Hubology: The Trellis Beneath the Vine

Can decentralized church really scale without becoming… centralized? What if the real reason potential movements stall…is because we’re still trying to pour new wine into old wineskins?

Contributors: Brian Johnson, Rob Wegner

“No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins… No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”
— Jesus, Luke 5:37–38

Why: Because Movement Needs a Trellis

Today we are kicking off a new series of articles and conversations on something we call Hubs.

Let’s begin where movements begin—not with strategy, but with story.

You see, when the Gospel begins to move—when disciples start making disciples and churches start multiplying in the cracks of the culture—something begins to strain. At first, we’re just trying to keep up. But eventually, the tension builds: “How do we sustain this? How do we steward what’s emerging?”

This is not a theoretical question.

In every potential movement environment, there comes a moment when that wild vine growth will lead to strangled fruit - without structure. If we want the wine of Kingdom movement to be stewarded and multiplied, we need new wineskins—adaptive systems, not centralized control, and we need supportive structure. Organic structure, not rigid hierarchy.

In short, we need hubs.

“The key to movement is not just rapid reproduction, but wise support. Multiplication without sustainability collapses under its own weight.” — Alan Hirsch

In the Kansas City Underground, we define a hub as:

A catalytic team that exists to fuel and equip a decentralized network of disciple-makers and microchurches in a geographic area or affinity.

But let’s be honest. We didn’t arrive here by diagram. We arrived here by necessity.

And necessity, as we’ve learned, is the mother of hubology. (Yes, it’s a made-up word).

Just as a minimal ecclesiology—centered on the essential identity and functions of the Church as the people of God gathered around worship, community, and mission—has helped catalyze the microchurch movement, we believe the same kind of reformation is needed for leadership.

We need a minimal hubology.

If the old wineskin is the Western church paradigm—built around programs, stages, and personalities—then the new wineskin must be uniquely designed to hold the wine of gospel movement. That wine is the unleashing of the Gospel through ordinary people making disciples in the everyday spaces of life—forming simple expressions of church that multiply across generations into a family of families. In other words, a genuine movement. And that wine demands a different kind of container—one that’s agile, relational, and movement-supportive.

This isn’t a re-tweaking of the old system. It’s a whole new paradigm.

A hub is our best attempt to live into that. It’s not designed to centralize power or preserve titles. It’s a decentralized support system with just enough centralization—a trellis—for what God is already growing on the ground.

While traditional ecclesiastical structures have often positioned church leaders as teachers and pastors, hubs reframe leadership around five-fold equipping (Ephesians 4:1-16) in a decentralized way. Hubs exist not to perform ministry but to multiply it.

Not to do the work, but to ignite the workers—then equip them, coach them, and help them multiply.

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When: The Point of Pain

The timeline of every movement includes a threshold moment—a point when what has been working can no longer bear the weight of what is emerging.

This is the “when” of hubs. When teams have been raised up. When disciples begin to multiply—and you’re not just seeing a few leaders emerge, but dozens across neighborhoods or within a specific network—it’s a new microchurch network is taking shape.

That’s when the need emerges: “We need a trellis.”

Not to manage. Not to centralize. But to support what the Spirit is already doing.

“The church was never meant to be a monument but a movement. And every movement needs scaffolding strong enough to support life, not structure it to death.”
— Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways

The moment has come for a Hub team to emerge to support the new network of microchurches.

We’ll explore the 'When' and 'Who' of a Hub in future articles. For now, let’s take a brief look at the 'What'—what a Hub actually does.

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What: The 3 Functions of a Hub

A hub is not a program. It’s not a central office. It’s not a replacement for the church. It is a support system—a catalytic team with rhythms designed to serve the church at the edge of mission.

We’ve discovered that every real hub does at least three things:

1. Equip

This is the foundation. Hubs exist to equip everyday people to be disciple-makers and microchurch leaders.

Tools. Training. Resources. The trellis must support the vine at its most vulnerable point—at the level of the everyday.

“To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…”
— Ephesians 4:12

This is not a stage-and-audience dynamic. It’s coffee tables, living rooms, and kitchen counters. It’s Field Guides and Discovery Bible Studies. It’s aligning our systems with our theology.

If your hub isn’t equipping the saints, it’s not a hub.

2. Coach

Movements aren’t built on one-off events. They’re built on long obedience in a context over time.

Hubs exist to come alongside—to encourage, shepherd, listen, challenge, and hold up the arms of the leaders at the frontlines. Coaching is not about expertise—it’s about presence. Discernment. Midwifing what’s already being born. The coaching is group-based, peer-based, and facilitated by a seasoned practitioner.

We coach through formal rhythms. But it includes a well-timed phone call, a text with a link to a great podcast or an invite to a table of tacos.

But if a hub team isn’t walking alongside people, it’s not a hub.

3. Convene

Finally, hubs convene. Not to centralize, but to catalyze.

