The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church

by Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch

In a time when the need for and the relevance of the Gospel has seldom been greater, the relevance of the church has seldom been less. The Shaping of Things to Come explores why the church needs to rebuild itself from the bottom up. Frost and Hirsch present a clear understanding of how the church can change to face the unique challenges of the twenty-first century. This missional classic has been thoroughly revised and updated.

Genres: Theology, Church, Christian, Leadership, Christianity, Religion, Faith

286 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Michael Frost is the founding director of the Tinsley Institute at Morling College. He is an internationally recognised Australian missiologist and one of the leading voices in the missional church movement. His books are required reading in colleges and seminaries around the world and he is much sought after as an international conference speaker. Michael Frost blogs at mikefrost.net

See also other Michael Frosts.

Reviews

[Demetrius Rogers]

I liked this book, but it was a bit of a mixed bag.

On the one hand, it was full of great ideas for the church to recover its missional impulse. I liked the encouragement to contextualize to local environs. Churches don't need to look the same. And I loved the ideas for making the church more organic. Often times this will mean smaller communities and shorter life cycles. And church growth doesn't need to occur only by addition, but also by the more powerful form of multiplication. And what if communities only existed for a season? Did that mean it was a failure?

But, here's my concern. I'm afraid these smaller communities, according to the authors, would be so tribalized that the church would fail to have the diversity larger churches can offer. The other thing I had trouble with was the assumption that everything post-Constantine has been a failure. It seems as though the authors want to leap frog all of church history to get back to the era where there were no buildings, structure, or clergy.

All in all, though, I have to commend the authors for some bold and daring proposals. It made for some stimulating reading.

[David Zimmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been stalking the missional church for the past three years. My first exposure was somewhat accidental; someone put Mike Frost's Exiles on the free table at work, and I poached it and read it and loved it. It's ridiculously long, but his vision for the church was brilliant and the people he profiled were doing things, and calling it church, that I wanted to do and call church.

Eventually my pursuit of the missional church turned mercenary, as I thought perhaps I could compel some of these folks to write books for my book-publisher employer. I lived not far from the home base of Forge America, a training network for missional church issues, and from Wheaton College, where missional church guru Alan Hirsch was working to develop a master's degree program related to these topics. So I downloaded Hirsch's The Forgotten Ways onto my phone so I could be more conversant with the issues. I loved it; his ecology of the church and mapping of a missional DNA was intriguing and exciting and hopeful. My mercenary heart was strangely warmed, and I became a believer.

Finally I started reading The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church . . . and then I put it down. Finally this week, three months into my Year of Overdue Books, I finished it. And it's really good and inspiring, just as all the other books I've read that touch on these themes are good and inspiring. It took me a while, but I'm glad I've read it.

In The Shaping of Things to Come, Hirsch and Frost work together to paint a picture of the kind of church that can survive the end of the Christendom era and reassert the centrality of Christ and the sovereignty of God. They argue for a Hebrew understanding of God and the world, as opposed to the Hellenistic worldview that dominated the church from the fourth century onward. A Hebrew perspective, according to Frost and Hirsch, is more earthy, more alert to the immanence of God, less preoccupied with theological abstractions and imperial hierarchies. God goes before his people, follows behind his people, oversees and understands his people, in the Hebrew theological mind. It's this mindset that is most conversant with the spirit of the contemporary age, which has grown weary of the scientific method and longs for a ground of being that speaks as effectively to the soul as it does to the left brain.

This Hebrew mindset allows for a more grassroots approach to the establishment and development of faith communities. Frost and Hirsch see missionaries, moreso than priests, as the appropriate template for a post-Christendom era. Priests serve in a church or cathedral, ministering to those who freely gather and transmitting the modes and mores of the past to the faithful of the next generation. This model is not a model for the expansion of the church; it's maintenance at best and managed marginalization at worst. It's fundamental to the idea of Christianity that the church is a base camp for the ongoing outreach and witness to the world around it. "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?" (Romans 10:14). Not to disparage priests, but they no longer carry the credibility they once did; they no longer preside over temples at the center of town and in the center of the people's imagination. The church is now on the periphery, a dangerous anachronism in the minds of many. The church, such as it is, is in trouble.

