I came across these podcasts and, quite frankly, they were pretty eye opening for me (they’re kind of all related). So I wanted to share them here and see if we could get some good discussion going in the comments below. And, here they are:
This one talks about how different sizes of church gatherings have different purposes, different emphases and accomplish different things. Small groups (6-12) are great for relational discipleship. Missional Communities (20-70) are the optimum size for community outreach and well, mission! And, 
of course, large corporate gatherings, are best for celebration and inspiration. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really get the need for Missional Communities or why I couldn’t just accomplish the same thing with my small group, until I heard this. He also has some sociological research to back up why these different size groups are optimal for each purpose.
Four Relational Spaces That Will Transform Your Discipleship (December, 14, 2013)
This one is about a mega-church that was just about to purchase a multi-milion dollar dream facility and gave it all up to pursue a commitment to missional living/ministry and disciple making. This church uses all of the three different size gathering that I mentioned above very effectively, so you’ll see how the principles explained in the podcast above are used as River View Chucrh made it’s transition from Attractional church to Misisonal chuirch. Tons of stories from his experience, lessons learned, illustrations/examples, etc. This guy really gets it! Crazy good! If you can only listen to one of these – listen to this one!
R.E.I. The Key to Making Disciples Who Make Disciples (December 13, 2013)
This guy planted off the River View church (above). Here is a Church Planter’s account of the practical realities of walking out what Greg Nettle teaches above – making disciples by focusing on the three key relationships of Up, In and Out.
Three Key Relationships for Every Disciple (December 15, 2013)
Finally, here’s a UK Pastor who has built a huge movement based on the simple disciple making model of “What is God saying, and what am I going to do about it?”
Missional Movement by Discipling Movement (December 29, 2013)
I hate being one of those guys who makes sweeping generalization statements like “every Christian must listen to this message!” But yeah, these teachings are really good, and I feel like it’s difficult to overstate how much I got out of these four podcasts, how insightful they are, and how much they really rocked my world and just flat out resonated with me in regard to the direction that I think the church needs to go in order to actually accomplish the great commission (i.e. by multiplication, not by addition).
Please, if you are a church planter, are thinking of planting or are in the planning/assessment 
process; or if you’re just one of those people that has a sense deep in your gut that something is desperately wrong with the church, but you cant quite put your finger on it; or if you’re just curious, or wondering what is all this talk about “being missional” and don’t get what all the fuss is about ‘missional communities’ lately – give these a listen, and let me know what you think in the comments below.
NOTE: All Podcasts brought to you by our friends at Exponential