31 Days of Missional Living: Discovering Your Third Place (Day 10)

Yesterday we discussed pursuing missional living out of your passions. Today let’s talk about finding your third place based on those passions. A third place (in addition to the first place of home and second place of work) is an “informal public gathering place.” A third place can be a coffee shop, restaurant, bar, salon, art museum, park or numerous other spaces.

Why does the third place matter? As Christians a third place is where we engage the lost through missional living. A colleague recently shared this on Twitter:   

Either you are someone that is disconnected from Jesus . . .or you are a missionary (someone sent to help connect) those disconnected from Jesus.

We cannot connect the disconnected to Jesus if we don't hang out with them. For too long American Christians have chosen the church building as their third place. Clearly that has proved ineffective in reaching the lost.

So how do you find your third place? Chances are you already have. What public places do you frequent most often during the week? Do you get your morning coffee from the same barista every morning? Do you always have the Tuesday night special at your neighborhood cafe'? Are you a regular volunteer at your local rescue mission? Where would you enjoy hanging out more? Take a step back and evaluate where you go and how you spend your time.  Once you've narrowed down where your third place is you can go there with intention and invest more time there.

Keep in mind that we've spent the beginning of this series discussing practical ways to form missional relationships. As the month progresses we'll talk about the second and most important part of missional living: sharing the Gospel