January 2026 - Launch Night (New Communities)
- Delaney Brake
- Jan 5
- 8 min read
Updated: 12 hours ago
Open In Prayer
Begin by praying together – taking some intentional time to breathe, be still, and invite the Holy Spirit to be with you all as you set aside time to be together.
Below is an optional liturgy you could pray:
Jesus Christ, You have called us Your brothers and sisters, giving us a home and a place of belonging. Help us to say yes to it, and to make room for one another at the table of Your love; in our homes, in our schedules, and in our hearts. Amen.
Table Conversations
This is space during your meal to build relationships and enjoy one another.
Since it is the first gathering, if you don’t already know each other, this is an organic space to have everyone share a bit about themselves.
Leader Note: If you’re struggling to think of ways to spark conversation, consider:
Highs, Lows, Buffalo (something random/funny that happened in your week).
What are a couple of items on your personal “dopamine menu”?
Who are the five people that would make up your dream campfire (dead or alive)?
Read This Overview Together
Think of our Community like a rowboat: everyone has an oar and we’re all rowing together in the same direction to reach a destination. As you may have experienced, a rowboat trip only works if everyone agrees on where we’re headed. If we all have a different understanding of, or vision for, where our boat is going, we’ll likely just paddle in circles (and probably get splashed in the face along the way). To ensure we are starting this journey united in purpose, we’re going to have a conversation about “the why” of Ethos Communities and talk through expectations & important logistical details that will help set ourselves up well for the year ahead.
It’s evident from the beginning of creation that God is a family who makes family. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit designed us to join them in living deeply relational lives of love.
So, it comes as no surprise that Jesus begins his preaching with a call to community.
Pause To Discuss
What do you think of when you hear the word “family”? What feelings rise to the surface? What do you envision a family rooted in Christ to look like in practice?
Read Mark 1:16-18 Together
“As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’ At once they left their nets and followed him.”
Read Mark 3:13-14 Together
“Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to Him those He wanted, and they came to Him. He appointed twelve that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach.”
Read Mark 3:32-35 Together
“A crowd was sitting around Jesus, and they told Him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” “Who are my mother and my brothers?” He asked. Then He looked at those seated in a circle around Him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Pause To Discuss
What stands out to you in these portions of Scripture?
How could these three different passages give us a vision for community?
Read This Overview Together
Through Jesus, we have been adopted into the family of God; to become a follower of Jesus is to become a part of a new family. No other metaphor for the community of Jesus occurs more frequently in the New Testament than family.
If we want to follow Jesus, and to grow and mature into people of love, we need to be committed to a new kind of family, not based on blood, but on our discipleship to Jesus.
But here’s the thing: We won’t find this kind of community by just going to church on Sunday. We have to find it in smaller circles.
There is a growing body of research from the social sciences that groups relationships into different categories based on group size and the depth of vulnerability. One of the most widely accepted paradigms is from Dr. Robin Dunbar of Oxford, loosely referred to as “Dunbar’s Number”:
Dunbar calls our inner circle relationships our “intimates”.
This is 1-5 people (maximum) who deeply know us as we are; and who, ideally, love us as we are. Think: a spouse, best friend, or mentor.
The next circle is our “kin” – our family and friends who are like family.
These are the people we do life with. We help each other move, we go on vacation together, we share meals, we drop off groceries when people are sick, we spend holidays with each other, we help parent each other’s kids, we help each other make wise decisions, we call each other out in love.
This is the vision of what our Ethos Community should be for us.
Then the next threshold is our “village” – around the 150-person mark.
We need this wider social network for all sorts of things. The Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter wrote a famous paper about “the strength of weak ties,” how we need access to a network of relationships to call on when we need to find a new job, or get help with a project, etc.
The final circle is our “tribe” — the larger people group we identify with and belong to.
We don’t know all these people personally, but this group is where we get a vision of life and a call to step outside ourselves and live with meaning and purpose.
For us as followers of Jesus, this is the Church of Jesus. And if your church is larger than 150 people, which Ethos is, this is your church.
Pause To Discuss
What are your thoughts surrounding Dunbar’s Rule of 5? How do you see this at play or lacking within your relationships?
Read This Overview Together
When it comes to our spiritual formation, there are two key takeaways from Dunbar’s Paradigm:
We need relationships in all four circles.
Jesus had relationships at every layer:
He had three intimates, who were like His brothers — Peter, James, and John.
He had the 12 and a few close friends, like Mary and Martha, who were like family. Then He had the group of 120 in Jerusalem. Then, the larger movement He left behind.
