Five Missional Spheres

The mission field is a vast and overwhelming idea if you take seriously what Jesus said. At Grace Canberra we are committed to embrace our Commander’s Intent. Jesus said we were to disciple every people group. We have a choice in these matters. We can either have a brain overload at the idea of reaching every group OR we can begin to plan to fulfil the command of Jesus in the spheres where we do have a presence and involvement. We call these community spheres of influence or missional spheres. There are at least five of them common to most people who follow Jesus.

1. DOMESTIC .. your household or your immediate family group

Just to provide an example, in one case that involves two parents, two of their parents, five children, three spouses of children and six grandchildren. That makes eighteen people. Of the adult members, eight of them are serving Jesus. Eight make up the church in this family. The eight must pray and work so that six children are raised to love Jesus and the other two adults also come to serve Jesus with their hearts.

2. NEIGHBOURHOOD .. the street(s) that make up a defined area around your home

For example, take a street with twenty two houses with about forty-seven or so people. Seven of those people are followers of Jesus. The seven need to work together to bring the ministry of Jesus to the forty. There is no reason why the seven can’t operate as a church. It is a simple model of church with a very specific immediate task. But Jesus said the gates of hell in our street would be overcome by a church, not just by a bunch of unrelated individuals

3. WORKPLACE .. a section of an office or whatever is clearly defined

Imagine a workplace that has a hundred and twenty people working there (plus their families). About twelve of them claim allegiance to Christ. This workplace has a calling of God about it and the church needs to represent that calling until the whole workplace has been saturated with prayer and with kingdom ministry.

4. COMMUNITY GROUP .. any community group you may belong to

Take a community group that involves about 300 plus people. There might be eight believers who need to work together to see the kingdom of God come to this sphere.

5. EXTENDED FAMILY .. the rest of your relatives

Different members of the family who are believers have the best connection with those who are not serving Jesus and we can pray and work together to make sure the message and ministry of the kingdom comes to every one of them

Other research suggest that everyone belongs to at least four if not five of the following spheres - domestic sphere, neighbourhood, workplace, community group and extended family sphere. It is also certain that there are around 100 plus unbelievers to every believer in those spheres. If the believers in a sphere gathered together to form the body of Christ, they would represent a congregation of 200-300 people who are almost always there, even if unreached. The cost of reaching those people would be miniscule. When people come to Christ in the context of a genuine relationship (and most do) then the retention rate jumps from 20% to around 70-80%. The decision for Christ, the discipling goes on in that sphere because there is an ongoing relationship there and a church to belong to right there.