Introducing the Missional Church What It Is, Why It Matters, How to Become One by Roxburgh, Alan J., Boren, M. Scott [Baker,2009]

by Alan J. Roxburgh

Introducing the Missional Church What It Is, Why It Matters, How to Become One by Roxburgh, Alan J., Boren, M. Scott. Published by Baker,2009, Paperback

Genres: Church, Theology, Christianity, Leadership, Religion

Unknown Binding

First published November 1, 2009

About the author

Alan Roxburgh is a pastor, teacher, writer and consultant with more than 30 years experience in church leadership, consulting and seminary education. Alan has pastored congregations in a small town, the suburbs, the re-development of a downtown urban church and the planting of other congregations. He has directed an urban training center and served as a seminary professor and the director of a center for mission and evangelism. Alan teaches as an adjunct professor in seminaries in the USA, Australia and Europe. In addition to his books listed here on Amazon, Alan was also a member of the writing team that authored "Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America".

Through The Missional Network, Alan leads conferences, seminars and consultations with denominations, congregations and seminaries across North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the UK. Alan consults with these groups in the areas of leadership for missional transformation and innovating missional change across denominational systems. Along with the team at TMN, he provides practical tools and resources for leaders of church systems and local congregations.

When not traveling or writing, Alan enjoys mountain biking, hiking, cooking and hanging out with Jane and their five grandchildren as well as drinking great coffee in the Pacific North West.

Reviews

[Chauncey Lattimer]

This is one of the best books that I have read regarding the 'missional' church. In the very first chapter they set the stage by reminding the reader: "At every stage in the biblical narratives is hope for a future reality toward which the people are moving. Being missional means we join this heritage, entering a journey without any road maps to discover what God is up to in our neighborhoods and communities." A major emphasis is that the 'attractional' pattern of doing church is not meeting the needs of the contemporary situation.

While they hesitiate to define just what a missional church will be, they do not shy from pointing out that "A missional imagination is not about the church; it's not about how to make the church better, how to get more people to come to church, or how to turn a dying church around. It's not about getting the church back to cultural respectability in a time when it has been marginalized."

They issue three noteworthy perspectival challenges: (1) "...the elevation of any model as the way to do church; (2) ...that the Bible reveals a missional secret or formula that provides twenty-first-century Christians with a magic pill for entering missional life; [and] (3) ...that there is some point in the history of the church that provicdes us with just the right pattern and formula for creating missional churches."

The book is not about a program, but about a journey; it is not about a plan, but about a process.

This is an excellent book for any congregation to study (especially the leaders) before making the decision to 'go missional.'

[Andrew Sing · Rating 3 out of 5]

The authors have a good understanding of what the church of today has become like and this book helps with some practical ways to help take people and a local church on a journey of new discoveries.

They introduce a simple idea that resonates with me - to listen learn and understand the stories of your people first as a stepping stone to what God might be saying to the wider church. Genius. More church leaders need to do this and engage the people again in telling stories, sharing experiences and feelings in a safe caring environment. A lesson here to for missional organisations. Engage the people! Ask questions. Listen. Really listen. Then give the people the freedom to dream again and experiment.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a MUST read if you love the church and want to see it flourish.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will admit that I approached this book with a bias against it simply because it used the word "missional" in the title. I'm so tired of trendy, overhyped concepts, and "missional" is right up there with "emergent" in terms of words everyone is throwing around to sound hip, relevant, and like they know what they are doing. Regardless of my prejudice, I had to read this book for class, and I'm really glad I did.

Up until the last 30 pages or so, I *really* liked this book. At the core of the book - which starts with a great introduction of what they mean by "missional" and what they don't mean("Missional church is not another label for church growth and effectiveness." (32) "Missional church is not a label to describe churches that have developed a clear mission statement with a vision and purpose for their existence." (32) "Missional church is not a way of turning around ineffective and outdated church forms so that they can display relevance in the wider culture." (33) "Missional is not a label describing new formats of church that reach people who have no interest in traditional churches." (33)) - is an argument towards fresh imagination and conversation about how to be the church in our context. Roxburgh and Boren write, "Rather than asking, 'Hw do we attract people to what we are doing?' we need to ask, 'What is God up to in this neighborhood, and how do we need to change in order to engage the people who no longer consider church a part of their lives?' This is a radical shift in focus; it's a different way of thinking about being the church in a community." (130)

The book was mostly a fantastic and thought-provoking read, right up until the part where they start talking about how you can help you church work towards missional change if you use their books, programs, and consultants (and a quick look at their website will reveal that you will be in for a large sum of money if you do so). After an otherwise thoughtful analysis, this disappointed. Overall, though, I found the book to be helpful. I'm captivated by the concept of what it might mean to become a truly local church.

[Yair Herrera F · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful and clear

It does not only make you reflect on how to approach modern evangelism but also provides tools to come up with your own God guided ideas.

[Johannes Minge · Rating 5 out of 5]

A paradigm shift for me.

[Diane]

Excellent tool for building connections within your church to your community. A must read!

[Kat Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some very interesting points! First half of the book was fantastic. Felt slow and redundant towards the end which made it a slow read for me. Worth a read for sure

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

The low rating has little do with with my evaluation of the Missional movement in general but more a reaction to this book in particular.

