This moment was a defining moment for the household from that point on.  I want to believe that in that story, the dad continued to celebrate how much he loved his sons.  He made sure that his son had on good robes, some bling, and a full belly.  He wanted to show both his sons, that in spite of the bad things (or good things in the case of the older brother) they had done before, nothing could stop this party from happening at this moment.  

This party signified that they were family.  A son had been lost, and since he had been found, the kickoff was a meal.

Imagine losing something or someone you care about.  How happy you would be to be reunited with that person?  This story was a picture that Jesus shared to show how he felt about people who were lost that he loved.  This expectation was something that his father had done, so it was basically the family norm to love like this.  That was what the father of the two sons was showing.  You are family, and I am happy that you are family, so now our family will celebrate by absolutely having a big feast.  

When we are inviting people to share dinner with them, it is also inviting them to be a part of our family.  When my wife and I do dinner, it's family dinner, and we love to hear others call it that.  That way, people understand that we are not only sharing our resources and love with each other, but we are also inviting them to be a part of our family, and they can invite others into the family too.  It is not about what we have done, or what we are doing, but it is because we are family, and we eat to celebrate that.

If we are a part of a larger, spiritual family, and we want others to be a part of our family, what steps are we taking to invite others into that family?  The best way I believe is to invite them to dinner.  That seems to be the standard for the spiritual family I am a part of.  It sounds like a picture of heaven would be when we get there, let's eat, the best hamburger you could dream of (so good, it does not even need cheese or sauces). 

Sharing some of heaven on earth with others sounds like it involves a good meal.  How much of sharing my faith with others is actually connected to having a nice, meaningful, family meal with them?

If I am inviting them into my family, our family, then that probably should be a first step. 

-Jarred 

Cena

One of the places on my bucket list of places to see is Rome. The Italian city is sprawling with culture, and it would be amazing to partake in some of the ancient sites as well as visiting the Vatican City to see the hub of what has been the largest religious body for centuries. 

Italy is renowned for its cuisine. One could easily make a case for it being the most liked food in America besides the most eaten food in the U.S....tacos. 

In Ancient Rome, the midday meal was called Cena, and it was what the daily schedule orbited around. It eventually transformed into a later evening meal. Some would say around 5-6pm would be when the workday would end and people would begin to prepare to eat Cena. What fascinates me about Cena is that it was the main venue for social interaction. Business partners, family, guests, and others would usually have a place at the table, and if it was a really specially occasion, there would be some sort of entertainment for the wealthy people. Dinner and some tunes would be right in the dining room.

Some wealthy people today still have a staff on hand at their house to prepare meals and they have roaring dinner parties, so we still have some of that culture here thousands of years later. What I do believe we have lost though is the concrete nature of how this meal was a part of normal, everyday life for the Roman. 

I want to believe people still share meals in their homes, but as a young married person with no children, these mealtimes are easily lost for me, so I sense they are lost for people like myself. I believe that there is a special bond formed by eating with others in a home. A restaurant has amazing functionality for convenience and diversity of options, but unless you have the private room, the intimate connection of a small-medium sized group of people is not preserved. 

I could talk for 10,000 words on this subject, so to simplify the concept for people who may have not experienced this concept...I say, "Do as the Romans Do!"

Invite a few friends or family over for dinner! If you can't cook, order food, or ask everyone to bring something. If someone offers you to come over for dinner, do it! Things that are not scheduled are the first to go, so before buying that ticket to go see Black Mass or making a hair appointment, check the calendar and ask, "Is there a way I can have a meal with someone I care about this week?" I believe that any opportunity to share a meal with others is actually changing the world in a small way. We have 365 opportunities a year to share a meal with others, so a few successful attempts can really start to put a dent in a few of the problems around us! 

This is a political platform that I think a few people could get behind. Family meals to end poverty, inequality, and probably climate change. 

