The towering oak withstands fierce storms not simply because of its size above ground, but because of its deep, sprawling roots below.
Anchored firmly, its roots reach down for water and intertwine with the roots of other trees, giving the oak resilience through drought, wind, and time.
Shallow-rooted trees may grow quickly, but they are easily toppled. Deep roots make all the difference.
In a world that prizes mobility, productivity, visibility, and endless change, there is a quiet but powerful countercultural choice: putting down roots.
What might happen if ordinary followers of Jesus began planting themselves deeply within the places and relationships God has already given them? What if they learned to recognize their neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, affinity groups, and third spaces not simply as places they happen to spend time, but as places of sentness?
Imagine a city where every network of relationships and every neighborhood had a deeply rooted person or family embodying the gospel through presence, demonstration, and proclamation.
Such a movement would bring the Kingdom of God from the grassroots up, creating something like a New Jerusalem within the very heart of Babylon.
At Kansas City Underground, this is our dream:
A disciple-maker on every street and a microchurch in every network of relationships.
That would place a gospel partner in every nook and cranny of our city, joining Jesus in filling that small part of the city with his beauty, justice, and good news.
It is an audacious dream.
A Gospel Presence
What do we mean by a gospel presence?
We mean disciple-makers and microchurches planted deeply within networks of relationships. They become a loving, reconciling, joyful, gracious, and healing presence throughout the city.
They put down roots.
They are not merely passing through a neighborhood or arriving to run a program. They learn people’s names. They listen to stories. They share meals. They show up consistently. They remain long enough to understand both the beauty and the brokenness of a particular place.
This kind of presence usually begins quietly. It is rarely spectacular at first. It may look like becoming a regular at the same coffee shop, sitting with the same parents at youth sporting events, spending time with neighbors around a firepit, or listening carefully to coworkers during lunch.
Rootedness creates relational credibility. Over time, people begin to trust that you are not treating them as a ministry project. You are becoming part of the fabric of their lives.
A Gospel Demonstration
A gospel demonstration makes the Kingdom of God tangible.
It means disciple-makers and microchurches offer selfless service, spiritual families to belong to, and a lived experience of the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. They meet practical needs. They welcome people to the table. They pray for healing. They pursue reconciliation. They create communities in which people who have often been overlooked can discover that they are seen, loved, and invited into the life of Jesus.
When you put down roots, eventually the tree grows and fruit begins to appear.
The fruit may be a repaired relationship, a shared meal, a person discovering dignity, an answered prayer, a family finding community, or someone taking their first steps toward Jesus.
The gospel becomes something people can see and experience, not merely an idea they are asked to believe.
A Gospel Proclamation
A gospel presence and demonstration naturally create opportunities for gospel proclamation.
We boldly share the story of Jesus, the story of how Jesus is changing us, and the story of how the gospel changes everything. We do this in ways that are meaningful, contextual, relational, and understandable within each particular space.
Seeds from the tree take flight and land in new soil. By God’s grace, some of those seeds take root.
Inside every seed is the potential for a forest.
This is how a decentralized movement begins to grow. It does not begin primarily with buildings, budgets, branding, or large gatherings. It begins when ordinary disciples become deeply rooted in ordinary places and learn to make disciples there.
Rooted in a Cigar Shop
Jason and Karen Gardner live in Gardner, Kan. They are committed to building relationships and discipling people in the everyday spaces of their lives. One of those places was a local cigar shop.
They became regulars. They learned people’s names. They became friends with the other regulars. They began to put down roots.
They also began in prayer.
One practice we teach is called BLESS Five: Who are five people in your relational world whom God may be inviting you to bless intentionally through prayer, listening, eating, serving, and sharing your story?
Jason and Karen began praying for the people they were encountering. They listened to their stories and engaged them relationally. Small talk gradually became meaningful conversation. Meaningful conversation became spiritual conversation.