In the same way, if we want to grow and mature into people of love, we need relationships in
all four circles of community.
Because,
2. Our deepest formation, growth, healing, and change all happen in the smaller circles.
We all need what Celtic Christians called an anam cara, or a “soul friend.” To bear the weight of life together. And we need a kinship group to do life with, around a table, not a stage.
Sunday’s alone won’t provide this for us… it’s our village, or even our tribe. And that’s good! But Jesus’ call to community and the design of His bride ought to be more than our weekly Sunday gathering, but it’s never less.
But this will not just “happen” in our day and age. It will require us to live intentionally.
It will require us to prioritize the practice of Community.
The practice of Community = the intentional discipline of actively building highly relational, joyfully connected kinship groups that eat and laugh and pray and worship and follow Jesus together as a family.
And that is a radical act in our day and age, and it comes with all sorts of challenges and obstacles, not only in our culture, but also in our own hearts.
But it is the Way of Jesus.
Read Acts 2:46-47 Together
[the early Church] “met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity”.
Pause To Discuss
What could it look like in our lives if we lived this Scripture out? How could our city be impacted if followers of Jesus lived in such a way?
Read This Overview Together: Our Year At A Glance
This may all sound cute and exciting, but it is difficult in practice. It requires sacrifice and endurance.
We are committing to meeting twice a month every month.
In the month of July, we won’t have any formal gatherings this month – we can choose to take a break from gathering or to meet in other ways (ie: enjoying summer together!)
Each season (every four months), one of our gatherings will be family oriented and one will be mission oriented.
For example:
January - April | May - August | September - December | |
Family | Ex: Passover Meal | Ex: Cookout | Ex: Christmas celebration |
Mission | Ex: Serve on a Food Pantry Saturday | Ex: Pack clothes together at Bloom | Ex: Food Pantry Holiday Party |
If we don’t plan to foster family, our Community may become disconnected.
If we don’t commit to outward servant leadership, our Community may become inward focused and isolated.
Establish Expectations for your Ethos Community
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it best: “Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial.”
So we must be aware of our expectations and start off on the same page.
We recognize that expectations must be:
Spoken
Agreed upon
Conscious
Fair
What an Ethos Community is and is not:
Your Ethos Community is not a place where you go to have all your social, emotional, and spiritual needs met – it is a place where everyone is committed to loving one another and taking care of each other, meeting needs as able.
Your Ethos Community is not a group of people who have everything in common (i.e. like the same things, vote the same way, etc.) - it is a place where you keep the main things the main things (ie: following Jesus, sharing life together, etc).
Pause To Discuss
What are your expectations for our Community?
Take some space here to even write them down…below are a few we invite you to include:
Ethos Communities’ foundational commitments:
We are committing to meeting twice a month for this entire year. We will prioritize this gathering and stick to it.
We are committing to providing meals at all of our gatherings because we see the value of spending unhurried time around the table together.
We are committing to growing spiritually, which means that we commit to lean into the spiritual practices together. We don’t just want to build relationships, but we want to become more like Jesus for the sake of others.
We are committing to praying for one another consistently and fostering a culture of family within this group – which involves a journey of building trust.
Establish Clear Roles for your Ethos Community
Each person plays a unique role within your Community. Consider establishing clear roles to help with the organization aspect of your gatherings. Contribution = participation = ownership = consistency
Some examples include:
Meal Schedule Planner
Family Gatherings Planner / “Deacons of Good Times”
Mission Gatherings Planner
Someone to keep track of birthdays / take ownership of ways to celebrate each other
Etc!
Leader Note: Communicate any relevant details to your Community as it relates to the presence of children / childcare at your gatherings. Ethos is offering childcare assistance – there is $50 a month allotted per family to help cover childcare costs…but you must submit this form to receive the assistance: https://ethosoh.churchcenter.com/people/forms/864265
Practice: Sharing Your Faith Story
Leader Note: Please pass out the handouts to your Community before explaining directions.
We want to start by sharing our story…both the positives and the negatives. Within the handout you received is a guide that we will utilize to lead us in sharing our stories with a clear structure.
Our goal here isn’t to share everything that’s ever happened to us…but to take time before our next gathering to sit, reflect, and be prepared to share with everyone your faith story.
We ask that everyone shares for ~7 minutes or less so that there is space for everyone’s story to be heard. This will be hard for some - so be prepared!
End In Prayer
End your time praying over one another and asking God to bless this commitment to one another over the next year.