My boss likes to quote someone or other as saying, "There's nothing like the gallows to sharpen the mind." We think most creatively, we act most assertively, when we're in trouble. Our model can't be those who enjoy the favor of empires but must be those familiar with gallows. We have to look, in our era, to the martyrs for our model of being the church--the people of God.

The martyrs of the church have always been missionaries--loving the land of their sojourn but not bending the knee to it, reserving their praise and fidelity for God alone. Missionaries and martyrs learn to love the hard way, from a place of modesty and marginality. They form churches in the shape of the people they long to see in worship and fellowship. They see arbitrary hierarchy for what it is--occasionally helpful but always dangerous and sometimes inherently counterproductive--and they structure themselves in ways that most effectively serve their chosen mission. They don't settle for a ministry; they keep their eyes peeled for God's next movement.

It's this missionary impulse that drives the missional church that Shaping defines. Frost and Hirsch draw deeply from Martin Buber's writings to learn how Hebrew thinking interacts with the postmodern world; they draw on the work of Marshall McLuhan to understand how the habits and practices and shape of an organization such as the church can subvert the explicit and self-conscious message of the organization. Frost and Hirsch are able and nimble philosophers, and their theological work is rigorous and energizing.

But the particular genius of these two is their firm resistence to the gravitational pull of abstraction that attends to so much philosophy and theology. These two are storytellers as much as they are scholars, and they are fiercely committed to the notion that whatever the church is, it's people made in the image of God bearing the good news of Jesus Christ. As intricate as the book is, it's eminently practical and remarkably hopeful.

The type is too small; I think that's what killed my momentum on this book the first time around. I may also have hit a little "missional fatigue" somewhere along the way, maybe a sense of dissonance between the church of Frost and Hirsch's imaginations (and experiences) and the church in which I participate. I may have been too old when I started the book; I'm feeling a little younger now that I've finished it.

[Cara Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that would have been super helpful for me to read when I thought the missional church was everything. Now it just sounds like another version of trying to get people to go to church.

[Dan Curnutt · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK, a friend asked me to read this and discuss it with him. I was not a fan of their critique of "The Western Church". I believe that some of their criticism is correct, but I don't appreciate someone taking pot shots at pastors and their churches by lumping them all in the same category.

The main thesis of the text is the discussion of "Incarnational Ministry". Living in the culture that you are trying to win for Christ. They write as though this is a new concept. Well, guess what? I lived "Incarnationally" for 25 years in the inner cities of Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon and Wichita, Kansas. World Impact's ministry has done this since 1971. So, their concepts were not new to me.

I will agree that the church of today needs to learn that it no longer is attractional. But please be careful how critical you are of God's family.

[JoAnn Bastien · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book 12 years ago and it was my first introduction to Frost and Hirsch. It rocked my world! I hated it because it turned my heart inside out. And God used it to wake me up. It was painful, but it became the driving force that would eventually lead me to plant a church. A church for atheists, agnostics, and unchurched people. A church where we love our neighbors. A place to belong before you believe. I'm reading the updated version again and I'm weeping to see how far we still need to go.

[Andy Hickman · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Shaping of Things to Come:
Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church”
(2013) by Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch [2nd edition]

Really good book that stirs the blood and awakens a deep desire to get moving and seek to steer our faith communities towards renewal. I am giving this book a 5/5 star rating.

The only negative is the lengthy laborious Part Three that did not have memorable quotes as it addressed the fact that it is not by works but by faith that we are saved, with a particular lens of Hebrew spirituality. Seemed a redundant topic for this level of Christian leadership in a book designed to be a tool for missional enterprise.

Quality Quotes:

Part One: The Shape We are In

Ch.1 – Evolution or Revolution

“.. unless the church recovers its role as a subversive, missionary movement, no one .. will be the least bit interested in it.” (p18)

“The contemporary traditional church is increasingly seen as the least likely option for those seeking an artistic, politically subversive, activist community of mystical faith.” (p19)

“’The adventure has gone out of the Christian venture.’ – D.H. Lawrence (1924)” (p19)

“What has God called us to be and do in our current cultural context?” (p20)

“It means a complete shift away from Christendom thinking, which is attractional, dualistic, and hierarchical.” (p26)