Eventually, they began a Discovery Bible Study, creating a space where spiritually curious people could encounter the Word of God and allow the Spirit of God to do what only the Spirit can do.
Two of the men, affectionately known as “the two dads,” surrendered their lives to Jesus. I have a video on my phone of one of them being baptized and another burning the occult objects with which he had been experimenting in a bonfire.
The gospel began to spread through their relationships.
Another couple whom Jason and Karen had welcomed into their lives, Zach and Sandy, were also baptized. Zach now leads a Discovery Bible Study with more than 10 men in his workplace.
Jason and Karen planted themselves in a third space. They listened, prayed, loved, and remained. Over time, seeds from that rooted presence spread into at least three other networks of relationships.
When I imagine that story multiplying throughout Kansas City, my heart explodes with joy.
This is how a city can begin to change through a ground game, a grassroots movement, and the patient fermentation of good things that eventually multiply and run wild.
The Church Becomes Present
Casey is a disciple-maker who is high-functioning on the autism spectrum. His older brother lives at Life Center, a residential home for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Casey spent a great deal of time there. Slowly, the Spirit began revealing something to him:
Casey, this is your place of sentness. Can you see where I am already at work here? Join me in what I am doing. Put down your roots here.
Over the next few years, Casey began praying, listening, and engaging. He built friendships with residents and staff. He shared meals, hosted dance parties, made crafts, and became a faithful presence.
Eventually, Casey and his disciple-making partner, Bre, began a Discovery Bible Study.
Discovery Bible Study is a simple, discovery-based approach to scripture in which people explore a biblical passage together. Rather than beginning with an expert providing all the answers, participants learn to listen to the Word, hear the voice of the Spirit, respond in personal obedience, and share what they are learning with others.
Discovery groups often become the womb in which new disciples are born and new microchurches emerge.
This distinction matters deeply.
We do not organize existing Christians into small groups and simply rename them microchurches.
We send ordinary people, often in pairs or small teams, and coach them along a disciple-maker pathway. They plant themselves among an unreached pocket of people. They begin in prayer. They live incarnationally. They love and serve. They plant the gospel. They make disciples.
We do not primarily plant microchurches.
We plant disciple-makers who plant the gospel and make disciples. Microchurches emerge from disciple-making.
Both staff members and residents at Life Center have encountered Jesus and begun following him alongside Casey and Bre. Over time, this new faith community developed regular rhythms of worship, community, and mission.
A microchurch family emerged.
A microchurch is not a miniaturized version of a traditional church. It is an extended spiritual family, led by ordinary people, living in everyday gospel community and owning the mission of Jesus in a particular network or neighborhood.
The Life Center microchurch receives ongoing support from a hub team composed of mature, elder-level equippers who coach, encourage, resource, and provide accountability to the leaders. Decentralization does not have to mean isolation. Healthy microchurches need relational support, spiritual oversight, and connection to a broader family.
Many of the people at Life Center cannot simply “go to church,” but the church is present there.
There are multiple such facilities across Kansas City. Casey and the team are already dreaming about multiplication. God has also raised up another team in a different part of the city with both a deep passion and professional experience among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
A more holistic vision for the IDD community of Kansas City is beginning to emerge.
Inside the seed is the potential for the forest.
Consistency in an Inconsistent World
Rick and Alice do not live on the street, but God has given them a deep love for people who do.
They began by helping distribute food, clothing, and other supplies to people experiencing homelessness in downtown Kansas City. But they sensed there was more.
Alice felt the Lord inviting them to prayer walk a particular park. As they prayed, they sensed that they were not only called to meet physical needs, but also to bring the Good News there, offering people an opportunity to see, hear, experience, and respond to Jesus.
They began a weekly Discovery Bible Study in the park.
Over time, Street Church emerged.
The people living in and around the park know they can count on Rick and Alice to be there every Friday afternoon with food, drinks, a listening ear, and some good news, and in-between. They gather weekly in the rain, cold, or heat because the members of this emerging spiritual family have very little consistency in their lives. But, it’s more than a weekly meeting, Rick and Alice want to become that consistent presence in the name of Jesus.