We host rhythms and spaces that help decentralized leaders share vision, celebrate wins, worship together, and realign around the shared way of Jesus. Convening brings oxygen to the fire of movement. If done poorly, convening can actually hinder or even kill a movement. Again, we'll unpack that more in a future post. Still, convening—done wisely and humbly—is absolutely essential.

And let’s be clear: convening is not controlling. It’s gathering for mutual encouragement and shared discernment. If your hub isn’t creating connection, it’s not a hub.

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Biblical Blueprints: Jerusalem and Ephesus

This is not new idea. We see early expressions of hub-like apostolic centers in the New Testament.

The Jerusalem Hub

In Acts 2–6, the twelve functioned as a catalytic team from Solomon’s Colonnade. They equipped daily through teaching and signs. Microchurches met house-to-house. But the hub team was a center of energy—fostering awe, shared resources, and equipping.

And here’s the proof of its effectiveness: even when persecution scattered the people, the movement kept multiplying.

What they equipped outlived them.

The Ephesus Hub

In Acts 19, Paul rents the Hall of Tyrannus and, with his gang of eight co-workers, trains a cohort of leaders. For two years, he teaches and coaches. He gathers and sends. And from that hub, all of Asia hears the word of the Lord.

A single catalytic team. A shared space. A movement of microchurches that reshaped a region.

“The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body… by which He fills everything with His presence.”
— Ephesians 1:23 (The Message)

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Lessons from the Field: No Cookie-Cutter Hub

Let us say this plainly: no two hubs are the same.

A hub in a low-income urban neighborhood will look different from one in the suburbs. The equipping needs, the coaching bandwidth, the convening rhythms—they must be contextualized.

That’s why our guiding principle is this:

Hubs must continually ask: “What do our disciple-makers need to be healthy and effective in this context?”

It’s not in the manual. But it should be.

This question has led us to create hubs functioning out of coffee shops, community centers, homes, and even Discord servers. We’ve tried things that failed. We’ve called things hubs that were just ideas. We’ve learned the hard way that calling something a hub doesn’t make it one.

What makes a hub is function—not form.

“If we want different results, we need different systems. And if we want movement, we must lay down control and pick up the towel of servanthood.” — The Starfish and the Spirit

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A Final Word: The Garden Metaphor

Let us leave you with this image.

Imagine a wild garden—vines sprawling in every direction. There’s fruit, yes—but it’s hidden. Trampled. Underdeveloped. A tangled mess.

But then, the gardener steps in—not with a mower, but with a trellis. Not to tame the garden, but to tend it. To lift the branches. To offer light. To support what was already growing. Not to control. Not to own. But to support.

This is the work of a hub. Overtime these networks of hubs, microchurches, and disciples multiple into a network of networks with multiple nodes. We currently have 11 hub teams, and we are training three more right now in our Hub Development Cohort. The levels of joy are very high, as is the sense of shared burdened for our city.

Just enough trellis built, at just the right time to support the vine as it grow.

“Our job is not to plant churches. Our job is to plant Jesus. And when He takes root, Church springs up like wildflowers.”
— Brian Sanders

The future of the church will not be built in boardrooms. It will be built by catalytic teams supporting ordinary saints in everyday places.

That’s why we’re studying hubology together.

Because the Kingdom is growing like yeast in the dough. And if we want to steward what’s rising, we’re going to need new wineskins.

Grace and grit to you as you build the trellis beneath the vine.

Coming Soon in this Series:

• Alan Hirsch’s thoughts on the necessity of Hubs and Networks.

• What kind of people make up a Hub Team? When is the right time to form one?

• How do you develop and train a Hub Team?

• How do we develop equipping rhythms for equipping, coaching, and convening?

• Real-life case studies and failures (we have plenty!) to learn from.

• No two Hubs are the same. Every Hub does the work of contextualization.

🛠️ Want help building a hub team?

Reach out—we’d love to support you. Coming this June 8, we have a two day Intensive. This is something we offer for teams outside of KC once or twice a year.

The KC Underground Intensive is more than a seminar—it’s an interactive workshop designed for immersion and discernment. Over the course of two days, June 8-9, you’ll hear from local Hub directors as they share the key frameworks that guide our movement, how we currently live them out, and how the KC Underground functions within the city.

This isn’t just about information—it’s about embodiment and contextualization. Your team will spend intentional time discerning how these principles and practices might take root in your own context.

You’ll hear real stories of everyday people joining Jesus in the midst of their natural networks and neighborhoods. We’ll share meals, story-telling, and listen together for the Spirit’s guidance as we process what we’re learning in community.

While we’ll touch on practical examples, the heart of the Intensive is focused on first and foremost on returning to Jesus together and then, exploring movement principles—not on how to tweak a prevailing model, but on how to cultivate decentralized, disciple-making networks from the ground up. Learn more and register here.