“We can no longer afford our historical sentimentality, even addiction, to the past. Christendom is not the biblical mode of the church. .. We have not answered the challenges of our time precisely because we refuse to let go of the idol. This must change!” (p29)

Ch.2 – The Missional Church

Attractional, Dualistic, Hierarchical

“How much of the traditional church’s energy goes into adjusting their programs and their public meetings to cater to an unseen constituency? If we get our seating (and etc ..) .. right, they will come. This assumes that we have a place in our society and that people don’t join our churches because, though they want to be Christians, they’re unhappy with the product.” (p35)

“The Come-To-Us stance developed over the Christendom period is unbiblical. It’s not found in the Gospels or the Epistles. Jesus, Paul, the disciples, the early church leaders all had a Go-To-Them mentality.” (p35-36)


Because the missional church, by its very nature, exists organically within its host community, it has had to abandon Western Christianity’s dualistic worldview in favour of a whole-of-life spirituality.” (p37)

“Some younger leaders are discovering that in the emerging global cultural context the hierarchical model has little to say to a generation that values egalitarianism and community.” (p38)

“The emerging missional church will have these four features in common:
focus in the journey of faith and the experience of God;
Desire for less structure and more direct involvement by participants;
Sense of flexibility in order and a distinctly non-hierarchical culture;
Recognition that the experience of church is about the sustaining of discipleship.” (p39)

Part Two: Incarnational Ecclesiology

Ch.3 – The Incarnational Approach

“Reinventing the church. … All the tinkering with the existing model of church that’s going on will not save the day. Simply making minor adjustments like replacing pews with more comfortable seating, or singing contemporary pop songs instead of hymns will not reverse the fundamental decline in the fortunes of the Western church.” (p53)

“The great danger in failing to practice mission incarnationally is cultural imperialism.” (p58)

“.. the vast majority of churches in the West engage their contexts in an attractional, and therefore extractional, way.” (p59)

“If our actions imply [Christendom’s attractional mode] .. then it follows that mission and evangelism simply involve inviting people to church-related meetings. … Evangelism therefore is primarily about mobilising church members to attract unbelievers into church where they can experience God. Rather than being genuine ‘out-reach,’ it effectively becomes something more like an ‘in-drag.’” (p61)

Birds of a Feather …

“When the church is seen as a distinct category, completely separate from the world, it naturally develops an us-versus-them mentality. The missional church, with its incarnational approach, on the other hand, has built into its thinking a Go-To-Them stance. It sees itself, not as a closed system, but as an infiltrating community. Therefore it cannot tolerate the birds-of-a-feather principle. … If the church is simply a community of like-minded people, inviting other like-minded people to join them, then it will always be severely impeded in its attempt to win the world for Christ. This sort of church, then .. has no ego-strength, so self-confidence. It is a form of self-justification.” (p67)

Wells and Fences

Figure of ‘Ignorance of God’ (Culture Gap), and then ‘Discipleship’ (Gospel Gap). (p74)

Socializing

“If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience.” (1 Cor 10:27). Paul was defending his theological position regarding the liberty of the Christian, but he was also writing like a missionary.” (p78)

“.. relocate the early church back in the home and around the table, recovering the central place of the love feast. The hared table is a powerful symbol of intimacy, generosity, and acceptance. And yet many churches do not welcome unbelievers to their table and thus perpetuate the us-and-them mentality.” (p79)

“.. by inviting people to see their substitute activity (i.e. instead of Sunday church) as mission, this church saw a whole raft of new possibilities emerging. Our point is that socialising must be intentional, missional, grace-filled, and generous. It must be seen as part of a broader pattern of infiltrating a community.” (p79)

“the missional-incarnational church should be living, eating, working closely with its surrounding community, developing strong links between Christians and not-yet-Christians. It would be best to do this in the homes of not-yet-Christians and in their preferred public spaces .. but also in the homes of Christians. (p79-80)

Supporting Evangelists (1 Cor 9:13-14)

“Ironically, full-time clergy in the traditional-attractional churches often find themselves so run off their feet with the business of serving on various committees, attending myriad meetings, and running worship services, that they have very few social contacts with unbelievers. We think this is one of the great blights of the institutional church; it covertly withdraws its clergy from casual, social contact with the neighbourhood community.” (p81)

Jesus-Talk (1 Pet 3:15; Col 4:5-6)

