How the Missional Matrix Shapes the Culture of the Core Group
Christology, missiology, and ecclesiology as the foundation of a church plant
Planting a church is far more than raising a building or organizing a weekly service. It means creating a community that embodies the kingdom of God, a community whose identity, practices, and relationships reflect the character of Christ and the mission of the triune God. Such a church has to sow a missionary culture, able to produce new disciples, new leaders, and new communities with the same missional DNA, and not merely reproduce institutional forms.¹
That requires more than strategic planning. It requires a theological framework that brings together the church's understanding of Christ, its participation in the mission of God, and its self-understanding as a sent community. This essay explores what can be called the missional matrix: the connected relationship among Christology (who Christ is and what he has done), missiology (the mission of God in which the church takes part), and ecclesiology (the nature and function of the church as a missionary community). Together these three form the theological foundation on which the culture of the core group, and by extension the whole plant, has to be built.
1. Understanding the missional matrix
The Christological foundation
The missional matrix begins with Christology, a deep and continuing engagement with the person and work of Jesus Christ. The church does not define its own mission; it receives it from Christ. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch put the sequence in one sentence: "Christology determines missiology, and missiology determines ecclesiology."² When Christology is distorted, when Jesus is reduced to a moral teacher, a therapeutic resource, or a decorative institutional figure, the church's mission and structure are distorted in the same measure. When Christology is recovered in its full biblical depth, incarnation, ministry, sacrifice, resurrection, intercession, and return, the church's mission and structure are renewed from the inside out.
Reverse the order and the result is predictable. One begins with ecclesiology, with an organizational chart, ministries, a rota, and a program, then derives a mission that fits the structure already built, and finally looks for a Jesus who will authorize the arrangement. That is how churches are born that function without knowing why, and that last only as long as the energy of the people who assembled them.
Jesus is the church's model, its source, and its continuing Lord, as well as its founder. He "did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). He told his disciples, "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you" (John 20:21). A church that takes those texts seriously will understand itself as a sent movement, a community whose whole activity flows from the person of Christ and returns to him, and not as an institution to be maintained.³ Ellen White's account of the incarnation, God entering human experience to redeem it from within, gives the Christological ground for incarnational mission.⁴
The missiological dimension
The church's mission flows from God's own mission, the missio Dei: to reconcile all things to himself through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18–20; Colossians 1:19–20). The church does not exist as an end in itself. It is an instrument of God's redemptive purpose, called into being by the gospel, sustained by the Spirit, and sent into the world to bear witness to the kingdom inaugurated in Christ and to be consummated at his return. Christopher Wright has argued that the whole Bible is itself a missional phenomenon, the product of and witness to the mission of God.⁵
The basic conviction of the missional movement remains indispensable: the church does not simply have a mission; it exists for mission. Mission is the organizing center of the church's existence, the reason it was called into being, far more than one program among others. Darrell Guder and his colleagues called congregations to "redefine themselves as missionary by their very nature."⁶ When the church loses that awareness, when mission becomes a department instead of an identity, the community drifts toward institutional self-preservation and loses the dynamic, outward posture of the apostolic movement.
The ecclesiological expression
When Christology and missiology are held in their proper relationship, the resulting ecclesiology is missional by nature. The church is a sent community, a body of disciples called to make more disciples, a movement commissioned to reproduce itself in every setting and culture, and much more than a gathering of believers who enjoy one another's company. That moves the church's center of gravity from maintenance (preserving what exists) to mission (bringing into being what does not yet exist), from gathering to sending, from institutional stability to apostolic multiplication.
The missional matrix keeps the three dimensions connected and mutually reinforcing. When one is cut off from the others, distortion follows. Christology without missiology produces a church that worships Christ and does not follow him into the world. Missiology without Christology produces activism without theological depth. Ecclesiology without either produces an institution that has forgotten why it exists.
2. The traps of "doing church"
Many churches, Adventist congregations among them, work inside a paradigm that can be described as "doing church" instead of "being church." In that paradigm the church's identity is defined by its activities, programs, events, buildings, and services, and not by its participation in the mission of God. Those activities can attract attenders and sustain institutional life. They often produce a culture of consumption: a community of passive recipients who judge the church by what it offers them, and not by what it calls them to become.
