Starfish and the Spirit: Reimagining the Church as a Decentralized Body
What if the church isn’t primarily a place or a program, but a body of disciple-makers—spiritually alive, relationally connected, and distributed like a neural network across a city?
“...the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” — Ephesians 1:22–23
A few weeks ago, Lance Ford and I co-led a workshop at the Global Exponential Conference titled Starfish and the Spirit: Rethinking Church as a Decentralized Body. It was a moment of remembering who we are and what the church has always been—a Spirit-led, disciple-making movement, not a brand or a building.
In this post, I want to share some reflections from that workshop along with a few key metaphors we explored—especially the “structure starfish”—which help us imagine a way of leading that is more like the early church: organic, decentralized, Spirit-empowered, and relationally rich. Here are some highlights from the workshop, along with the audio and slide deck.
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Let’s begin with a story.
From Bookshelf to Blueprint
Back in the mid-2000s, many pastors were captivated by a peculiar little book with an even stranger title: The Starfish and the Spider. It offered a compelling metaphor: cut the head off a spider and it dies. But cut a starfish in half—and you don’t kill it, you multiply it.
Why? Because the starfish doesn’t rely on a centralized brain. It’s a neural network—intelligence is distributed. Each limb contains the DNA to recreate the whole. It’s adaptive, regenerative, and resilient.
That metaphor became a lens for decentralized leadership in the business world. But it also struck a deep chord with church leaders longing for something more than top-down models and ministry bottlenecks. And yet, as Lance shared, most pastors shelved the idea right next to the conference manuals they never opened again. They didn't know how to implement it.
That was our story too—but we kept stumbling our way forward into it.
When the Church Is a Movement, Not a Machine to be Managed
A decade ago, I (Rob) found myself part of a disciple-making movement in India that ruined me. It went from a handful of folks to 250,000 new disciples and thousands of churches in under 10 years. And the tools of that movement? Miracles, hospitality, spiritual conversations, and discovery Bible studies led by ordinary people.
On one long flight to India, in 2006, I read The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch and The Starfish and the Spider. They helped decode what I was seeing on the ground—apostolic DNA at work. Movement logic. Distributed leadership. The church being the church again.
When we later co-authored The Starfish and the Spirit, we distilled those ideas into seven core “starfish”—each representing a key dimension of decentralization essential to reimagining the church. This workshop explored just two: the movement starfish and the structure starfish.
The Movement Starfish: Reimagining Ecclesia
We’ve inherited a definition of church shaped more by empire than Ephesians. Since Constantine, we’ve unconsciously viewed church as place, property, and program—run by professionals. But the New Testament church was never a weekly event run by paid experts. It was a decentralized network of spiritual families on mission.
The church in Rome, as James D.G. Dunn observes of Romans 16, likely never met as one large group. It was five households of faith, 26 leaders—one network. That’s why Paul’s final greetings sound more like a family reunion than an org chart1.
When we reimagine church as a body and a decentralized network—rather than a centralized congregation —everything changes, and that’s what we do with the Movement Starfish
In the New Testament, we catch glimpses of a church alive and untamed—a decentralized movement made up of five organically connected points of multiplication:
Disciples. Leaders. Houses. Hubs. Networks.
These five are not strategies. They are the lifeblood of a movement—the anatomy of the church as a living starfish. When one part multiplies, the whole grows.
🌊⭐️ Disciples – The starting point of everything. A disciple is someone who hears and obeys Jesus in all of life (John 10:27). Not just believers, but apprentices of Lord Jesus. When disciples multiply, they become the roots from which everything else grows.
🌊⭐️Leaders (Disciple-Makers) – Disciples who make disciples. Leadership in a movement isn’t conferred—it emerges. As Paul said to Timothy, “Entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Tim. 2:2). In this way, leadership becomes a byproduct of obedience.