#cena2016

-Jarred

Meals: A Place Where Everyone Can Connect

Ana and I try to make it a priority to do two things every day.  Share at least one meal together, and talk about our day.  We have found these moments to be foundational for our relationship and if these things do not happen, disaster will ensue shortly thereafter!   We enjoy sharing meals with people and inviting others to have dinner with us.  We also try to get our parents and pastors and people who care about us to take us out as much as possible for food, since they usually enjoy treating us to a meal, and free food that I did not prepare always taste better.

I would imagine that if I were to take Ana out on a first date, with all the knowledge I have now of things she likes, it would definitely be to a restaurant!  She loves food, and is usually not a harsh critic of new things, as long as they are free of bones and things of the sort.  That's a usual first date for a lot of people, and whenever I people watch, I always try to look out for the folks that are meeting each other for the first time.  The situation of a Tinder or Match meetup is always amusing to me, but I do have empathy for people who do this on a regular basis.  Dating in the 2015 is strange and mysterious.   

We recently saw Pretty Woman with about 8,000 other people watching at the beautiful Red Rocks.  The thousands of us laughed when wealthy, powerful business owners met to discuss the takeover of a company and the not-so-professional Vivian is brought along to attempt to blend into a new world of fine dining.  The clash of the two cultures based on status speaks to how by simply observing how someone eats dinner, it shows what some of their values are.

I have often looked at how healthy a family was, based on how they ate together.  I am not convinced this is the best gauge of family functionality, however, it is often reflective of some important things.  I do believe it shows how much a family or a social group wants to build into each other.   Everyone essentially has to eat at some point, but sitting down for a meal on a regular basis does take a sacrifice.  Besides the simple reason of not enough time, a meal can be pushed to the side for activities, work, recreation, ministry, the list goes on.   Most people would say that they value meal time, but I doubt it is the first thing to be scheduled on a daily calendar.  I know that it is not the first thing I schedule on my calendar.

As I grow older, I watch things in my life become less tangible and more "blended" into the changing landscape of our culture.  Pocket organizers, address books, watches, books, are almost of little value if they are not able be combined with something else into a sleek device.  The way I explore is different, as I scope out destinations and new places before I embark on a journey.  New things are more like a scavenger hunt than they are a surprise, as I have a list of "must-see/must-do" places to visit.  Since drones cannot drop off food to me while I'm watching Netflix just yet, I believe the sacredness of meals are something that have survived the changing times.  I believe that everyone appreciates a good meal and a nice beverage, regardless of how often you do it!  And of course, there is no better way to show hospitality, than to feed an empty belly!

The next few blog posts will focus on different aspects of how Ana and I do our meals, talking about meal prep, sitting down with people you love, prioritizing meal planning into a busy schedule, as well as tips we have found over the years!  Before the next posts, maybe we can begin to think about our favorite meals that we partake in, our favorite places to eat, or any tips that one may have.  Feel free to comment!  I would love to hear from our readers how they do food!

-Jarred

October 2014

October was our first “out” event.  We had spent the month before collecting items for our yard sale and we had a good variety of things.  We had a couple people come help us organize the things the day before and a couple more people show up to help us manage the yard sale itself.

On the day of the yard sale, we met around 30 neighbors.  Our huddle was specifically looking for people of peace that might be people we could do family with.  There were several potential people that we kept a mental note of to look for the next time around.  

Another nice surprise was that one family came through looking for a youth’s suit for a funeral he was going to.  We hadn’t had many men’s clothes donated and definitely nothing as nice as a suit in a boy’s size.  He looked through the clothes and found a suit that fit him perfectly.  He was happy and we were thrilled beyond belief.

Our family dinners continued.  Each dinner we would go out and try and find people that were out to invite them to dinner before we started.  One time, a small group met up with Fast Eddie and Greg.  They came and immediately felt welcomed and part of the family, so they kept coming back.  They quickly felt a part of the group and would invite friends to all the gatherings.

