How to Develop a Strong Core Group for Building a Sustainable and Missional Church

B.L.E.S.S.: Cultivating a Missional and Sustainable Church Community with Five Everyday Practices by Dave Ferguson and Jon Ferguson.

Introduction

Training the core group is the foundational act of church planting — the investment that determines everything that follows. Planting churches is not merely about gathering people for worship; it involves forming a missionary community that embodies the gospel, multiplies disciples, develops leaders, and becomes self-sustaining in its mission. As Darrell Guder and the Gospel and Our Culture Network have argued, the church is by its very nature a "sent" community — and the quality of that sending depends on the quality of the formation that precedes it.¹

Jesus Himself spent three years in the intensive formation of a small group of ordinary individuals who, after the outpouring of the Spirit, became the driving force behind the explosive growth of the early church (Acts 2:42–47; Matthew 28:18–20). His method was not mass communication but personal, sustained, relational investment in a few — an investment that produced exponential multiplication.² Without a well-trained core group, churches risk becoming dependent on a single leader, focused on events rather than transformation, and incapable of the reproduction that is the mark of apostolic vitality.

This essay provides a comprehensive framework for training a core group — organized around three integrated dimensions: formation meetings, social connection, and missional engagement — ensuring the development of a robust community that remains faithful to its biblical mission and its Adventist identity.

1. The Critical Role of Training

Why Training Is Essential

Training is not a preliminary phase to be completed before the "real work" of church planting begins. It is the real work. The core group is not merely a launch team that executes tasks for the opening service; it is the embryonic church — the community whose internal culture, relational patterns, spiritual disciplines, and missionary habits will define the congregation's DNA for years to come.³

The consequences of neglecting this formation are predictable and severe. Churches planted without adequate core group training tend toward pastoral dependency — a pattern in which the entire ministry rests on the shoulders of a single leader while members remain passive consumers of religious services. Ellen White identified this pattern as a fundamental distortion of the church's calling: "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."⁴

Without training, churches also tend toward an event-driven focus — measuring their health by the frequency and quality of their programs rather than by the depth of their discipleship and the breadth of their missionary engagement. And without intentional leadership development, there is no multiplication — no reproduction of disciples, leaders, or communities — because the generative process has never been established.⁵

2. Structuring the Training

Core group training unfolds across three concurrent phases, each reinforcing the others.

The first phase is initial preparation — weekly formation meetings that establish the community's theological vision, missional values, and spiritual disciplines. The second phase is community connection — social activities that foster the relational trust, mutual care, and group cohesion without which the core group cannot function as a genuine community. The third phase is missional engagement — practical involvement in the surrounding community that connects the core group's internal formation to its external calling and establishes the church's presence in the neighborhood before the public launch.⁶

These three phases are not sequential; they are simultaneous. The core group is being formed theologically, relationally, and missionally at the same time — because a church that is strong in one dimension but weak in the others will be unbalanced from its inception.

3. Formation Meetings

Weekly formation meetings are the intellectual and spiritual spine of the core group's development. Each meeting should integrate four dimensions.

Biblical and Theological Foundations

The core group must develop a deep understanding of the biblical and theological basis for the church's mission. Three texts are foundational. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20) establishes the mandate to make disciples of all nations — not merely to accumulate converts but to form mature, reproducing followers of Christ. The promise of the Spirit's empowerment (Acts 1:8) assures the community that the mission is sustained not by human energy but by divine power. And the Three Angels' Messages (Revelation 14:6–12) locate the Adventist mission within the specific eschatological framework that gives it urgency and distinctiveness.⁷

Core group members must understand that their work is not merely institutional but prophetic — a participation in God's end-time purpose to proclaim "the everlasting gospel... to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people" (Revelation 14:6, NKJV).

Leadership Development

Effective church planting requires the intentional development of leaders within the core group — persons who are equipped not only to participate in ministry but to lead it, and not only to lead it but to reproduce their leadership in others.⁸ Alan Hirsch's APEST framework — identifying the fivefold ministry gifts of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds, and Teachers (Ephesians 4:11) — provides a useful tool for discerning the diversity of gifts within the core group and deploying each member in a role that matches their calling and capacity.⁹

Leadership development should follow the apprenticeship model: each emerging leader is paired with a more experienced mentor who demonstrates, coaches, and gradually releases responsibility — a process that mirrors Jesus' own investment in His disciples.¹⁰

Strategic Planning

Formation meetings should include collaborative strategic planning — analyzing the local community's demographics, needs, and spiritual landscape; developing a realistic timeline with measurable milestones; and defining the ministry framework (evangelism, worship, community service, discipleship, leadership development) that will guide the church plant's development.¹¹

Reflection and Prayer

Every formation meeting must include sustained time for spiritual reflection and corporate prayer. This is not a perfunctory opening exercise but the most important dimension of the meeting — the practice through which the core group learns to discern God's leading, to submit its plans to the Spirit's guidance, and to sustain the spiritual vitality without which all strategic planning is futile.¹² Ellen White's counsel is definitive: "Christ's method alone will give true success in reaching the people. The Saviour mingled with men as one who desired their good. He showed His sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence. Then He bade them, 'Follow Me.'"¹³ This method — presence, compassion, service, trust, invitation — is not merely a technique; it is the pattern of incarnational mission that the core group must internalize through prayer and practice.

