Richmond Baptist gathers on Sunday mornings. On stage from left to right are Brad Adams, Janice Adams, Rach Vawser, Josh Vawser and Adrian Hopkins. Photo courtesy of Richmond Baptist

Richmond Baptist Church is headstarting the micro church movement in Adelaide, Australia by redefining the purpose of small groups, utilizing them to work from the inside out.

By leading a church that focuses on gathering in small groups, often located in different homes, they aim to help their community one step at a time. Not only do they seek to aid the inhabitants of Adelaide, but they also want to reshape the structure of discipleship and mission work through the micro church movement.

In an interview with Koinesúnē, Nate Vawser, the lead pastor, said that the purpose of a micro church is to emphasize that anybody who is willing to participate in worship, mission and community is a church. His aim is to empower the local community through the micro church movement.

Vawser has a goal to make discipleship the main focus in his church. To him, doing so one step at a time can lead to big changes within the body of Christ.

Richmond Baptist staff team - Nate Vawser (right - Lead Pastor), Jemima Minne (left - Administrator), Sarah Anderson (middle - Kids and Families Discipleship Coordinator) Photo Courtesy Richmond Baptist

Micro church gatherings, local activities and church services are some of the ways that Richmond Baptist is participating in this movement. Vawser said when people do church on a smaller scale, it gives them “a lot more flexibility and ability to be able to experiment with things.”

The micro church movement will look different in Australia than what the movement will look like in the U.S. because they are two different cultures — each micro church has to focus on different aspects of their community, Vawser said.

As opposed to the U.S. culture of mega churches, Richmond thrives in focusing on smaller church gatherings in which they refer to as “gospel groups,” as stated on their website. These groups congregate in different homes “to pray and worship together and live out their faith together in active ways.”

“What generally happens in small groups is that they end up focusing primarily on relationships,” Vawser said.

They want to build relationships and then pursue mission work, but “we start to go deeper in our relationships [and] that becomes comfortable,” Vawser said. Social bubbles form, and people start to become secure and safe in these bubbles, neglecting to go out and expand their community through mission work.

He later goes on to claim that the relationships built within the micro church end up being much more closer and deeper than small groups “because of that sense of doing something together.”

“The focus is far more on starting with that missional impulse and being able to say that the primary focus of the micro church is to belong in a certain place or to focus on a specific group of people and then to be able to focus on relationships and discipleship in the midst of that,” Vawser said.

Richmond Baptist attempts to replicate this model of micro church by participating in discipleship while building these deep connections instead of becoming stagnant in only building relationships.

“The primary driving questions in the micro church that I think of is simply being able to lean into what Jesus is saying and being able to respond to that,” Vawser said.

One way that they participate in this movement is through Sunday gatherings. Every Sunday morning, the congregants meet and help each other build stronger relationships with Jesus over coffee and tea, according to the church’s website.

Nate leads one of Richmond Baptist’s Family Nights. Family Nights occur every 3 months around a shared meal, sharing stories and updates of what’s happening in the Richmond community as well as having discussions around tables about things people are processing. Photo Courtesy Richmond Baptist

Community Involvement After Covid-19

Richmond Baptist has had a long history of community engagement. “Particularly in the 2010’s, we had a really great level of community engagement, partnership with local sporting clubs and local community organizations, but over the last four or five years, a lot of that wanes.” Most of these situations, Vawser said, can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

During that time, certain leadership and staff roles within the church started transitioning, including the lead pastor retiring, Vawser said.

“Some staff and leaders transitioned out of community organizations as well, so a lot of those connections have ended up getting lost,” Vawser said.

This loss has ended up being a large topic of conversation within the congregation, and they continue to try to reconcile with this issue, Vawser said.

“One of the things that I’ve been conscious of is the reality that in a lot of churches, what ends up happening is that a key person, often the pastor, ends up being the one who forms those community connections,” Vawser said.

“But I am not convinced that that’s the full version of us really participating in mission,” Vawser said.

The lead pastor takes up the bulk of the responsibility in networking and building connections, but in order to do so efficiently, community involvement is a key part in carrying this responsibility. It starts within the walls of the church itself.

Unlike the U.S. where mission work tends to start internationally, Vawser’s church focuses primarily on mission work within the church which will then lead to more outward involvement. However, Sunday morning church is not the only way they can do that.

