Five years ago I was sitting next to a friend on a park bench.

I’m the first to say there is no one right model for the church. As I have seen the rise in prominence of the micro church movement around Australia, I have noticed some really encouraging side effects for the predominant church model.

Over the past decade we have seen God move in incredible ways in our community in Naenae, Lower Hutt. Along this journey, we have learned of the crucial relationship between prayer and action, and how Jesus seems to use one to inspire greater passion for the other.

I see within myself, and many around me, a constant pull to live beyond our limits, trying to prove something, though exactly what I’m not sure.

This week, Central Easter Camp announced they won't be running the year. The reason? “We don’t have enough people to make camp happen.”

Have you heard it? The Divine Scream? That Holy cry of rage and despair?

My wee girl kept breathing only via a machine, and was surrounded by nine focussed medical professionals working on her tiny body in the A&E department in Palmerston North.

The community I am a part of sets aside the month of October every year to enter into an intentional time of discernment. This time has become so part of who we are, that the phrase ‘Discernmentober’ has become commonplace.

A key question for church-planters and those in missional communities is how we give our best to our neighbourhoods, while making sure our families don’t end up with the scraps.

I’ve lived in some form of intentional missional community for the last 8 years, and in that time there have been big and small breakdowns of relationships. It strikes me that I used to have an almost allergic reaction when it came to interpersonal dynamics.

In her book Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish Harrison Warren writes, “the crucible of our formation is in the anonymous monotony of our daily routines.”

I live in a thirteen bedroom ex-Backpackers in central Wellington. Two and a half years ago, some of my friends at Blueprint Church and I decided to turn it into a community house. We cook together, keep a regular rhythm of prayer, host community dinners, and have spare rooms to offer to those who need a place to stay.

When we first moved into missional community, we had no idea what we were doing.

For six years, my wife Rev. Amilie Paynter and I led a residential community made up of young adults, committed to youth work. I am discerning what it looks like to start another community after God called our family to move from central Wellington to the semi-rural town of Ohakune.

Church leadership is hard. There will be times when you doubt yourself, wonder why you are giving your all for this thing, and you feel like it’s not bearing fruit.

I’ve often compared church-planting today to opening a video store. People look at you as if to say “Why are you opening one of those? We don’t use VHS anymore!”

For years I’ve collected old, bevelled, different shaped mirrors. A mirror is incredible. It’s a basic, flat surface and yet it reflects the space all around us.