Intentional missional clusters

Len Hjalmarson on the NextReformation blog writes:

Friends in Edmonton are pioneering a new model for planting missional communities. They realized that in most communities in western Canada about one-third have some Christian experience, and between 5 and 10% are believers who are travelling some miles to participate in a church. Their idea: bring the church into the neighbourhood and leverage the existing relational networks. Invite the small number who are already in place to actually become the church in their neighbourhood, and invite those who have some history of neglected commitment to go on a journey in discipleship. They don’t ask those who are driving to “church” to stop driving away on Sunday, but rather to start living on mission where they are.

What is growing up are IMCs.. intentional missional clusters … and out of this are growing
neighbourhood churches: not the building and programs, but people loving God, loving their neighbours and transforming their world (Mark 12).The most surprising part.. the established churches that may lose members over this are not upset but energized, and some are asking for training to reconnect with their own neighbourhoods.

The post continues with some paragraphs from Australian Simon Carey Holt, who notes:
“the Incarnation is about much more than God revealed in human experience, but God revealed and encountered in place—and in the most domestic of places one can imagine.” He goes on to list three points about place and theology. [The three points appear to come out of Holt's book, God Next Door: Spirituality and mission in the neighbourhood]