How to cultivate a community obsessed with the question “To whom am I sent?” 

From a workshop at the Microchurch Conference 2026

Jeremy Stevens, one of the founding leaders of the Underground Network, Tampa, spoke at the Microchurch Conference in March 2026 about building a culture of calling rather than volunteer recruitment to programmes. He argued that the church must move beyond programmes and volunteer pipelines and instead help people hear and obey the voice of Jesus in concrete, contextual ways.
 

He began by explaining the structure of the Underground Network. On one side is the organic church: micro-churches built around worship, community, and mission. This side is relational rather than institutional, unregistered with the state, not focused on money, and concerned primarily with discipleship, discipline, and theology. On the other side is the organised structure: a formal missions agency with boards, directors, and systems whose sole mandate is to serve the organic church rather than grow itself. 

The organised structure exists only to support and mobilise what God is already doing among people in neighbourhoods. Situations in the community cannot be addressed by merely planting another Bible study or replicating a ministry tool. What is required is sent people—men and women called by God to walk with real people through real suffering.

He suggests that the church has a tendency to default to volunteer recruitment and tool replication as methods of mobilisation. While these approaches can produce short-term activity, they lack resilience and imagination. When suffering, boredom, or contextual change arises, such efforts collapse because people were not rooted in a clear calling from God. The result is fragile ministry that cannot adapt.

To counter this, the speaker introduces a richer theological framework for calling, identifying three dimensions:

1. Formational calling: being called to belong to God as His children and as the bride of Christ.
2. Vocational calling: the work one does in the world, which matters to God and predates the fall.
3. Missionary calling: the question, “To whom am I sent?” This calling gives people trajectory and specificity, moving from general obedience to particular places, people, and contexts.

Missionary calling may or may not overlap with profession. Some people live out their mission directly in their workplace, while others pursue missions in spaces unrelated to their jobs. What matters is not uniformity, but obedience. Calling enables perseverance because people believe God asked them to do this work.

Jeremy has found that there is the need to fight the church’s reflexive tendency to say “no” to ideas that feel unfamiliar, messy, or risky. He shared the story of a young woman who felt called to “hula hoop for Jesus”—a ministry idea that seemed foolish and poorly planned but ultimately led to gospel proclamation, discipleship, and international impact. Rejecting her idea would have been organisationally “reasonable” but spiritually wrong. The lesson is that if leaders truly honour Jesus as the one who calls, they must expect people to look different, act creatively, and sometimes fail forward.

To make saying “yes” possible without chaos, Jeremy advocates defining a clear ecclesial minimum. In the Underground Network, this minimum is worship, community, and mission. As long as these essentials are present, there is wide freedom in expression, style, and method. This creates what he calls an expansive ecclesiology, allowing diverse forms of church to flourish while maintaining theological coherence.

The talk also emphasised the developmental nature of ministry. Micro-churches, like people, grow through stages—ideation, iteration, codification, and expansion. Leaders must resist the expectation that ministries arrive “fully formed” and instead help people take faithful next steps. Planning matters far less than adaptability and responsiveness to the Holy Spirit.

Jeremy outlined ways to stir calling in others, always without coercion, with a central conviction of the document is that calling cannot be manufactured, assigned, or controlled by leaders. Calling belongs to Jesus alone. The role of leaders, therefore, is not to give people a mission but to create environments, relationships, and practices where people can hear and obey Jesus for themselves. Within that framework, ways of stirring calling include:

1. Personal, relational engagement. This happens when leaders intentionally sit with individuals and ask direct but open-ended questions such as: “What do you sense Jesus is asking you to do?” This approach is “organic” because it requires no programme, event, or structure. It is “direct” because it explicitly names Jesus as the source of calling and invites verbal articulation rather than passive reflection. Importantly, the leader does not steer the answer toward organisational needs. Instead, the leader actively affirms obedience to Jesus even if that obedience does not benefit their organisation. This type of conversation often leads naturally into coaching around next steps without demanding immediate clarity or outcomes.
2. Making space to listen to God together. Listening prayer is a core practice for stirring calling. Rather than telling people what to do, leaders make space for God to speak by asking questions like: “What is God saying?” and “What do we sense He is doing among us?” This approach is indirect because it does not force a decision or outcome. It is organic because it can happen anywhere—in small gatherings, leadership meetings, or informal moments. Over time, this practice cultivates attentiveness. People begin to expect God to speak, and calling often emerges naturally as individuals connect God’s voice to their context and experiences.
3. Tell stories that expand imagination. Stories play a major role in stirring calling by stretching people’s sense of what is possible. These stories function indirectly: they do not instruct people what to do but instead reshape imagination. They confront the “reflexive no” that often arises when ideas feel strange, messy, or impractical. In this sense, storytelling becomes a theological act: it affirms that God works through weakness, risk, and imperfect plans.
4. Coaching and Calling Labs. Jeremy also described structured spaces designed specifically to help people discern calling, such as coaching conversations and “calling labs”. While organised, these environments remain centred on listening rather than assessment or recruitment. Crucially, participation in these spaces is invitational, not mandatory, reinforcing that calling does not require organisational permission.
5. Culture, celebration, and recognition. Calling is also stirred through cultural signals rather than direct instruction. Jeremy gave examples of practices such as celebrating stories of resilience, obscurity, or faithfulness and even awarding grants that must be given away rather than kept.
6. Language. Metaphors are important, particularly the puzzle piece metaphor, to help people understand calling as partial, provisional, and shared. People are encouraged to bring their piece without demanding the full picture. Developmental language reinforces that callings mature over time and change through obedience.

Across all the ways of stirring calling above, the unifying thread is trust—trust in Jesus’ voice, trust in the Spirit’s work, and trust that God can guide people better than institutions can. Stirring calling is less about technique and more about posture: leaders learning to say “yes,” to wait, and to walk alongside rather than control.

Calling is like contributing a single puzzle piece to a picture only God can fully see. Most people never get the whole story, and obedience often looks risky, awkward, or unsuccessful in the moment. Leaders, therefore, must create environments where people trust Jesus enough to place their piece down anyway. The church’s role is not control but companionship—to walk with people as they listen, obey, fail, learn, and grow in God’s mission.

Access to the Microchurch Conference talks can be purchased here ($50).