Partnership for Missional Church

Overview: Partnership for Missional Church is a journey of spiritual discernment that empowers churches worldwide to respond to God’s mission.  PMC takes a cluster of 6-12 local congregations on a journey of discovering God’s specific call to them for moving beyond doing mission to being missional in attitude, vision and action. PMC is based on two decades of consulting, experience, research, scholarship, and the discovery that congregations learn best from other congregations, but only when given a safe environment in which to reflect on successes and failures together.  A comprehensive overview of PMC is available in Patrick Keifert’s book We Are Here Now, available through our on-line store.  A printed brochure is available upon request.

Audience: Partnership for Missional Church is designed for local congregations and their judicatory bodies. PMC has as its primary aim to build capacities in these congregations and judicatory bodies for the spiritual discernment of where they are, who they are, what God is doing in their midst, how God is sending them, and to whom God is sending them.

Benefits: The Partnership for Missional Church helps congregations grow by developing:

• A God-centered, biblical vision for mission
• A greater sense of God’s activity in their congregation and community
• Ownership of the mission of the congregation by more members
• Members committed to and capable of making disciples
• Both a vision for mission and a practical action plan to achieve it
• Strengths of the tradition of the congregation
• Practical skills for managing change and attending to conflict
• Dramatic expansion of lay involvement
• A decision-making process for planning activities and budget
• A faithful and hospitable congregation
• Relationships with other partner congregations and partners in the broader community

Success Stories: Please click here to read what some of our partners in the PMC process have to say about it. In addition, Church Innovations can provide you with congregational stories and testimonies from churches in a variety of denominations that either went through the PMC process already or are currently involved in a cluster of PMC congregations. Please email Bob Armstrong, the PMC Director, for more information at barmstrong@churchinnovations.org.

Time and Resources: PMC is a three phase process that takes approximately three years to complete.  Phase one is a phase of discovery and attentive listening.  Phase two is a phase of experimenting and engagement with the broader community.  Phase three is a phase of visioning for embodiment to be a missional church in community.  Each of these phases consists of three Friday to Saturday events spread out over the period of a year.  These events include the spiritual practices, reflection and training necessary for the local congregation’s journey between events.  At the end of phase three some congregations choose to enter into an optional fourth phase of mutual spiritual discernment, accountability, and continued honing of the practices learned in phases one thru three.

Getting Started: Download, read and share with others the additional resources provided at right and on the PMC Resources page. To learn more, contact us at barmstrong@churchinnovations.org, or by phone at (651) 644-3653 or (888) 223-7631.

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