How to Start a Microchurch: Finding Your People & Building Real Community

Once you’ve consecrated your space and stepped into what God is calling you to build, the next question becomes: how do you actually find your people?

In this conversation, we unpack what it really looks like to form the foundation of a microchurch or kingdom community—starting with a clear invitation, intentional relationships, and the process of discerning who is meant to run alongside you.

We talk about the difference between simply opening your home and actually building a defined, purposeful space for discipleship, healing, and spiritual growth. From early gatherings to core team formation, this is where real community begins.

If you're feeling called to start something in your home, ministry, or community—this is the practical and spiritual framework for how it begins.

Topics covered:
Finding your core people
Building a microchurch foundation
Why clear invitation matters
Hospitality as spiritual formation
Creating intentional kingdom community

The 2 or More Podcast is a conversation for lost balls and sleeping giants—followers of Jesus who are hungry for authenticity and to grow in their gifts and calling. Mike Bishop and Joel Henson explore what it looks like to plant sustainable microchurches, build spiritual family, and live out the kingdom of God in your whole life.

Instagram: 2ormore_podcast

Who is Everyday Mission? We are a people seeking transformation in our everyday lives and in the church. We are a people drawn into the harvest field by love. We are using our unique gifts, talents, and resources to influence the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to help equip Everyday Missionaries.

Website: https://www.everydaymission.com/
Instagram & TikTok: @EverydayMissionFlorida

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, so you've decided this is something you want to do, you've consecrated your space, you and your wife or your community have determined let's go for this. Yeah. Um how do you find your people? And like what what did you guys do when you were first starting? Did you invite people? Did you just see who the Lord brought your d on your doorstep on Sunday morning? How did that work?

SPEAKER_01 0:24

You know, when Jesus talks about like the dinner party and he's like, you know, I fighted all these people and they didn't show up, so I just went into the highways and by byways. And yeah, we just we just went out on the streets and just pulled at any random no, we did not do that.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Get in the van, we're going to church.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

No, but I I really do you I mean, it's firmly established that now that I like to cook, right? And that was something that came as a part of our family's story when my kids were highly involved in competitive sports and Amber was their bus driver, and um I got tired of eating Chick-fil-A. And so, if that's even possible, I guess it is for a lot of people. Um that may not be the case. But uh and so that turned into a desire for healthier, whole, better food for our kids and for Amber and I. I started with blue apron meals, you know, which was kind of like do it yourself. They give you the ingredients, but you have to actually do the work of chopping and you know all the stuff. And I I thought of myself at that point of not not even reasonably a good chef. It was it was very much just like I liked to grill at that point. That was about the only thing I could do.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

