We’re continuing a series of posts about Making Disciples through Discovery Community.
A Discovery Community is a developing group of people following Jesus Christ outside the walls of a church building who are discovering Him as the way, the truth, and the life. You can read the series here:
Part 1: What Is a Discovery Community?
Part 2: Discovery Community – Suitable Name
Part 3: Discovery Community – Strategic Environment
Part 4: Discovery Community – Simple Meeting Format
Part 5: Discovery Community – Repeatable Rhythms
Where Discovery Communities are located, serve a strategic purpose in making disciples. They are planted right in the middle of pockets of people who may be unlikely to come to a traditional church. They are primarily defined by relationships and meet outside the walls of a church building in any place and at any time that best meets the needs of those gathering.
In New Testament times, more emphasis was placed on the extended family than on immediate family units. The word used to describe this was the Greek OIKOS, which means house or household. While in our culture, we tend to think of a household as our immediate family, the ancient understanding was much broader. Joel Comisky writes that OIKOS included family, both immediate and extended, and also “slaves, freemen, hired workers, and sometimes tenants and partners in trade or craft.”
Today one might refer to a person’s OIKOS as one’s life group. An OIKOS is made up of the people with whom life is done regularly. It is the people among whom someone moves and interacts.
Think Groups not Individuals
In the New Testament, the basic form of reaching people was not one-on-one or mass evangelism. The gospel flowed naturally along the line of the household. Just as in the New Testament, people today are already grouped in natural relationships. The aim of seeding new discovery communities is to win life groups or households to Jesus.
Identifying OIKOS Relationships
When Jesus sent out his disciples in Luke 10 and Matthew 10, he sent them to relational networks of people in search of a person of peace.
Within households, there are persons of peace whom the Holy Spirit prepares to open the door to the Gospel. This may be a man, woman, teenager, or child who has a desire to know more about Jesus. They could come from any walk of life and will welcome you, listen to your message, provide an entry point into their life group, and influence them for the sake of the Gospel.
A Strategic Environment
Some of the strategic elements of the Discovery Community environment include:
- They meet in places in which the participants are already comfortable and familiar
- They are not bound by traditional times and locations
- The participants already have a relationship with one another
- The disciple-making team is asked to move toward the OIKOS rather than the OIKOS moving towards them
- Entire households begin following Christ, come to faith in Him, and grow in His likeness
- People coming to faith in Christ are not removed from their OIKOS and those with whom they have influence
- An expression of the body of Christ becomes evident in the places where people live, work, learn, and play
Connecting OIKOS Relationships to Jesus
The Holy Spirit used this linking of people in networks to spread the Gospel across the Roman world and will use the same format to reach people today. Jesus instructed, “Stay in that house (OIKOS), eating and drinking what they give you…Do not keep moving from house (OIKOS) to house (OIKOS)” (Luke 10:7).
Join the conversation:
As we move from thinking about the people we link with as individuals to the groups they represent, how can this change our missional behavior?
Grace and Peace,
Terry Sanders