About The Way
You may be a church leader, considering a new way of doing church or wondering how to plant new churches. You may be someone looking for a disciple-making church. You may be a Jesus follower wanting to reach your community. You may just be curious about The Way! Whatever your interest, read on to learn more.
What exactly is The Way?
The Way is a disciple-making movement, equipping everyday followers of Jesus to be everyday missionaries in their everyday lives.
We do the mission of disciple-making through home-based churches.
The Way operates as a collective of home churches, working together for the good of God’s Kingdom. As a collective, we benefit from relationships between all the home churches, as we support and encourage one another.
What does a home church look like?
As everyday missionaries we love people and share the gospel where we live, work and play. We continually help one another to live as true followers of Jesus Christ. We gather together, usually once a week, in our neighbourhoods. Most often we meet in homes, but you might also find us in a park, at a beach or in a local cafe.
When we gather, we worship God, eat food, share communion, discuss the bible, pray for each other and build good, honest relationships.
Because church is a family, everyone is treated as a family member and we don’t separate off into “kids” or “adults”. If there’s more than one home church in our area, then the churches come together once a month for, “Celebration Sunday”.
Who leads the home churches?
Every home church is led by leaders who have completed The Way training program and are regularly coached as part of The Way Collective. We believe that training and ongoing coaching is a really important part of keeping the leaders healthy. And healthy leaders mean healthy home churches!
Once we expand a bit more, we will appoint elders in various regions to oversee the home churches in their region. These elders will be experienced home church leaders who receive training, coaching and support from area coaches. In the meantime, while we are still a small movement and until elders are appointed, Nick and Sarah Field are coaching and overseeing the home church leaders.
What are home church leaders trained in?
Leading out of love for Jesus
the priority of first love leadership
Building a movement of disciple makers
core commitments to shape the culture of your home church
Making a home church work
step by step tools for building a missional, disciple making home church.
The Way puts high priority on the initial training and the ongoing discipleship and coaching of all home church leaders. Training modules focus on integration of "DNA" and training in the core skills necessary for missional leadership. Leaders are then discipled and coached right through their leadership journey.
Mobilising your home church in outreach
Practical ways for each person to share the gospel where they live, work and play
Growing reproducing disciples
establishing a simple framework enabling every person to engage in disciple making
Caring for one another
Pastoral care principles and tools designed to equip every person in the home church to care for each other
Engaging with the poor and needy
Principles of helping without hurting as your home church engages in a redemptive way with your community
Leading with spiritual gifts
Understanding and relying on the spiritual essentials of a healthy church body
Planting a new church
A road map to spiritually preparing the ground and doing the practical work to plant a new home church
How do we stay on a mission?
It’s easy to talk about the mission, but it takes incredible levels of intentionality to actually do the mission! Here’s a short video explaining the five things people of The Way commit to in order to stay on mission.
Church Transformation
In this day and age, many church leaders are taking a serious look at what they spend their time and resources on, what kind of disciples they are producing, and how many of their congregation have taken the role of ‘consumer’. They long for the kind of disciples that Jesus had in mind when He gave The Great Commission - disciples who are self-feeding, devoted, missional Christ-followers.
The Way Collective offers training, ongoing coaching, and a relational network for churches wanting to transform into missional churches that look a lot like the original blueprint of church laid down for us by Jesus and His apostles. We offer a guided process of transformation for church leaders to help them get to this missional goal.
Find a home church
FAQs
+ How do people join The Way?
The decision to join a church is always a significant one. A church is a disciple making community and committing yourself wholeheartedly to one church (rather than trying to straddle two or three!) is key to really making it your home. Everyone is welcome to consider the 5 commitments and determine if The Way is for them. There are a couple of ways that someone can join The Way. They can come along to a home church with a friend, or make contact via the website.
+ Is The Way part of an international cult?
No, we are not part of the international cult called, “The Way International”!!!
+ How do I know it won’t go weird?