We had many visitors come through our family dinners from the various churches we attended or friends we knew.  People wanted to check out what we were doing and “okay” it.  By the end of the month, we had had almost 100 people come through for dinners and had a regular group of about 20.  Of those, three were people that had come from the neighborhood and about 10 were people from our churches who had not come to Common Ground.

One thing Jarred and I started was dinners at our house once a week.  This was slightly different from our large group gathering because it was not in our Holly Hills neighborhood and there was really no mission.  The reason we started to do it was two-fold.  First and foremost, we looked into the future and thought of what we would want our family to look like when we had children of various ages.  It will be important for us to let our kids feel like they have authority to invite their peers into our lives as well and one way we could foresee that happening was to have a regular time to invite people over for dinner.  We thought if it’s going to be important in the future to have such a rhythm, why not start now?

The second reason we wanted to do dinners once a week was to open our lives up specifically to Christopher and his girlfriend Erin.  Erin was not in our huddle and Christopher up until this point had had the least access to our lives because he had not been in our section of Common Ground.  Christopher also seemed to have the most potential to start the next missional community because he had many friends in the core group of the current MC and a burning mission for orphaned children.  We wanted to make sure that if he was on the fast track to do MCs, he had a lot of access to our information as well as our lifestyle.

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's

September 2014

     The six of us in our huddle were excited and nervous about our first missional community night.  We were not sure who would show up or how they would take to the idea but we were excited about what God was doing in our own lives and we were ready to share.

Katy and Jon's made-for-Oikos-backyard.  

     Almost everyone from Common Ground showed up.  We even had some new faces.  On that first night we laid down the ground rules.  We told everyone this is family so we have to contribute and that meant to the food as well as the cleanup.  We said house closes at 9.  We said have fun.  And that is what they did.

We had let them know about our yard sale.  We had decided to wait until October to do the first one because we wanted to give time for the group to gather things to put out.  Things started coming in rapidly.  Katy and Jon had a full garage before our first yard sale.

The general consensus from the group seemed to be that they liked the idea of what we were doing.  Consistency was a little lower than it had been with Common Ground by the end but most of the core group showed up to everything.

The other big thing that happened in September was the 3dm global pilgrimage in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Jarred and I were the only two who could make it out of either of our huddles.  The pilgrimage was pretty for much anyone who had heard of 3dm from someone who had heard the name through a church leader mentioning it to people who had paid thousands of dollars over a couple of years for a learning community where they learned the material and plugged into the movement relationally.

While we were there, Jarred and I started to realize that most of the conversations were about leading a church into being more missional.  Although we got a lot out of that angle, we also noticed that that was not entirely our goal.  We sat down with Eric (whom I had met at the workshop at the beginning of the year) and his wife to mention that we were feeling like we might be out of place.  We asked what 3dm had that might be a step beyond transitioning a church.  They told us that what we might be looking for was The Order of Mission.  Eric told us to get in touch with David because he and his wife led exploratory huddles to learn more about TOM.

We got in touch with David and signed up for the exploratory huddle.  We also got in touch with a man who planted a church using missional communities in Compton, CA.  Jarred got his contact information because he was starting a coaching huddle for church planters in urban areas that wanted to use missional communities.

After the conference, we were leaving with a more clear vision of what we wanted to do with missional communities, namely plant a church.  We had also done more networking than we had anticipated and that was where the seed was planted to come into relationship with as many people in the network as possible.  

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's

August 2014

August was a time when rhythms started to click.  Robert’s huddle had been going on long enough for us to have a grasp on what we were trying to do.  We had restarted the shapes again and now had a groove for how to teach the most in depth concepts.  

Typically we would learn a new shape by Robert teaching about it in depth for about 20 minutes.  Then we would go around and share our Kairos about that shape.  Since we were down to 10 or even 9 most nights, we would have time for 2 or 3 people to share what their plan would be for the week to implement what they had learned.

