In the new book, Right Here, Right Now, Alan Hirsch opens by talking about how missional movements begin. He says:

"This is how missional movements grow--through a group of people who have been changed by Jesus and are willing to put themselves on the line for his cause."

He then qutoes Seth Godin, saying, "Seth Godin, pop movements guru, rightly notes that creating a highly dedicated

 and closely knit tribe usually leads to much more impact than simply trying to make a tribe bigger. 'Beyond breadth of spread of an idea is not as important as looking at the depth of commitment and interaction of true, fans, who end up being the people who recruit most new members.'"

Many times in trying to get a church to go in a certain direction, we try to impact everyone at once because that is what we want to eventually to happen. I am all for raising awareness of what it means to be missional with the whole church, and the church should regularly hear stories of how different members have taken up this call and how it has impacted people.

But sometimes we can spread our influence too thin. Trying, for instance, to make every small group missional all at once, rather than picking out some groups to make missional, or better yet, starting some new missional small groups. Trying to change every leader's mind about being missional (which won't happen, believe me), rather than working with those who do get it.

Hirsch and Godin are right--we must begin missional transformation by working with a small core of passionate people who decide to live like Jesus and be missional. Their passion can then spill over, and they will be the primary recruiters of people for the movement. 

I am seeing this happen with one of small group at High Pointe, our small group in Melissa, a small town just north of our church building. This group originally began as a Story of Redemption group--but it has not ended there. This group has continued to live out the story of Jesus, blessing and serving those around them. Their stories are being picked up by others and inspiring many others to live and serve like Jesus. Click here to go to their Facebook group and read about some of their story.

This is what Jesus did, right? He picked out 12 disciples, who formed a passionate core, who then transformed the world. 

What can we do to create a small, passionate core of people who want to live like Jesus and be missional? How could this lead to a missional movement in our churches?