They are putting down roots among people who are often treated as though they have no roots and no place to belong.
A Microchurch at the Rodeo
Chad grew up in rodeo culture. When his daughter wanted to participate in youth rodeo, Chad and Allison began spending their weekends traveling through Kansas on the youth rodeo circuit.
They soon found themselves among what Chad affectionately describes as a kind of gypsy tribe: approximately two hundred riders, parents, siblings, and families traveling from one rodeo to the next.
Chad and Allison began recognizing this community as their place of sentness.
They prayed. They listened to the stories of the families around them. They understood the culture because it was part of Chad’s own story. They opened their table, shared meals, served without strings attached, and became Jesus-shaped people within that relational network.
Eventually, Chad was invited to serve on the board of the youth rodeo association.
Their rooted presence created trust. Trust opened the door for spiritual conversations. Spiritual conversations led to people following Jesus. They have now baptized thirty-one people in horse troughs at rodeos, and a new microchurch family has emerged within the youth rodeo community.
They did not build a church and ask the rodeo community to come to it.
The church became present within the rodeo through an incarnational way of life, they planted the gosepl, made new disciples and a new extended spiritual family, under the Lordship of Jesus, grew and multiplied.
Every Nook and Cranny
We have seen microchurches emerge among people experiencing homelessness in encampments, single mothers, high school students, new suburban neighborhoods, urban neighborhoods, Algerian refugees, travel baseball leagues, artists, adults with intellectual disabilities, rodeo families, and people living inside a maximum-security prison.
These expressions may be geographically focused, taking root in a specific apartment complex, neighborhood, park, or housing development. Others are affinity-focused, growing among people connected through a workplace, shared interest, cultural identity, or common experience.
Both approaches begin with the same fundamental questions:
Where has God already placed us?
Among whom is the Spirit already at work?
What would it mean to become a faithful gospel presence there?
Microchurch planting creates opportunities to reach smaller relational pockets that centralized church structures may struggle to engage. Because microchurches are relatively simple and low-cost, ordinary people can integrate disciple-making into everyday life without first acquiring a building, raising a large budget, or becoming professional clergy.
But simplicity does not mean there are no challenges.
Families with young children may need help developing rhythms that allow everyone to participate meaningfully. New leaders need coaching, theological formation, encouragement, and accountability. As a decentralized movement grows, communication, coordination, and organizational support become increasingly important.
This is why healthy decentralized movements require both grassroots missionary activity and strong equipping systems. Microchurch leaders need spiritual families of their own. They need hubs, coaches, elders, and fellow practitioners who can help them remain rooted in Jesus, healthy in their relationships, and faithful to the mission. The goal is interdependence without unnecessary institutional weight.
The Patient Work of Rootedness
Microchurch planting is not primarily an event-driven strategy. It is relational, reproducible, and patient. Rather than gathering people into a centralized expression and then attempting to start a church, we begin with the people and the place. We discover where God is already at work and join him there.
We prioritize disciple-making and multiplication over gathering and accumulation.
Presence over programs.
Mission over models.
Over time, disciple-makers form spiritual families. Those spiritual families are supported by decentralized hub teams that equip, coach, convene, and provide accountability. What gradually emerges is a network of microchurches woven together into a citywide mission of gospel saturation.
Rather than see the church as one large congregation in one building, we see the church as a distributed network of God’s kids on mission in every street, every relational network, every neighborhood, and every people group having access to the beauty, justice, and good news of Jesus.
This kind of movement cannot be rushed.
It requires prayer, listening, presence, patience, and the willingness to remain. It requires people who will choose depth over visibility and rootedness over constant mobility.
Shallow roots may produce quick growth, but they rarely withstand the storm.
Deep roots make all the difference and inside every deeply rooted disciple-maker is the potential for another disciple, another spiritual family, another microchurch, and eventually an entire forest.
