In 2019, about 80 followers of Jesus left the prevailing church structures to be the seeds for a grassroots movement in Kansas City. They believe God’s people are made for more. It is the birthright of every child of God to be a loving missionary and disciple-maker where they live, work, learn and play. Their aim was to plant the gospel in networks of relationships across the city, see disciples made and witness the church emerge in new contexts.
At KC Underground, they function with a two-entity structure, a mission agency and a network of microchurches. The mission agency equips everyday people to be loving missionaries and effective disciple-makers in new contexts. As new disciples are made in a new context, a microchurch emerges.
Microchurches are extended spiritual families, that live in everyday gospel community, they’re led by ordinary people, not paid professionals, and they own the mission of Jesus in their network. For some, this is a very specific pocket of people or corner of culture. For other, this is a geographic network of relationships often defined as a neighborhood.
Listen to Episode 15 of the podcast and access the show notes below.
Future Church Insights:
1. Rob explains “microchurch”
Rob says that a microchurch is a spiritual family led by “ordinary people who live in everyday gospel community and own the mission of Jesus in a network of relationships.”
2. Rob talks about the way they structure KC Underground:
Rob talks about “Hubs” – an equipping team – and how those team then include teams of people. For example, he mentions the “Personal Discovery” team that help others to discover their personal calling. He also talks about Startup Coaching, the seven week pathway, financial services and the ongoing coaching they provide micro churches.
3. Rob speaks to the differences in a traditional model and what KC Underground is doing
First, he talks about planting the gospel where people currently are, not extracting them out for a professional sermon or service. Then he talks about discipleship and evangelism coming out of relationships that have already been built and established. Finally, he speaks about seeing every person as a disciple maker.
Goals and Desired Outcomes of KC Underground
- The activation of a new Hub in north Kansas City Kansas that is focused on gospel saturation among all the ethnic groups in our city (90+). This particular part of the city has great diversity in ethnicity in a relatively small geographic region of the city. A Kingdom breakthrough here would be a microcosm of the coming Kingdom, where every tribe, tongue and nation is gathered into the global family of God.
- The activation of a new Hub in the heart of Kansas City Missouri, a few blocks from Troost Avenue. Historically, Troost Avenue has been a racial dividing line in Kansas City. A Kingdom breakthrough here would speak a story of Hope to our whole city.
- The activation of new missionaries, new Discovery Bible Studies, new disciples, and new microchurches in those two regions of the city.
- We are intentionally pursuing a full embodiment of all of Expo’s key frameworks. The Kansas City Underground is pioneering a sustainable and multiplicative approach to Gospel Saturation in a city via mobilizing all of God’s people God’s way as missionary disciple-makers in every sector of society who are living out their Masterpiece Mission. Therefore, we are likely a particularly interesting case study for the Expo community, as we are boots on the ground.
Links:
More of a reader? Download the transcription here.
Key Quotes from the episode from Rob Wegner:
“Jesus said Go, but most churches are built around Come.” (21:06)
“I think the other main thing is instead of seeing people as volunteers, attenders, inviters, members, you need to look at every single person and go, they’re a disciple maker.” (24:02)
“It’s not actually less meetings, it’s life together.” (26:53)
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