Sometimes we do things a little differently. Like our scattered Sundays. They aren’t necessarily what you are used to, but they’ve been so life giving in the Missio community as we are formed by God, together, for the sake of others. We want to take the next two minutes of your time and share why and how we do our final Sundays of the month.
Make no mistake, we love gathering together. It’s one of our shared pracices we’ll be discussing all next month. (We Gather. We Grow. We Give. We Go) But the final Sunday of every month we intentionally disrupt the rhythm of resting and worshipping with all our MC’s in one space to scatter throughout our cities to Sabbath in different ways and in different places.
We are convinced that the invitation of Jesus to Sabbath is still a life giving and relevant invitation today. We believe that as we stop working, rest, and worship that God meets us in those spaces in refreshing ways. All across our Missio Communities fellow disciplemakers use Scattered Sundays differently in their calendars. Some plan refreshing trips our of state, others plan silent retreats. Some plan neighborhood brunch parties and others nail down a time to finally play pickleball with that new neighbor that morning. Some host a home based worship gathering and others pitch tents under the trees to stare at the stars and consider the majesty of God. I think you get it, there’s a lot of ways to rest, worship, and enjoy the rhythm of sabbath that don’t include gathering all together.
Wait, does this mean that gathering with other MC’s isn’t a priority for Missio? First it is a priority, not the priority- and we’ll have a whole Sunday teaching geared at sharing why we gather on October 1. The priority is people resting and worshipping the true and living God together- and we believe that can happen out of the building as well as in it. Our gathered Sundays and scattered Sundays aren’t competing rhythms but together form a harmony of rest and worship that we want to continue for the time being.
Have a question? Feel free to reach out to us!
Here are 5 things we’ve heard about Scattered Sundays that encourage us to keep doing them in this season.
Scattered Sundays have allowed our family to experiment with rest and worship in ways that speak directly to our kids. They love the Sundays that they have creative control of the way we rest and worship together.
Scattered Sundays have caused me to have to be mindful of how I practice Sabbath and explore other ways of being with God together
My addiction to performance was really exposed when we practice scattered Sundays. Like bad. If I have somewhere to be, that’s the thing I do. When I have to slow all the way down without a place to go- I have to deal with my own heart and Jesus and it’s been needed.
As someone who serves most Sundays we gather, these scattered weeks are refreshing in ways I can’t explain. I love that our church prioritizes meeting with God and service for God.
I take most Scattered Sundays as a monthly retreat. I plan the day to be away and spend prolonged time in God’s presence and I’ve grown to crave it- and miss it deeply the weeks we end up with something else on that day. It’s helped me see how I can practice Sabbath and not rely on Missio to always give me the gathering to attend.