Home Outreach Leaders Articles for Outreach & Missions 5 Tips for Inner-City Missional Communities

5 Tips for Inner-City Missional Communities

Don’t plan what your missional community will look like.

You don’t know what the missional community is going to even do/look like until you find the person of peace. So don’t try to come up with the magic bullet plan of what’s going to “save” this community. You don’t know what it is. The person of peace and those close to him or her, with your coaching, will be the ones who shape the form and rhythm of the missional community.

Be consistent and go in for the long haul.

Communities in poor, urban areas do not change overnight. Urban sociologists say it usually takes two generations for lasting change to remain. That’s a LONG TIME. That doesn’t mean that your missional community needs to plan on taking a 40-year journey, but it does mean you need to be consistent, have realistic expectations and be prepared to commit for a good length of time.

There are lots of other little tips I could give, but I think these are the non-negotiables. The Holy Spirit can make up for some mistakes you make along the way, but in the people I coach and lead, I advise them not to deviate from any of these principles.