That's a man right there.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

As a man, that's right. Renaissance man, right? I could grill grilling my own fish. Yeah. Um but uh no, I I I fell in love with just all the different kinds of ways to prepare food. And you know, yeah, I I would say, with the exception of sushi, uh I'm pretty good at at a lot of different things. And it's just over the years, you just learn recipes and skills and and you do it, right? And um so I kind of came up with this concept of when you when you say finding your people and really preparing what I would say to begin with, when God gives you a vision and a dream and you're pursuing it, really the the first thing you need to identify is like who's running alongside of me. Like, if you want to call that a core or you know, kind of uh a foundation, a base um of people that are alongside of you. And and you see that in scripture, you know, Paul would go into a community, um, and I love the story when he meets uh Priscilla and Aquila, and they're like, Oh, you you do tense too, you know, and it's like, yeah, I would I would just love to go back in time and like listen to those conversations because you know, there was this passion for the Lord and the kingdom and to see the church grow and built, but yet they're sitting there, you know, you can just imagine them sitting around at their craft, right? Working on on their craft, but at the same time just talking about the Lord, right? Yeah. And um that's just that's just a fun picture. So, but uh, you know, I I I kind of had this this vision, and I I I write about it in in the book, and it's one of the chapters we talk about. I talk about uh the the title of the chapter is Paper Plates and Mustard Seeds. And it's just the idea that there's a there is a process to finding your people and establishing kind of the foundation of whatever that is gonna become. So if it's a microchurch, if it's a ministry, mission, whatever. Um and I liken it to kind of planning and throwing a dinner party. And I think it's a it's a great analogy because there are steps to doing that. You don't just decide, hey, I'm gonna have a bunch of people in my house and have a gourmet meal um at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and have them come over at 6. It takes work. I I did all the catering for my son's um rehearsal dinner at our house. Wow. For 50 people myself. And it was a big mistake because it almost killed me. Uh and I did not really enjoy the party as much as I should because I was exhausted. It was like three days of prep. I did uh grilled picania and like a couple different kinds of chimichuri and roasted potatoes and you know, all the stuff that he loved and my daughter-in-law loves, and I love, and you know, it was great, but I was exhausted, you know. But that was that took a lot of work and planning. And it started with an invitation, right? So I had to decide not just what I'm cooking, but what am I inviting people over to my house for? Okay, it's a rehearsal dinner, right? Well, everybody kind of has expectations for what that is, but it's gonna be in my home, right? And there was an idea of like, well, I'm inviting them into my consecrated space that we were I've just been talking about. Um, what is that gonna look like? And so when it when it comes to forming something and doing something, whether it's in your home or somewhere else, um, and you've done the work that we've been talking about of consecration, preparation, um, the space is prepared, right? In terms of who you're gonna invite, the people that are gonna be a part, your people, as you say, I think it's a really important to start with a clear invitation. What do I mean by that? So practically for Amber and I, when we started Resurrection Church, which was a one of the after having multiple other microchurches start and stop and plant and send out and whatever, when we came to the time of Res Church, we felt very clearly that we needed to be clear in advance with the people we were inviting at the beginning what our expectations were. Right? It wasn't just show up to my house, we're having church. Because we had done that before, and the problem is it became a little bit of a bait and switch. So in the past, what happened was we would just open our home and people would come in, and if there wasn't really an invitation, people would come in with their own agenda because that's what people do, right? So they would come into my house and say, Well, is this a Bible study? Is this a worship time? Is this a prayer meeting? What in the heck is going on here, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

And so they would just kind of launch into these different directions or what could go a million different directions.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

But more than anything else, and the most important thing is there were times when people came into my house without the clear intention of following Jesus. And of course, someone's always welcome to come, right? I'm not going to turn anybody away at the door. But if they don't really understand that the clear intention of whatever we're doing here is for you to encounter the living God and grow as a disciple of Jesus, to be equipped, called, sent, all of the stuff that we've been talking about, it's natural that you can invite someone into that environment and they may just think, well, this is really just about me and me talking about my problems. And it's, oh, there's a room full of people here, ten different people that need to hear about all the mess going on in my life, right? Yeah. That's not what this is about. Not to say we're not gonna give you space to explain the hardships and the things that you're going through and suffer with you if you're suffering and all those kinds of things. Right. But the invitation needs to be clear from the beginning that the goal and intention of this gathering is to grow as disciples of Jesus and become healthy, not sit around and talk about how bad the church is or uh my problems, or you know, my pet theological uh concerns or my interpretation of the Bible or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah. Yeah, when we uh when we started, we were uh pretty careful because just most of our community is believers. I mean, we were my wife and I both work in secular space, but just like most of our immediate friends that we actually would have over for dinner are Christ followers who attend church. And so we had to be very careful because we did not want to pull people from churches. And so the invitation for us was actually uh pretty soft. Like we had a we had a clear vision of okay, we want you know, this type of microchurch where we are fiercely dedicated to scripture and we want to make uh the presence of God just plain for people, like make it dinner table conversation, you know. We want to make it common space. Um but yeah, we kind of had this problem of like who do we bring? And so we kind of just started like in the weeks leading up to it, just started just telling people. Like, I don't know, we just like we're it was just part of our conversation now. And we literally just started and just kind of waited to see who who would show up. Like, and we told our friends, like, hey, like we're gonna be doing this. You know, anyone is anyone is really welcome. Like, please be respectful of our home, but please invite people too. Like, if you want, like if somebody needs this, like come on. And it was so funny because it it started as uh just kind of a haven for people who are just fed up with church, but kind of they wanted Jesus, but they were like pretty fed up, and it was kind of the pseudo-deconstructionist group, which is great for the most part. Like, I'm come on, let's talk. I'm glad you're not scared of that. Yeah, some people are like that that's like the last thing I want to do. Uh the questions I'm not scared of. It's the uh general sense of bitterness and entrenched like resentment that is kind of unwilling to change. It's like, hey, if you got questions and you need some answers and you have a good heart and you want to let's work on that together, let's be collaborative, let's pray into that. Yeah, yeah, it's the bitterness of like this is wrong, I've been wronged. I want someone to answer for it, essentially. That's what uh we don't really have a whole lot of room for in group settings. Like we'll go to coffee, but like that really doesn't have a place in our church. So all that to say, it was kind of funny how it started with us like not a clear invitation, not a clear invitation to a certain set of people, which I think would have been a lot better for us if we had had like another family or another couple families and be like, hey, like you guys are our people, like let's run together.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

