by Peyton Jones: The race to create a longer lasting light bulb didn’t happen overnight. Thomas Edison poured in thousands of hours through trial and error to deliver a household item to the world that most of us take for granted. Relentless and determined, his constant mantra to his tireless crew of inventors was “There’s a better way! Find it!” Many of us who have planted multiple churches can relate. We feel that we’ve spent countless hours of trial and error, fumbling our way forward, in hopes of creating the longer lasting church plant.
Like the team necessary for the invention of the longer lasting light bulb, Microchurches also require a dedicated crew who are relentlessly dedicated to mission. If Edison’s team specialized in inventing, microchurches specialize in releasing everyday believers on mission to operate in their gifts. It wasn’t until the light bulb went on that it wasn’t about my gifts, but about mobilizing others, that the light shined brighter into darker spaces in my community that it hadn’t before. By definition a microchurch is a cluster of believers who go on mission together. After all, anyone who has even briefly engaged on mission, be it on a short-term summer trip overseas, or a trip to an urban food bank will tell you that mission is a participatory sport. Unlike the spectator sport that most churches engage in on Sunday mornings, everyone’s gifts are needed  when you’re on mission.  There is no such thing as a  spectator mission sport; no armchair quarterbacks. There are only players.