Occasionally, the church will hold a “coffee and desert night,” according to the church’s website. The funds they receive for this event goes either to “a charity or local family in need.” To Richmond, missional work does not always have to be operated on a large, international scale.

Nate speaking at a Sunday morning gathering. Photo Courtesy Richmond Baptist

The Church’s Role in Seeking Vocation

Vawser said the Church needs to help people identify their calling for themselves. He said Christians need to equip people to seek the passion Jesus is putting on their hearts and then build a community of people who have a similar calling in things like mission work, ministry or even helping expand the micro church movement.

“But it is a much, much slower process because it takes a lot longer to go rather than just start a program and hope that people will jump into it,” Vawser said.

“Something that we wrestle with a lot is what does it mean for us to surrender to the kingship of Jesus in a genuine way,” Vawser said.

According to him, Richmond Baptist tries to discuss topics that do not often get brought up in churches, topics that are important to the faith culturally. The west often has their own cultural values that get discussed more often outside of the church, but Richmond tries to talk about the cultural context more in church, Vawser said.

“We’re trying to wrestle with some of the values, the cultural norms, like individualism, consumerism, the desire for comfort,” Vawser said.

The Church needs to examine these norms and see if they align with Jesus’ values, Vawser said.

One way they aim to address these cultural norms is through a program called Next Gen. In these gatherings, the kids (ages 4 - 10) meet in a space where they get to learn more about the story of Jesus. In youth meetings (grades 7-12), they gather in a relaxing space to hang out and build stronger relationships with each other. In gatherings like these, children have the opportunity to examine their culture and see how it can align with Jesus’ values.

They also seek to raise more children up in the church, a cultural trend that is steadily decreasing.

Adapting to Challenges and Change

Similar to the trend in America, one challenge Vawser said Richmond Baptist struggles with is fewer people in Australia are growing up in the church, both in retaining Christian values and physically attending church.

Many people have walked away from the church due to negative experiences. However, it is a great opportunity for Richmond to tackle this challenge and introduce more people to a new/different way of doing church, Vawser said.

“It allows us to help them discover Jesus and start there,” Vawser said.

While Richmond is doing their best to address the problem of people leaving the church, it is not the only challenge they face. Their church building has been obtained to help with a significant highway project, so, by the end of the year their building will no longer be there.

Although the loss of their building is heartbreaking for the community, Vawser said many people see it as an encouraging opportunity.

“There’s obviously grief for us in the fact that this place that served as home for decades for some of our people isn’t gonna be there anymore, but [there’s also] a really healthy recognition that the church is about so much more than a building,” Vawser said.

Vawser said the transition will give them an opportunity to make a new space for discipleship.

One of the many questions Vawser said he has been wrestling with is what the process of creating a space specifically for micro churches looks like. The physical building is important, but the relationships inside the church are even more important. He said there are some challenges around creating a healthy and inviting atmosphere for everyone to feel welcomed.

He also acknowledges the difficulties in revealing too much to those who are new to the church in fear of overwhelming them, but he further mentions the importance in getting people to know the full mission of the church.

“I also want people to sign up and know what it is that they’re stepping into,” Vawser said.

It can be a struggle to maintain the mission of the micro church, especially with so few people on the staff, Vawser said. He uses this challenge as an opportunity to build micro churches and to help them be more well known.

Although Richmond faces this large hurdle, they still have ways of participating within their local community. A lot of their projects involved helping local schools and engaging with the local neighborhood, according to their website. Richmond seeks local partnerships and community service activities in Adelaide, Vawser said.

Focusing On The Bigger Picture

At the end of the day, Richmond Baptist is more than just a building — they are a community of people who love Jesus and who want other people to know His love as well, Vawser said.

“Whenever I have conversations with people about churches, one of the things that I want to be able to help them to be able to see is that it is more than just healthy small groups,” Vawser said.

Some people want to follow a strict guideline for creating and developing a micro church, but the heart of the mission is about the why, not the how, Vawser said.

“It’s not about the model because the whole focus is on listening to Jesus and responding to that and doing that together — and then leaning into what he invites us into,” Vawser said.

Knowing the cultural challenges micro churches face are a crucial component to understanding how to form and maintain one. Richmond Baptist faces these challenges by working with the local community to do discipleship.

Selise Phillips is a Sophomore English - Writing and Rhetoric Major and Creative Writing Minor at Pepperdine University. She seeks to glorify Christ through her words and stories, using individual experiences to do so.