I think that would have been so much simpler for us. But we literally sometimes just had no no one come.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

And and but but even in your example, you did have an intentionality with saying, okay, you can just come, but like we're not gonna yeah, we're not gonna just go down that bitterness, root of bitterness path. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Like we're we're here to worship and seek scripture, and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Yeah. One of the things that we did was one of the first gatherings that we had with with Res Church, and it was all to combat exactly what you're talking about. And I had seen this little clip, this video on YouTube about it was in the mid-90s somewhere. It was it was Mr. Rogers at the Emmy Awards, and he received a lifetime achievement award. And he gets up on stage and he thanks everybody and thanks his, you know, station producers and all that stuff. But then he he makes his statement, he says, you know, each one of us, if we're here tonight, is here because of people in our our life that have sacrificed and done things for us to get to this point. And I want everyone in this room to just take ten seconds. We're gonna have ten seconds of silence, and I want you to think about that person and be thankful for those those people. And he he takes his watch and he's like, Ready, go. And like at first, this is the Emmys, like all the who's who of all the entertainment industries there, and you can hear in the video giggles. They're like, Are you serious? We're doing this right now. But within like two seconds, that all subsides, and then the the camera starts panning over the crowd, and you can see like people just immediately start to tear up. Because they're they know exactly what he's talking about. And you can't, even in your celebrity at that point, you can't ignore the reality. Like you didn't get here on your own. And so what we did, I I showed that clip, and then I said, guys, we're just gonna spend a few minutes and we're gonna think about all of the different people in our lives that have come alongside of us as followers of Jesus, perfectly and imperfectly, mostly imperfectly. Right. Even the ones that maybe hurt hurt you, hurt us. Yeah. And we're just gonna say, God, thank you for that person. Bless you, you know, bless them.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