I tend to prefer plain talk: hence the admonitions to "enter the missional river" and "live God's dream" while "visioning" and "encouraging people to name their own realities" struck a hollow note with me (especially that last one, which sounds vaguely postmodern). I don't know that I can judge an entire church movement based on one book (and one published in 2008, at that) but this book did little to attract me to the movement. For one, the co-authors' seeming desire to shy away from conclusions and propositions (while sort of understandable given the context of what they're trying to accomplish) raised some concerns.

Still, I gleaned a lot of fodder for thought, and found a lot of ideas that I could agree with. For example, I agree on the whole that most church ministries lack a vital connection to daily life, fail to consider the needs of their individual communities, and mostly grow through attracting members from one church to another; but I think the root problem is deeper than what is addressed in this particular book.

My biggest concern was that the authors dance around an important point that is too serious to take for granted. It is this: the importance of the Gospel. The majority of our churches are not teaching the Scriptural call to Christlikeness and personal piety. If they were, the natural outflow would be increased sacrificial living, commitment to community, and person-to-person ministry leading to a natural increase in sharing the Gospel. The writers do mention the Gospel, of course, but instead of taking a strong stand and holding it forth as both the means and the end of everything we do, it's only mentioned in passing, with much more effort and attention spent on inviting readers to "take a journey on the missional river" -- a journey which would be rather pointless without a keen Gospel focus. Otherwise, all of the community gardens, coffee shops, and youth centers in the world would do nothing more than make our neighborhoods easier places in which to live and die still separated from Christ. (To be clear: I cast no aspersions on the writers of this book or their love for the Gospel: it just feels like something taken for granted on the part of the authors. Unfortunately, having observed many shipwrecked ministries and individual believers, I've learned that this is one point which can never be taken for granted. Plus, I just read D.A. Carson's excellent book The Cross and Christian Ministry, so it's fresh in my mind.)

I'm looking forward to reading more books on the Missional movement in the future, hopefully ones with a stronger Gospel focus. I would welcome some recommendations.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm academically studying the missional church, so I've read 101 books on the topic. This is probably one of the most accessible yet adequate introductions on the topic I have come across. The authors assume that the reader has little or not exposure to the topic aside from hearing about it. They also assume that the reader has sensed something has to change in the church but doesn't know what. They do not shy away from being clear, forceful, and convicting about how the culture has changed and why "church" as it has long been known isn't working anymore. It is clear that the authors have had extensive contact with what social research has started to call "the nones" and are blunt about the fact that they are not coming to church no matter what we do or how hip it is.

However, this book suffers some of the same flaws as other missional church books, and especially Alan Roxburgh's other works. First of all, the authors are very good at identifying what's wrong but do not know how to help church leadaers go about change. They tried very hard in this book to give very practical steps, but these steps are very modernistic (ironically, given the rest of the book) and assume that the church has done zero investigation so far, which is not true of most churches. Secondly, like most missional church books, it identifies a problem for which missional is not a solution. This book mentions the now well-known statistics about church decline, etc. But I continue to question why such books even bring up these facts when the missional church conversation holds no solutions.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last few chapters were "disappointing" it got into some stuff that seemed to flow against (in ways) the way that they were advocating a church rising up to become missional. Maybe my frustration with it was the fact that to get the tools they referred to was going to cost a church at least $500 dollars. You could do it yourself for free but if you wanted the questions they were advocating then you had to purchase their materials. The reason it got 4 stars was because 2/3 of the book. Great theology, great arguments and great reasoning. It was hard to read this book and not put it down and say loudly, "that is exactly right!". So i guess for some the $500 will be worth it! :)

[David Mullens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the best book I've read introducing the missional church. Roxburgh does an excellent job describing what missional ministry is, and what it isn't.

The one critique I do have is the time he spent describing the process he takes churches through (I'm guessing in a consulting role). I wished he would have given some more direction for local pastors in cultivating "missional imagination" within their congregations. Perhaps he does this in his book "Missional Map-making" which I have not read yet.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice overview of the concept of the missional church. Most of it is descriptive about what the missional church is and the way they engage culture, the last section is a little more practical about how to move a church to a more missional identity through what Roxburgh and Boren call the Missional Change Model (Awareness-->Understanding-->Evaluation-->Experiment-->Commitment). I think Roxburgh is more detailed elsewhere, though I appreciate the accessibility of this volume.

[Allen O'Brien]

An accessible and enjoyable introduction to doing church differently. This isn't a how-to or do-it-yourself look at church, but grapples with our identity and calling. Is church about attracting people to our services or is it about entering people's world as the body of Christ? Read this book and find out.

[Eric Lerew]

Introducing the Missional is a necessary resource for pastors and church leaders who have the desire to understand what missional church is and what it isn't. Most importantly it describes a change process that relies on the work of the Holy Spirit to help the concregation discover their missional identity and to shape the local church around the mission of God.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was pretty good, but with its focus on the church, it is a book that takes a lot of time to figure out practical application for InterVarsity. I will post more in the near future with what I take as the most helpful parts.

[James Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Practical, readable, and one of the more helpful books on the topic of transforming established congregations to move toward becoming more engaged in our neighborhoods. Well worth the read for leadership boards and members.

[Noah Stepro Stepro · Rating 3 out of 5]

good intro to missional conversation

[Garth Mailman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The theology is interesting. Whether or not you buy into the program this book promotes is your decision.

[Merv Budd · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to understand the Missional Church movement this is a must read. A great introduction to the topic from one of the innovators of the movement.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very instructive. Raises very good questions and introducing the process of thinking and moving toward a missional community