Every district pastor knows a certain conversation. A good leader, the kind who arrives early and leaves last, asks to step down. The explanation is nearly always the same: they need to care for their spiritual life, they want time to live out the mission, they are tired. The symptoms of the paradigm are recognizable. Leaders are overloaded with maintaining a growing portfolio of programs for more and more passive participants. Institutional priorities drift from mission to maintenance, and resources and energy are directed inward. Authority gathers in a small number of professional leaders, smothering lay participation and initiative. Leaders experience exhaustion, disillusionment, and a growing sense that the institutional machine they maintain has come loose from the missionary purpose it was supposed to serve.
Ellen White diagnosed the danger precisely: "Ministers should not do the work which belongs to the church, thus wearying themselves, and preventing others from performing their duty. They should teach the members how to labor in the church and in the community."⁷ The consumer model, in which a small professional class does the ministry while most members watch, contradicts the New Testament picture of a community in which every member is a minister, every believer a missionary, and every disciple called to reproduce the faith in others.
3. The culture of "being church"
In contrast with "doing church," the culture of "being church" takes up the community's identity as a Christ-centered movement sent into the world to take part in God's redemptive mission. Several connected qualities mark that culture.
The first is active participation in the mission of God, a community in which every member understands himself as sent, equipped, and responsible for making disciples and serving the surrounding neighborhood. The second is a commitment to multiplication, a community that gives priority to disciples who make disciples, leaders who form leaders, and churches that plant churches. The third is deliberate spiritual formation, a community that trains its members in prayer, Scripture, discernment, and service, equipping them for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11–12). The fourth is incarnational presence in the neighborhood, a community that sees itself as part of its city and works for its welfare. Jeremiah's word to the exiles still applies: "Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace."⁸
That culture reflects the early Christian community described in Acts 2:42–47: steadfast in the apostles' teaching, in fellowship (koinōnia), in the breaking of bread, and in prayers, with a radical generosity that impressed those who watched. The result was the daily addition of "those who were being saved," the natural overflow of a community whose inner life was so compelling that the world noticed, and not institutional growth for its own sake.
4. Training the core group with the missional matrix
Building the missional matrix into the core group requires deliberate training in three integrated areas.
Christ-centered formation. The core group needs a deep, experiential understanding of who Christ is, as a living Lord whose character shapes the identity of the community and not only as a doctrinal proposition. That means continued engagement with the incarnation (John 1:1–14), the cross (Ephesians 2:8–9), the resurrection, and Christ's continuing priestly ministry (Hebrews 1:1–3; 4:14–16). The goal is the formation of people whose lives are progressively conformed to the pattern of Christ's self-giving love, and not merely theological literacy.
Missional engagement. The core group has to be trained to live as ambassadors for Christ in its daily settings (2 Corinthians 5:20), in neighborhoods, workplaces, and networks of relationship, and not only inside the church's walls. That incarnational posture, following Jesus into the world instead of waiting for the world to come to us, is the essence of missional life. It requires the daily practice of sharing life with people outside the faith, an authentic and continuing relational presence that goes far beyond occasional outreach events.
Formation of community. The core group has to be established as a covenant community, a body of believers committed to mutual care, accountability, and the exercise of spiritual gifts for the good of all (Acts 2:42–47; 1 Corinthians 12:4–11). That includes recovering the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9) as a lived reality and not only a doctrinal affirmation, a community in which every member exercises ministry and every gift is valued.
5. Practical implementation
Training sessions for the core group should address several foundational themes: the nature of the kingdom of God and its implications for the church; the priesthood of all believers and the activation of spiritual gifts; missional and incarnational engagement with the community; the development of a culture of discipleship and multiplication; and the planning of worship as a response to mission, not a substitute for it.
Early Adventism offers a model for this kind of formation. The Sabbath conferences of 1848, the first of which met in April that year at Albert Belden's home in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, brought scattered believers together to study the Scriptures, confirm one another in the faith, and correct errors in their beliefs.⁹ The movement's core convictions were formed through shared study and prayer, and a core group today can learn from that pattern.
Practical exercises reinforce the formation. Missional activities, identifying and meeting real needs in the local community, move the group from theory to embodied practice. Mentoring in discipleship, equipping members to guide others in spiritual growth, builds the principle of multiplication into the group's relational DNA. Periodic evaluation and reflection, measuring the group's progress in embodying the matrix, keep the training tied to the real development of the community.
