10 Steps for a Church to Become More Kingdom Focused

My friend and colleague, Brad Brisco, is the director of Covocational and Bivocational Church Planting of the Send Network. He recently sent an email to our Send Network Training Team, "In the epilogue (titled from Here to the Kingdom) of Howard Synder's 'The Community of the King,' he makes several suggestions for a local church to increase its “kingdom vision and become more authentically the community of the King.”

Snyder’s book was originally written over 40 years ago. Brad observes, "The DNA of the missional conversation is not some recent fad (of course it goes back much farther than 40 years)."

Here are Snyder's 7 steps towards renewal:

1. Undertake a study of the biblical nature of the church.
2. Evaluate the quality of the community life of the church.
3. Attempt to think through what the Bible teaches about gifts of the Spirit.
4. Attempt to transcend the clergy-laity dichotomy in both thought & speech.
5. Consider forming one or two new congregations from the existing church.
6. Form some small-group fellowships as mission.
7. Identify segments of the surrounding population especially open to the gospel where new churches could be planted.

I took a stab at what I might teach if I were asked to lead a church through this process. I'm no Howard Snyder or Brad Brisco, but I took the liberty of adding a few and reordering a few.

1. Consider Christ as God’s Missionary. (Why did He come? What did He do? What did He command?)
2. Study the biblical nature of the church as it relates to the Kingdom.
3. Develop robust transformational discipleship content and processes. (Spiritual discipline, Emotional maturity, Relational wisdom, God Dependence, Kingdom focus, Missional  Commitment, Radical Generosity)
4. Destroy the clergy-laity dichotomy in both thought & speech.
5. Empower and equip bi-vocational and co-vocational leaders as much as vocational leaders.
6. Deploy a clear leadership development process.
7. Mobilize everyone according to Ephesians 4:11 gifting/roles/abilities.
8. Release LifeGroups as Missional Communities.
9. Identify segments of the surrounding population especially open to the gospel where new churches could be planted.
10. Form one or two new congregations from the existing church.

Question: If you were going to lead a church through a process to increase its “kingdom vision and become more authentically the community of the King,” how would you do it?