Sunday To Network
From a course offering by Tampa Underground
How do you transition 'traditional' churches to more missionary-focused models?
The Tampa Underground network is currently home to over 100 micro-churches (small missional communities) in the Tampa Bay area and linked to 15 city-wide sister movements across the world. They exist to inspire, engage, connect and empower missional people, churches and networks. They believe firmly that people make up the church, not buildings or budgets, or even leaders. When believers work together in sincere worship and genuine community to accomplish a part of the mission of God, they are the church. See this previous blog - The Underground - 2
One of their online courses suggests ways that the leader of a centralised church can transition it to a decentralised network. It consists of 6 videos by Underground leader, Brian Sanders, totalling 37 minutes. As a social entrepreneur, Brian has helped to start hundreds of missional enterprises, including churches, non-profits, and businesses all over the world.
Here is a summary:
-
Step 1: Identify the core committed members of the church and break them down into smaller, more intimate, affinity groups. Affinity for one group might be a specific calling. For another it might be geography or something else. Therefore there could be a mix of affinity groups.
-
Step 2: Within each group, identify two types of leaders - a host/facilitator and a spiritual leader/elder.
-
Step 3: Convene initial training sessions for the identified leaders to teach them how to launch and facilitate these new micro-church groups, creating sincere communities and vulnerable leadership.
-
Step 4: Implement a "soft launch" of the micro-church groups for the first few weeks, allowing them to experiment, learn without pressure to perform perfectly, fostering authentic, imperfect communities and broadening missional reach.
-
Step 5: Hard launch the full micro-church model and establish a weekly leadership community meeting to provide accountability, learning, and storytelling - listening to peers for spiritual growth and expecting breakthroughs.
-
Step 6: As a leader, personally evolve from shepherding a single congregation to overseeing a network of micro-churches, enhancing the church's missionary potential.
Find the course here.
Retweet about this article:
​From a course offering by Tampa Underground, 10/06/2025