I was at the Exponential Conference last week and got to hear from many great speaker and practitioners. A big ‘aha’ moment for me was listening to Rob Wegner from Granger Community Church. He was relating to us the journey that Granger is taking toward nurturing the missional impulse in their small groups.

They believe that each group has a calling and unique opportunity to reach a particular people group in their area, whether that’s a geography like a neighborhood or a subculture like a martial arts dojo. To open the eyes of the group members to how effective their efforts are, and to get them thinking about ways to be more effective, they have them create a relational map, a record of their activities for the previous month through these lenses:

1. Consistency – can you see patterns and intentionality in your relational outreach?
2. Proximity – are you living near/with the people, or distancing yourself from them?
3. Spontaneity – this seems to be the ultimate metric: when you start spontaneously hanging out and doing things together with your people group, and they reciprocate, you know you’ve made major inroads into their group

So how is your Launch Team doing with reaching the community? A relational map will tell you. Don’t use it as an exercise to beat them up; use it to create an ‘aha’ moment for them. When they see it through this lens and buy in, you won’t be able to stop their missionary efforts.