4. Social Connection

Strong relationships are the relational infrastructure of a cohesive core group. Without genuine trust, mutual care, and the kind of deep knowledge that only sustained relational investment can produce, the core group will function as a task force rather than a community — and a task force cannot give birth to a church.¹⁴

Regular social gatherings — shared meals, recreational activities, informal home visits, celebrations of milestones — cultivate the relational warmth and communal identity that characterize authentic Christian fellowship. The New Testament model is instructive: the Jerusalem church ate together "with gladness and simplicity of heart" (Acts 2:46, NKJV). This was not a program; it was a way of life — a community whose shared meals expressed the depth of its shared faith.

These social experiences also cultivate a culture of hospitality that is essential for the church's missionary engagement. A community that has learned to welcome one another will be equipped to welcome strangers; a community that practices generosity internally will naturally extend it externally.¹⁵

5. Missional Engagement

Training must include practices that move the core group beyond internal formation and into active engagement with the surrounding community. Without this missional dimension, the core group risks becoming a holy huddle — spiritually warm but missionally inert.

Community Activities

Social service projects — neighborhood cleanups, food distribution, tutoring programs, health fairs, community workshops — establish the church's credible presence in the neighborhood and demonstrate through action the love the community will proclaim in words.¹⁶ These activities are not preliminary steps to be abandoned once the worship service launches; they are permanent expressions of the church's incarnational identity.

The BLESS Framework

Dave Ferguson's BLESS framework provides a simple, reproducible set of daily missional practices that embed evangelistic engagement into the rhythm of ordinary life.¹⁷ Each core group member is encouraged to practice five habits:

• Begin with prayer — starting each day by praying for the people God has placed in their path;

• Listen — practicing attentive, empathetic listening to the needs and stories of those around them;

• Eat — sharing meals regularly with others, including at least one person outside the church community;

• Serve — performing intentional acts of kindness and service; and

• Story — sharing their own faith story naturally as relationships deepen.

These habits are not a program to be managed; they are a lifestyle to be cultivated. When the entire core group practices them consistently, the result is a community that is naturally, organically connected to the neighborhood — a community whose missionary engagement flows not from institutional obligation but from relational authenticity.

6. Accountability and Evaluation

Accountability structures ensure that the core group's training remains aligned with its objectives and that individual members are growing in their capacity to lead, disciple, and serve. Key practices include regular sharing of missional experiences — brief testimonies of how God is working through each member's daily engagement with the community; collaborative problem-solving — addressing challenges honestly and seeking collective wisdom; and consistent encouragement — reinforcing the vision, celebrating progress, and sustaining morale through the inevitable difficulties of the pre-launch period.¹⁸

Evaluation should assess not only programmatic outcomes but character development — the growth of the core group members in the qualities of Christlike leadership: integrity, humility, compassion, courage, discernment, and faithfulness.¹⁹

7. Expected Outcomes

After completing the training process, the core group should be prepared to fulfill four interconnected functions. First, to lead ministries — taking ownership of key church functions rather than depending on the church planter for every decision. Second, to multiply disciples — guiding others through the same formative process they have experienced, reproducing the church's DNA in new believers. Third, to transform communities — creating meaningful social and spiritual impact in the neighborhood through sustained incarnational presence. Fourth, to sustain mission — maintaining a healthy, outward-oriented church culture that resists the gravitational pull of institutional self-maintenance.²⁰

Conclusion

Training the core group is not a preliminary activity to be rushed through before the "real work" of church planting begins. It is the real work — the foundational investment that determines the character, capacity, and trajectory of the church for years to come. Through formation meetings that deepen theological conviction, social connection that builds relational trust, and missional engagement that establishes the church's credible presence in the community, the core group is equipped to become what the church is called to be: a missionary community that makes disciples, develops leaders, and multiplies congregations.

Ellen White's counsel remains the definitive articulation of the method: "Christ's method alone will give true success in reaching the people."²¹ This method — mingling with genuine concern, showing sympathy, meeting needs, winning confidence, and only then extending the invitation to follow — is not a formula to be mechanically applied but a way of life to be organically cultivated. When the core group internalizes this method, the church plant that emerges from their formation will carry within it the DNA of incarnational mission — the capacity to reproduce not merely an institution but a movement.