That's like an inner healing practice. Yeah. It's essentially like thinking of your parents or your I mean, Mr.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Rogers with like a group inner healing. I'm like, dang, man. But yeah, and it was so powerful because it and it was part of that invitation. It was part of setting the stage for these are the kind of people that we want to be. We want to be the kind of people that are not arrogant enough or not arrogant to sit here and say, we got it all figured out, you know, forget all those people in our past. We're now doing it the right way, all of that kind of stuff. No. I refuse that. That's not true. That's not reality, right? The reality is, is no, we're all here. We've had people that have really loved and served us well, and we've had people in our lives that have really hurt us and and caused issues. Um but we're gonna be thankful for the fact that we're here. And I've said that to so many different people over the years who are in that place of hurting. And maybe some people that are listening right now like have I I hear I see you, you hurt like you hurt, you were really wronged, right? And what I like to say is that you know it what God is inviting us into is not just a place of healing and forgiveness for those situations. And some of that's gonna be really hard, some of it's gonna take counseling, inner healing, all of the stuff, right? But when we come together in that way, and again, I go back to what uh what we were talking about the last time, you're planting a flag for the powers and principalities to see, and they're watching you. And this is one of those ways that you can say to them, I'm gonna be about the kingdom, I'm gonna be about people's healing and health and growth and maturity. We're not gonna sit here and and you know grind into the dust everyone that hurt us in the past. We're gonna practice forgiveness, right? And we're gonna be the kind of people that are gonna build on that foundation. Because guess what? Whatever you do after that is who you become. That's the community that you're going to build, right? And so if you start off the first gathering and everything is about tearing down, tearing down, tearing down, guess what? That's it's hard to ever dig out of that hole. And you know, you're right, I'm with you. Like, I would love to have a group of people sit around, ask me the hardest question that you could possibly come up with. Let's dig into that together. But we're not gonna sit here and stay there.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Yeah, we uh we told our people uh this is like part of our core values, is that um your brokenness is welcome here, but your brokenness in ends here too. Yeah, you know, and we believe that we believe that brokenness and sin like bow at the feet of Jesus ultimately. And so we can yeah, weep with you. We aren't beyond that. We aren't and we aren't here to say, like, oh, that's that's gone. Right. Like you have Jesus, like that's not true, that's not what that means. But what it does mean is that that is no longer the truest thing about you, how you've been hurt, and so like when we gathered our people, we were like, we are going to be people who move towards wholeness because that is what Jesus paid for on the cross, body, soul, and spirit, and we're gonna receive that in our bodies and in our souls and in our spirits. And so, yeah, having that vision of calling like into responsibility, like the gospel is is this incredible responsibility of like you've been given these tools, now live live this way. Like you you've been given freedom, which is one of the most wild weights to carry. And now we have to live in a way that is becoming of Jesus, which is to forgive and to choose wholeness and to move towards connection and relationship, not be avoidant, not be like, oh, I've I've been hurt. It's like no, I can I can learn to trust, I can learn to be a different person again. It doesn't matter what was done to me. And that's not an easy journey. No, and it often requires a whole church community, you know, your whole microchurch community rallying in that person often requires um counseling and like professional help. And right there, there's so many facets to this, but it is the reality that uh your brokenness ends here. And if we look back a year from now and none of us have changed at all, we we haven't firmly laid laid grasp to the strength and the power that Christ brings the church, which is authority over sin and death, much less forgiveness and bitterness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Yeah, I think I I look back at some of the the folks that were involved in our when we planted Res Church at the time, and um everybody, same thing, everybody was a believer already, but like one couple in particular, you know, had come back from a internationally known ministry school, right? And uh they were burned out, and we were like the last stop, but because the invitation was clear, right? And you mean kind of the rest of preparing a meal like that is like you you have to plan the meal, right? You have to say, what are we gonna be about? Well, we're gonna be about the kingdom, we're gonna be about being disciples. This is how, this is our pathway of discipleship. We're gonna we're gonna gather ingredients. So those are the practices that we're gonna put into place to establish the things that we've said we want to be about, right? And then we're gonna set the table. Um, and that's about hospitality, that's about the things that we were talking about in the last couple episodes. Um, and when you serve the meal at that point, everybody's everybody's clear on why we're here.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

And like for that couple, it took them a couple years to get through the process of healing and all of the the stuff that they needed to go through. Um, but because we had curated everything to the point where like it wasn't all planned out, but it was like it was clear why we were here, they were able to stick with it, you know. And they and they didn't end up in the same place year after year. It was a slow progression. Of healing and growth and deliverance to the point where it was like one day you wake up and you know what, everything's not that bad anymore. And you know what? God's given me some gifts, and you know what? I need to be about using them and blessing the church and following the heart of God, you know. And and that's what's beautiful about this process. And when you find the people that God has given you to go through that process with, and he gives you that unique plan to prepare that banquet for them, and you do it together, right? It's that's that's half the fun, is actually planning the meal and doing that together. Uh it's it's it's beautiful. And it and it results in a community of people that that actually find so much joy in being together and then spreading what you've been given to other people.