Building Bridges of Friendship
SOMA Communities
Soma Communities began in 2004 with one burning question in mind: “What would it look like if every member of the Body of Christ actually believed and lived like they were God’s missionary people sent by Jesus and empowered and led by the Spirit to make disciples who make disciples in their own cities?” As this question was explored, it became clear that God’s Spirit was developing the desire among Soma’s leaders to see the I-5 corridor between Seattle and Tacoma saturated with gospel-centered, multiplying churches that all worked together collectively and sharing everything they had to accomplish this vision.
Soma’s first 9 months was dedicated to training up a few to lead Missional Communities, local communities of Christians who covenant together to love and serve their neighbors in Christ’s name. Soma’s official “launch” took place on September 14, 2004 when four leadership teams were commissioned to start Missional Communities in their neighborhoods. These original four have multiplied to 60 and these 60 comprise the make-up of 5 different local congregations under biblically qualified elders. We have learned much since 2004 and God has graciously worked through Soma Communities to equip many thousands of leaders from around the world.
One particular evidence of God’s grace is the favor he has granted us in North America. This evidence is being seen in the growing interest and receptivity of Soma’s training for Missional Communities and resulting church multiplication, as well as the ongoing desire to see Soma Communities’ churches established in several key cities. We believe the Spirit is calling us to establish a movement of gospel communities on mission saturating North America with gospel-centered churches that plant more churches. We believe this will best happen as we establish church-multiplication hubs in key North American cities, with the intent of moving outward to the regions surrounding each city. In the Winter of 2009, God made it clear to the leadership of Soma that we were to set apart certain leaders to be released for the work of serving the greater body of Christ through ongoing training, and in particular, the establishing of church planting hubs in 10 cities in the West: Vancouver, BC, Seattle/Tacoma, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boise, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Trusting that God has called us to this great work, we are convinced we will need to train many more leaders for faithful mission in our cities. We further believe that the pattern that was modeled for us by Paul and his missionary team, that of biblically mature leaders training up new ministry apprentices, is the best way for churches to train the next generation of leaders. We are currently doing this through Antioch Northwest, a collective of churches (including Soma) who are working together to train church planters in the context of healthy, gospel-centered local churches who are engaged in mission in substantial ways.
Antioch Northwest consists of a 3-year apprenticeship grounds up and coming leaders in historic, orthodox Christianity while living and ministering in the context of a local church. Once the apprenticeship is complete apprentices will know the core doctrines of Christianity, have an accredited Masters in Ministry, have guided experience in all critical areas of pastoral ministry, and will have had an experienced leader speak into their life and character.
This model of training is currently being employed to train over 100,000 leaders worldwide and continues to grow each day. We hope and pray to multiply this training effort stateside as well, establishing church-based theological training in every major city in North America. By God’s grace, this training within the local church context will prepare many leaders well for the task of planting churches throughout North America and beyond.
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