References

¹ Darrell L. Guder, ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 1–7, 77–83.

² Robert E. Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 2010), 21–45. Coleman demonstrates that Jesus' primary strategy was the intensive formation of a small group — an investment that was disproportionate to the group's size but proportionate to its eventual impact.

³ Craig Ott and Gene Wilson, Global Church Planting: Biblical Principles and Best Practices for Multiplication (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 185–198. Ott and Wilson emphasize that the core group is not merely an organizational convenience but the foundational expression of the church — the community within which the church's DNA is established.

⁴ Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 7 (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1902), 18–19.

⁵ Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift That Changes Everything (Sydney: Matthias Media, 2009), 7–13. Marshall and Payne argue that pastoral dependency — the concentration of ministry in professional clergy — is the most widespread structural distortion in contemporary church life, and that its correction requires a fundamental shift toward equipping-based leadership.

⁶ Ed Stetzer and Daniel Im, Planting Missional Churches: Your Guide to Starting Churches That Multiply, 2nd ed. (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2016), 201–225. Stetzer and Im provide a comprehensive framework for core group development that integrates theological formation, relational cohesion, and missionary engagement as concurrent dimensions of the training process.

⁷ Jon Paulien, The Deep Things of God: An Insider's Guide to the Book of Revelation (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2004), 113–132. Paulien's exegetical analysis of Revelation 14:6–12 demonstrates how the Three Angels' Messages function as the charter of the Adventist movement — defining its identity, its message, and its eschatological urgency.

⁸ Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird, Hero Maker: Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 45–68. Ferguson and Bird argue that the primary task of a church leader is to develop other leaders — a multiplying leadership model that produces exponential rather than linear impact.

⁹ Alan Hirsch, 5Q: Reactivating the Original Intelligence and Capacity of the Body of Christ (Atlanta: 100Movements Publishing, 2017), 27–45. Hirsch develops the APEST framework as a comprehensive model for understanding the fivefold ministry gifts of Ephesians 4:11 and deploying them across the entire body of Christ — not merely within professional clergy.

¹⁰ The apprenticeship model of leadership development is discussed in Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird, Hero Maker, 145–150. The five-stage process — "I do, you watch; I do, you help; you do, I help; you do, I watch; you do, someone else watches" — provides a reproducible framework for multiplying leadership at every level of the church.

¹¹ Stuart Murray, Planting Churches in the 21st Century: A Guide for Those Who Want Fresh Perspectives and New Ideas for Creating Congregations (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2010), 135–150. Murray emphasizes the importance of contextual analysis — understanding the specific community in which the church is being planted — as a prerequisite for effective strategic planning.

¹² George R. Knight, A Search for Identity: The Development of Seventh-day Adventist Beliefs (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2000), 55–66. Knight's account of the early Adventist Bible conferences demonstrates that the integration of sustained prayer with theological reflection was the distinguishing characteristic of the movement's foundational formation process.

¹³ Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1905), 143. This passage — one of the most frequently cited in Adventist missiological literature — describes Christ's method of ministry as a five-step process: mingling, showing sympathy, ministering to needs, winning confidence, and inviting to follow.

¹⁴ Joseph H. Hellerman, When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus' Vision for Authentic Christian Community (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2009), 1–18. Hellerman argues that the New Testament church was fundamentally a network of relationally intensive communities, and that the recovery of this relational model is essential for contemporary ecclesial health.

¹⁵ Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 3–30. Pohl demonstrates that hospitality in the early church was not a social convention but a radical practice that expressed the community's deepest theological convictions about the dignity of every person.

¹⁶ Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon, The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012), 21–28.

¹⁷ Dave Ferguson and Jon Ferguson, BLESS: 5 Everyday Ways to Love Your Neighbor and Change the World (Washington, DC: Salem Books, 2021), 17–45. The BLESS framework — Begin with prayer, Listen, Eat, Serve, Story — provides a simple, reproducible set of daily missional practices designed to embed evangelistic engagement into the rhythm of ordinary life.

¹⁸ Michael Frost, Surprise the World: The Five Habits of Highly Missional People (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2016), 15–35. Frost develops a complementary framework of missional habits — bless, eat, listen, learn, sent (BELLS) — that reinforces the principle that mission is a lifestyle, not a program.

¹⁹ Stanley Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1975), 1–28. Hauerwas's argument that character is prior to and more fundamental than technique applies directly to core group formation: the kind of persons being developed matters more than the methods they are taught.

²⁰ Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating Apostolic Movements, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2016), 82–84. Hirsch argues that a well-formed core group — one that has internalized the church's missional DNA through intensive relational and theological formation — is the most strategic investment any church planter can make.

²¹ White, The Ministry of Healing, 143.