WM Missions: Habits for Missional Living in 2025
A few January’s ago, we read a book as a Missions Board about daily habits for Christlike and missional living. It’s Michael Frost’s Surprise the World: The Five Habits of Highly Missional People. A thin, notecard-sized book or a 2-hr listen on Audible or your library app, it suggests some highly practical ideas for Christlike living. We want to live our faiths as practically as possible without making ourselves checklists that inevitably lead to legalism. We want to carry the beauty and gift of learning to follow Jesus responsibly, without demands and coercion, but with confidence, integrating Christlike living into the fabric of our routines, our families, and our daily postures.
Our pastoral staff emphasizes that church functions primarily in three spaces, or circles. The close circle is our Sunday gatherings, where we pour inward, centering the gospel message, searching our hearts, and learning in corporate study. Watermark is a highly intellectually engaged group, eager to organize scriptural contexts appropriately while sitting in the mystery of our faith. The dotted circle is our house church gatherings, which are also pouring inward, submitting to, leaning on, and uplifting those in our closest proximity as we process our lives together. Thehalf circle pours outward, as guests and servants committed to God’s mission of reconciliation in the world joining in the work we see God doing as witnesses in the dark places, listening and loving. Missional space is in the half circle.
We can tend to live in a more private sphere, shielding our personal efforts at benevolence from the people around us. There can be health in this modest, meek way of living. Sometimes though, genuine humility or hesitation to pour out into imperfect spaces (Christian missions has taken part in abysmal historical and modern-day tragedies) can stifle an entire culture of missional living. We're looking for the sweet spot where we talk openly about our habits and our values, without pride or comparison, and instead with invitation and encouragement.
We want to emphasize the half circle throughout our church culture as a priority in 2025.
We plan to focus our attention on 2 missional values this year, emphasizing 2 areas that are important to us as a church. They are:
Service: we value showing up for each other in service with the time and resources available to us
Community: We value connection with each other, walking alongside each other and taking part in the pain and growth of each other’s lives
Defining the 2 values helps us to determine several practical habits to implement that will foster our ownership of these values. It also sounds like something you can do and do do in your own house churches. Though, Frost, in Surprise the World, would suggest that if there is any understanding of reciprocity, a back-and-forth of leaning on and uplifting, that we are pouring in, and sometimes even expecting something from others in return. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for groups and friendships, and it is definitely a normal human tendency. However, he maintains that missional living asks to view each day as a day of humility, recognizing the kingdom authority in pouring out to others as though we expect nothing of them, their benefit, friendship, or approval. In missional living, we strive to embody the presence of Jesus in all places.
Over the course of the year, we will highlight 10 missional habits that foster the values of Service and Community. Each Sunday, we will review the emphasized habit for that month (see entire list below). To be clear, none of us have the benchmark for missional ideas, and we categorically assume that each member of our church has unique ideas, spiritual practices, and gifts. While we’ve worked together as a missions board and with the pastoral staff to compile 10 habits from spiritual disciplines or practical wisdom and guidance from various sources, we wholly welcome your creativity to go off-book and discern the practical application of Christlikeness in your daily lives throughout his initiative. Please share your thoughts and feedback in house churches, Sunday gatherings, at communion, amongst others seeking to incorporate more missional living into their year. It’s how growth in a culture happens, and it takes all of us.
With regard to overwhelm and burnout, we want to talk openly about learning to be able to pour out. If you feel empty right now, we honestly send the biggest hugs and the deepest breaths that the day, and the week, grow to feel lighter. It’s true, on one hand, that life is never going to slow down, and it’s also true that there are sincerely heavy burdens and circumstances that shut off our minds to things outside of basic necessity. As those burdens ebb and flow, we hope Watermark demonstrates itself to be a place for honesty, for asking for help, and for no judgment. The goal of missional living, this year and every year, is not to bombard our already busy schedules with another obligation, but rather to take part in the value of living like Christ. Christlike living is uncomfortable and it does challenge our schedules, and we invite each other's creativity and solidarity to weave these priorities of service and community into our lives intentionally and sustainably.
No matter your season, participate with us in each month’s habits for missional living, even if you have to take a week off sometimes. The invitation to integrate Christlike habits in our lives forms our behaviors, but it also forms our thought-processes, worldviews, and imaginations. This journey would be so deeply enriched by a two-way street of communication, confession, and ideation. Pouring out in the half circle space does pour in, filling up a section of our faiths integral to wholeness for both the world around and within ourselves. We invite you to take part in both owning our values and cultivating regular habits over the course of the year as we strive to be the faithful presence of Jesus in our city. And we welcome you to join us in reading Michael Frost's Surprise the World for more context on missional values and other ideas on daily habits for missional living!
- Watermark missions board
Resources:
Surprise the World - author Michael Frost
Faithful Presence - author Dr. David Fitch
Celebration of Discipline - author Richard Foster
2025 Monthly Habits for Missional Living
January 2025 - Communicate encouragement and affirmation for the joys being experienced in the lives of those around you
Pursue a conversation with someone in your life each month this week, at least one who is outside your church community. Encourage and affirm the growth or successes of someone in your life. This practice seeks to cultivate a true inner joy for something good happening in the life of another, without comparison to our own lives or centering ourselves.
February 2025 - Reach out to someone in your life who does justice work this month
Ask them a question about how their work is going and affirm the work they do. Familiarize yourself with their work, goals, and organization.
March 2025 - Plan to attend a Watermark or other local outreach volunteer event
Look at the calendar for an event to attend this month (or early next). Showing up to a volunteer event bolsters our community with needed support while deepening our understanding of local service needs. Hopefully you’ll meet someone you wouldn’t have otherwise crossed paths with.
April 2025 - Frequent the same spot 3 or more times this month
Cultivate the practice of presence at a park, coffee shop, fast food restaurant, or something similar. Try not to focus on your phone or to-do list for this time. Say a prayer for what God is doing in the area immediately around you, and meditate on the way you can take part in it.
May 2025 - Demonstrate gratitude for an educator, first responder, or service professional
Bring them coffee or lunch, sincerely thanking them for the service they provide for the community. Write a note of thanks and cc their bosses if feasible. Spend some time considering their sacrifice to serve in the position they do.
June 2025 - Share a meal with someone each week this month
Intentionally invite someone within or outside of your church community (perhaps rotate each week) with the goal of connection, depth in your relationship, and awareness of what is going on in each other’s lives
July 2025 - Donate to a local outreach organization: money
Don’t underestimate the power of extending our privilege with our finances. Take ownership in local outreach work by donating, even a small nominal amount, to justice work that you feel excited about or proud of.
August 2025 - Reach out to someone in your circle who is suffering
Let someone in your life who is suffering know you are thinking of them. Ask questions when appropriate without trying to offer advice or solutions. Be present with the grief of others in order to demonstrate support.
September 2025 - Bless three people in your life this month, at least one of whom is not inside your church community
Take a few moments this week to intentionally connect with people in your life by blessing them. Send a card, show an act of kindness, or give a small gift to let someone in your community know you value taking part in their lives.
October 2025 - Justice education month
Spend time each week this month educating yourself on a particular service topic. Familiarize yourself with the local and global missions partners of watermark church (see handout in the back). Read a book or watch a documentary from our Justice Education list. Over the course of the month, purpose to accomplish each category (WM partners lists, one book, one film).