Fair question! Too many churches, groups and movements end up weird! In The Way, leaders will be chosen from among the believers, as we pray for God’s leadership. These leaders will recieve training and ongoing coaching. The elders will keep watch over the entire movement and are easily contactable. Every home church is part of the "collective" of home churches, meaning that there is a strong and ongoing relationship between all of the leaders. Most importantly, the Bible will be taught and people will be discipled to read and apply the Bible themselves. In addition, the monthly large gatherings will help individual home churches to remain connected to the greater whole. There will also be (if needed) church discipline processes which follow the biblical pattern.
+ Why can’t we use the existing church model and just do it better?
There is no perfect model! Jesus didn’t give us a model. He gave us a mandate - follow Him. He gave us a mission - make disciples. We believe that The Way is a model which suits our current cultural moment enabling us to make disciples, as we weather the storms that come our way. We also think that this model takes the very best of life groups (home groups) and church services, and goes even further.
+ Is this too much to ask of ‘normal’ people? (how much time and energy will it take?)
The rhythm of The Way includes one weekly gathering, and regular discipleship in a cluster group. Doubtless, discipleship calls for a full-life commitment. Jesus was very clear about this and He challenged people to reconsider all else in their life if they were to consider following Him. Jesus asked ‘normal people’ (not “professional Christians”) to dedicate their whole lives to making disciples. There is no part of the life of a Jesus follower which can remain unaffected by the mission of discipleship - it takes real time and real energy. Disciples of Jesus are people who choose to prioritise what Jesus prioritizes. We do this wherever we live, work and play. At times we are putting in extra time and energy to explain the gospel to people, or discipling a friend who has come to Christ, at other times we will be caring for the personal needs of someone in our community. This is all part of being The Church.
+ Is there a risk that doctrine or theology will become unhealthy and that false teaching could flourish?
Yes. It’s a risk in all churches, no matter how they are organised or what size they are, eg: churches which become liberal and forsake the Word of God; churches ‘controlled’ by dominant leaders; churches infiltrated by cults; churches with small groups which teach a false gospel. The Way will not be immune to this threat. Every model of church, and every church, needs to work out how it will protect the flock from false teaching and how it will ensure believers are taught and discipled. Throughout time there have been churches which have exercised extreme control in an attempt to protect the flock (allowing no life groups or small groups, allowing only ordained / formally trained teachers to preach, allowing only pre-written prayers to be spoken). There have also been those at the other end of the spectrum who implement no systems to protect the flock from false teachings. The Way’s leadership structure, training programs, emphasis on The Word, continual prayer for the people, and home church teaching content seeks to give protection.
+ What about kids and youth?
The Church is a family. Each local expression of the Church should look as much like a family as possible! We believe that children are an essential part of the home church and need to be evangelised, discipled and sent on mission. As such, children share in the activities and worship times of the home church. They are involved in the outreach and they use their spiritual gifts. We believe that children are nurtured well in the context of a multi-generational home church. In the same way, we believe that youth (teenagers) are an integral part of the church family. We see them as fully active members of a home church.
NB: at this early stage we continue to work with families to determine the best way to disciple kids and youth in a multi-generational church context. We are also mindful that teenagers may benefit from engagement in a local youth group.
+ How will people find us when we don't have a church building?
That’s a great question! It’s the kind of question that “airbnb”, “trademe” and “uber” also had to consider. We believe that the Church is best built by relationship. The Way depends heavily on people talking with people, building relationships and inviting.
+ Does this mean that some people will no longer get to serve in areas they are gifted in, eg: car parking, kids ministry, music?
The serving that gets prioritised by The Way is centered around discipleship, evangelism, pastoral care, hospitality and serving the needy. It may be that some of the roles that you have previously volunteered in are no longer needed, or may only be needed once a month. That might be a bit of an adjustment for you, so your home church leader and those in your home church can help you to consider how to use your spiritual gifts and natural abilities in new ways. There is no shortage of ways to make a Kingdom impact!
+ Money: what’s the story with tithing and funding the ministry?
We don’t ask people to follow the Old Testament practice of tithing but, rather, to use their money and resources to meet one another’s needs, bless their local communities and support mission work throughout the world. The Way home churches don’t pay a levy to a central body neither do home church leaders pay for training or coaching. People who are part of the home churches are encouraged to become financial partners with The Way, ensuring that the ministry will continue to have the funds necessary for growth.