🌊⭐️Houses (Simple Expressions of the Church) – These are not merely gatherings. They are extended spiritual families on mission in a particular place among a particular people. Think Lydia’s household, the jailer’s family, Priscilla and Aquila’s home. Microchurches where the one-another commands actually happen, and the kingdom breaks into the neighborhood and networks like yeast in dough (Acts 2:42–47).
🌊⭐️Hubs (Elder-Level Equipping Teams) – Apostolic teams for equipping, sending, and sustaining the Body. In Jerusalem, the team operated out of the temple courts. In Ephesus, it was the Hall of Tyrannus. Hub teams are catalytic —not to gather and contain, but to equip and release (Eph. 4:11–13).
🌊⭐️Networks – Citywide webs of interdependent microchurches and leaders, collaborating for gospel flourishing. Just as Paul greeted five house churches in Romans 16, we envision the church in a city as one Body, knit together in mission, not brand. Not competitive silos—but collective synergy (John 17:21).
Together, these five points form a starfish movement—resilient, adaptable, and unstoppable.
And here’s the thing: When persecution scattered the early church in Acts 8, the movement didn’t stall—it accelerated. Why? Because the house-to-house church was primary. The church didn’t collapse. It multiplied.
The starfish doesn’t die when it’s broken. It multiplies. This is the movement we see in Acts. This is the invitation before us now.
Let’s not get lost in semantics. You can call them microchurches or missional communities, house churches or gospel outposts. What matters is the reality underneath the words: A disciple-making movement that fills cities with the fullness of Christ (Eph. 1:23).
So let’s reimagine the church not as a place we go, but a people we become. Not as a weekend event, but a daily witness..
Long live the starfish church. Let it fill the streets with beauty, justice, and the good news of Jesus.
As Ephesians 1 says, the church is “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” In other words, the church is meant to saturate the city with the presence of Jesus—not through one large stage, but through countless small fires.
A Story from the Street Church Family
Let me show you what that looks like.
Four and a half years ago, Rick started handing out clothes in Washington Square Park. He had been discipling men coming out of incarceration, and one of them invited him to serve the houseless community. Something about it gripped his heart. He asked his wife Alice, “Do you want to come with me?” And of course, she said yes.
At first, they brought food. Clothes. Encouragement. Prayer. But something was missing. They longed to see not just relief—but transformation. Lives made new by Jesus. A spiritual family formed.
Then Alice felt the Spirit’s nudge.
They had just walked through the Missionary Pathway Training Huddle with our network—learning how to carry the Gospel into everyday spaces. Alice sensed God saying, “This is your context. These are your people. Go.” So they went on a prayer walk with a few others. They started naming their friends by name. Listening deeply. Asking Jesus what it might look like to plant the Gospel right there among the friends they had come to love.
That’s when the street church family began.
Sometimes two or three would gather. Sometimes twenty. But Rick and Alice kept showing up, regular rhythms and real relationships were established, because these weren’t just neighbors anymore—they had become family. They talk about the people they serve with the kind of tenderness you use for brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. They’ve mourned at funerals. Rejoiced at baptisms. Walked with folks out of addiction. Prayed, laughed, wept, and witnessed miracles in the margins.
When asked why the houseless community, they respond simply: “Because that’s who Jesus said to be with—Matthew 25. So if we want to meet Jesus, we go where He is.”
But it hasn’t stopped at the park.
One of their friends was discharged from the hospital and placed in a nursing home. She invited them to visit. When Rick and Alice walked in, she said, “Nobody comes here. No churches, no Bible studies. You need a street church family here.”
They prayed. They listened. And they started showing up.
Now, another spiritual family is forming—this time in a nursing home. Conversations are sparking. Souls are opening. Light is breaking through the isolation.
And it’s happening in libraries. Community centers. Doorstep by doorstep. Jesus is drawing them into places they never expected—and they keep saying, “Yes, Lord.”
Week after week, they open with prayer, and the most common prayer of thanks is this: “God, thank you for one more day.” Out there, they mean it.
