About Us

VISION

To establish a movement of gospel communities on mission saturating North America with gospel centered churches planting churches.  This starts by establishing a church-multiplication hub in key North American cities, with the intent of moving outward to the regions surrounding each city.

HISTORY

Soma Communities began with the vision to see the I-5 corridor between Seattle and Tacoma saturated with gospel-centered, multiplying churches that all worked together collectively sharing everything they had to accomplish this vision.

The question we asked was: “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?” We took seriously the call to present everyone mature in Christ and to equip every member for gospel ministry. Our first 9 months was dedicated to training up a few to lead Missional Communities. Soma’s official “launch” took place on September 14, 2004 where we commissioned four leadership teams to start Missional Communities in their neighborhoods. These original four have multiplied to 50 and these 50 comprise the make-up of 5 different local congregations under biblically qualified elders. We have learned much since 2004 and God has graciously seen fit to use Soma Communities to equip 100s 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. 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.

Key Resources

• Soma LifeNew here? Several one-page docs and related resources to orient folks checking out the Soma family. Learn in brief how we understand the gospel, our identity and how we live in light of these.
• Soma SchoolFor church planters: An immersion into the life of our communities (warts and all) as we learn to embody the gospel, coupled with intensive dialogical teaching sessions on gospel, identity, rhythms, building missional communities, etc. Find notes and audio online and/or apply for a spot to come live with us as family for a week.
• Story of GodThe redemptive story of the Bible: The Bible presents a grand narrative in which God is both the author and hero, with the story climaxing in Jesus. We use an ancient yet new process of storytelling and dialogue to interact with these stories as a way to become more established in the gospel, experiencing and connecting with God through his Word in a community on his mission.
• GCM CollectiveGospel. Community. Mission. Blog posts and downloads are just the beginning. The action is in the online community network where well over a thousand people are asking and answering questions about life as gospel-centered communities on the mission of making disciples.