The matrix as a diagnostic
The matrix is also a tool for examining a core group, and I recommend using it that way, name by name. For each person, ask three questions. Do they understand the gospel? A group in which everyone does will be balanced, far from both legalism and irreligion. Do they see themselves as participants in the mission? A group in which everyone does will be centered on mission, turned neither only inward nor only outward. Do they see themselves as part of a biblical community? A group in which everyone does will be relevant, neither absorbing too much of the surrounding culture nor living as a ghetto.
An objection: is the Great Commission not enough?
Someone will object that all of this is unnecessary. Jesus gave a command: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations" (Matthew 28:19). Teach the command, hold people to it, and the culture will follow. The objection is right that the command is binding and wrong about what makes people keep it. David Bosch, commenting on the commission in Matthew, wrote that "discipleship is determined by the relation to Christ himself, not by mere conformity to impersonal commands."¹⁰ Frost and Hirsch draw out the consequence: when the Great Commission is presented as a remote order, missionary service rests on "a flimsy foundation," and mission becomes an obligation instead of an act of love and grace.¹¹ That is why the matrix begins with Christ.
6. Maintaining balance
Churches that neglect the integration of the matrix risk losing their balance. Some emphasize evangelistic proclamation at the expense of discipleship and community, producing converts without depth. Others turn inward in spiritual formation and neglect the call to engage the world, producing mature believers disconnected from the mission. Still others emphasize social engagement and neglect theological formation, producing activism without gospel content.
Timothy Keller argues that balance lies in holding several commitments at once and resisting the pressure to reduce the church's complex calling to a single dimension; his own model organizes ministry around three axes, gospel, city, and movement.¹² The missional matrix offers a framework for sustaining that balance: Christology anchors the community in the gospel, missiology turns it toward the world, and ecclesiology gives it a structure for sustainable, multiplying engagement.
Conclusion
The missional matrix offers a solid theological framework for planting churches that are biblically faithful, culturally relevant, and missionally effective. By training the core group to embody it, joining Christ-centered formation, missional engagement, and covenant community, the planter sets the conditions for a community that is the church, and not only one that does church: a living representation of the kingdom of God, a sent people taking part in the redemptive mission of the triune God.
Such a church does not exist for itself. It exists for the world God loves, empowered by the Spirit, anchored in the gospel, and oriented by the eschatological hope that gives meaning and urgency to everything it is and does.
Notes
1. See Craig Ott and Gene Wilson, Global Church Planting: Biblical Principles and Best Practices for Multiplication (Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 4, "Church Multiplication and Indigenous Church-Planting Movements," 65–88.
2. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church (Hendrickson, 2003), 16.
3. Matthew 20:28; John 20:21 (NKJV).
4. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Pacific Press, 1898), 19–26.
5. Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative (IVP Academic, 2006), 22.
6. Darrell L. Guder, ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Eerdmans, 1998), 7.
7. Ellen G. White, Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists (Imprimerie Polyglotte, 1886), 291.
8. Jeremiah 29:7 (NKJV).
9. Richard W. Schwarz and Floyd Greenleaf, Light Bearers: A History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, rev. ed. (Pacific Press, 2000), 46.
10. David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Orbis, 1991), 67, as quoted in Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church (Hendrickson, 2009), chap. 2.
11. Frost and Hirsch, ReJesus, chap. 2.
12. Timothy Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Zondervan, 2012), 23–24.
Bibliography
Bosch, David J. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. Orbis, 1991.
Frost, Michael, and Alan Hirsch. ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church. Hendrickson, 2009.
———. The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church. Hendrickson, 2003.
Guder, Darrell L., ed. Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. Eerdmans, 1998.
Keller, Timothy. Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City. Zondervan, 2012.
Ott, Craig, and Gene Wilson. Global Church Planting: Biblical Principles and Best Practices for Multiplication. Baker Academic, 2011.
Schwarz, Richard W., and Floyd Greenleaf. Light Bearers: A History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Rev. ed. Pacific Press, 2000.
White, Ellen G. The Desire of Ages. Pacific Press, 1898.
———. Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists. Imprimerie Polyglotte, 1886.
Wright, Christopher J. H. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative. IVP Academic, 2006.
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