The following huddle Robert would review the shape for about five minutes.  Then we would go around and update each other on our plans or talk about a new Kairos that we had from the homework.  We had a little more time this night to flesh out a couple more Kairoses or pray for one another.

On the third huddle of a shape, Robert would pick someone to teach the shape.  The goal was to practice teaching the shape in a safe place because ultimately, we wanted everyone to be capable of leading their own huddle when we multiplied.

Robert didn't make up that structure. Imitating before innovating. 

Since the huddle was no longer trying to do a missional community, we met every week.  We started rotating to each house to have dinner before huddle to make up for the loss of doing life together without a missional community component.

After most huddles, we would stay after with Robert and Kim and Kyle and Robyn to do some coaching on our huddles.  Robyn and Kyle had just started their huddle.  They had a group of nine that said they would come and be in the huddle.  Their struggle was getting time for that group of people together for a huddle because of their busy schedules.  Our struggle was preparing to do missional community with a group of people who had not quite signed up for it but were ready to follow us into whatever we asked of them.

In our own huddle, we had discussed what we wanted our monthly rhythm to look like.  We were meeting once a week for huddle.  We decided at the beginning, we would do a large group meeting every other week.  We were planning on doing a dinner and we wanted it to be lightweight so we figured it would be easier to plan a meal every other week instead of every single week.  We would start doing the yard sale once a month which would be our big “out”.  

The other thing we knew we needed was to have lots of unstructured hang out time to detox from the over-structure that had been Common Ground.  The only thing we wanted to be hard and fast on was the end time.  We knew our tendency for hanging out could lend to us spending all night together and we realized that was not quite the point.  

With our plans and coaching in place, we prepared for the launch of our missional community.  We sent out the invitations and we were off.

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's

July 2014

After all the wedding work, we were ready to get back into the swing of huddles.  Robert’s huddle felt significantly smaller with two less people.  It also felt more intimate and like more people were able to share and work through their plans for change in their lives.  Although the other couple was missed, we realized 12 might have been too many people.

There was one day that was pretty defining in July for the huddle that we were leading.  We were discussing the fact that we wanted to have a mission for our group but that we did not really have a clue as to what that would be.

Jarred had just read that finding a mission can sometimes be as simple as just looking out your window.  So, we sat in Katy and Jon’s living room, looked out the window and prayed.  Then we split up into two groups to walk around the neighborhood and see who was out and see if we might see a need.

I went out with Christopher and Courtney and Jarred went out with Katy and Jon and one of their dogs.  My group ran into some interesting characters.  Most notably, we stopped in the parking lot of a shabby strip of stores because we saw people selling some things.  

We walked up to them and started asking them questions about what they were doing and why.  They were collecting money for an organization called “The Stone the Builder Rejected.”  The organization was helping homeless vets get housing in the neighborhood.  They would collect items for donations so they could turn around and sell them to get money to fund their project.  We really connected with them and prayed with them before we left.

On our walk back to the house we discussed the possibility of our mission being connected with them.  We could have our group collect items to donate to them and since the vets were being put up in our neighborhood, we could then start relationships with them.  

We were excited when we got back to the house because we had it all worked out.  It turned out that so did the other group.  They had come across a neighbor who had TONS of things in his front yard.  He told them if they ever needed anything, they could check with him and he’d give it to them.  They had realized the need amongst the neighbors for such household items.  Their idea was to connect the two groups of neighbors, the haves with the have nots.

As we prayed about it, we decided that what we would do would be a rummage sale once a month.  We would have our group collect things to put out for a free yard sale.  If people wanted to donate money we would give it to the organization The Stone the Builders Rejected. We also tossed around the idea that people would bring stuff to exchange so that they could replenish the stash and feel like they were contributing.  What we knew for sure is that we did not want someone to feel obligated to give.  We wanted to bless the neighbors and start to meet people to dig further into what our specific mission would be.

Our new family headquarters. 

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's