This is the slow, faithful work of Gospel movement. It's not always clean or linear. It’s street-level love, bathed in grit and grace.
Rick and Alice are showing us what it looks like to be the Body of Christ in the forgotten corners of our city. They are making the Kingdom tangible—in parks, in nursing homes, and in the broken places where hope feels scarce.
And through them, a network of street church families is emerging, and the team of disciple-makers is growing, and hub team is in the not too distant future.
This is what happens when the body is aligned with the Head.
The Structure Starfish: Aligning with the Head
In Ephesians, Paul calls the church a body—and Christ the Head. But what happens when the body is misaligned with the Head?
A chiropractor once told Lance, “The intelligence of the Head is already in the body. It just needs no interruption.”
That’s our problem. Our hierarchical systems often interrupt the flow of spiritual intelligence. We’ve built churches that depend too heavily on one leader, one vision for a centralized congregation, —and then we wonder why the body feels paralyzed.
In our workshop, we introduced five aspects of the “structure starfish”—the postures and practices that help decentralize leadership and reconnect the body to the Head.
1. Circle Cells
The body is made of over 200 types of cells—each different, each essential. Likewise, the church is a network of spiritual cells—microchurches, hubs, leaders—each contributing to the whole. We don’t need clones. We need a fully activated body.
2. Catalyst Spark
Leaders aren’t the fire. They’re the spark. Our job isn’t to do the ministry but to ignite it in others. Like flint striking flint, we catalyze disciple-making, then get out of the way.
3. Collaboratively Guided
In the New Testament, leaders are co-laborers, not bosses. We don’t need more visionaries—we need equippers who ask, “What do you need from me today?” and walk alongside people in their calling.
4. Organic Hierarchy
Paul said the parts of the body that seem less important are actually indispensable (1 Corinthians 12:22). We don’t build pyramids—we cultivate gardens, and build just enough trellis to support the growth. Presence replaces position. Authority flows from love and experience, not leverage and title.
5. Elder & Mentor Guided
Elders aren’t board members. They’re spiritual mothers and fathers—people who’ve seen some things. We don’t need more therapists. We need sages. As Lance put it, “Most churches aren’t activating their elders—they’re just occupying them.”
A Better Job Description
We often joke that the modern pastor’s job description is impossible:
Top theologian
CEO
Therapist
Communicator
Fundraiser
Parenting and Marriage Expert
Visionary
And the list goes on
No wonder pastors feel like Atlas. But here’s the truth: there’s only one “head pastor” in the Bible—and his name is Jesus.
Our job is not to carry the world on our shoulders. It’s to help reconnect the body to the Head. To create structures that unleash—not interrupt—the intelligence of the Spirit at work in ordinary people.
What if the church looked less like a machine—and more like a movement? Stories, metaphors, and a glimpse of what’s possible. Subscribe for free.
The early church didn’t build platforms. They formed networks. They didn’t rely on professionals. They activated saints. They multiplied communities of presence.
When the church is aligned with the Head, even the smallest part of the body can become a catalyst for the fullness of Christ in every place.
“Let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” — Matthew 6:10
Questions for Reflection
Where have we allowed hierarchy to interrupt the intelligence of the body?
What would it look like to structure like a starfish—decentralized, regenerative, and Spirit-led?
Who are the disciple-makers, microchurch leaders, or elders already in your midst waiting to be named and commissioned?
Where’s your Nazareth—your ordinary place of sentness, where the fullness of Christ might take root?
“The groupings indicate at least five different house churches in Rome (vv 5, 10, 11, 14, 15; e.g., Minear, Obedience, 7), and is more likely than Zahn’s suggestion that those mentioned in vv 5–13 were all members of the home church of Prisca and Aquila, which would imply a double greeting on Paul’s part (v 5a, vv 5–13).” James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16, Vol. 38b of Word Biblical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014), 891.
This is hitting home. ❤️👏