Ch.4 – The Shape of the Missional Church

“.. but we still find many church planters who, having done substantial ‘research’ into a particular community, then go ahead and plant churches that look basically like every other church in the West, in a classic attractional mode. Instead, why not allow the rhythms and lifestyle patterns of the people we’re trying to reach determine the shape our communal life and worship meetings take? As missionaries we need to ask, “What is good news to these people?” (p87)

“A ‘person of peace’ is central to a healthy church-staring process. .. Paul followed this model while in Corinth by focusing on the home of Priscilla and Aquila, the local tentmakers (Acts 18:1-4).” (p88)

Multiplication, not Addition

The organic rhythm of a biblical church (Acts 13:1-14:28) is:
• An existing church commissions church-planting team
• This team evangelises strategic people
• With new disciples, the team establishes an indigenous church
• The indigenous church, in turn, commissions church-planting team
• This team evangelises strategic people
• And on the cycle goes. (p91)

The missional-incarnation church then sees itself as part of an ongoing process, not as an end in itself. The days when churches would build monolithic church buildings and proudly proclaim that they’ve been here since 1861 (or whenever) are ending. Now churches will see themselves as strategic parts of an organic rhythm of witness. .. it is a send-gather-disciple-reproduce mode. (p91)

Watch Your Use of Buildings

The medium is the message (p92). “Reliance on church buildings is called the church’s edifice complex!” (p93) “The gospel says ‘Go,’ but our church buildings say, ‘Stay.’ The gospel says, ‘Seek the lost,’ but our churches say, ‘Let the lost seek the church.’ The medium is the message. And more than that, once a building has been erected, the church program and budget are largely determined by it. In order to serve the mortgage, the church has to keep the pews filled and the offerings up, and so the pattern of the attractional mode is reinforced and confirmed.” (p93)

Ch.5 – The Contextualized Church

In Paul’s writings he employed the term ‘ekklesia’ (church), mindful not to give the impression that the ekklesia was just another human association or club. (Acts 2:42-47).” (p102)
• Communion (in Relationship with Christ)
• Community (in Relationship with One Another)
• Commission (in Relationship with the World) (p104)

Billabong or tidal pool? (p111-112)

Ch.6 – Whispering to the Soul

Excite Curiosity through Storytelling (p129)

Provoke a Sense of Wonder and Awe (p130)

“In cities around the world .. local churches are experimenting with sensual, experimental liturgies. The use of ancient buildings, the interplay between light and dark, the importance of visual imagery, and influence of Celtic symbols and practices is melding into an exciting new movement in worship. Many postmodern people will find this alternative worship experience more valuable for tapping into their desire for the mysterious, the Other – experiential, participatory, image-driven, and communal.” (p132)

Part Three did not have memorable quotes as it addressed the fact that it is not by works but by faith that we are saved, with a particular lens of Hebrew spirituality. Seemed a redundant topic for this level of Christian leadership in a book designed to be a tool for missional enterprise.


Part Four: Apostolic Leadership

Ch.10 – The Genius of APEST

The Ecology of Missional Growth

“organic, implicitly reproducible, and self-sustaining.” (p216)
“.. ‘fit and split’ and ‘content and transcend’.” “Fit = unity. Split = plurality. Contend (encourage debate and disagreement around core tasks) = duality. Transcend = vitality.” (p217)

The life cycle of a local church or denomination:
Dream – Belief – Goals – Structure – Mission (pinnacle) – Nostalgia – Questioning – Polarization – Closure (p218)
“At the peak of the curve, they will be a dynamic, growing suburban church, full of young families and children, and offering a variety of ministries and activities. But as the demographic of the suburb shifts and teenagers move out and young families cannot afford to buy in, the curve begins to fall. Before long, churches become nostalgic about ‘the good old days.’ This is followed by questioning about ‘what we’re doing wrong,’ which often leads to polarisation and eventual closure. It is not an unusual scenario.” (p219)

“This is not a time for more maintenance!” (p221)

Ch.11 – Imagination and the Leadership Task

The Death of the Art of Ministry

“[We] travelled around the world …. One of our lasting impressions of the churches in all those contexts is that, by and large, in spite of language differences, they tended to be invariably dull and rather predictable. They had a disturbing propensity to look, feel, and act in basically the same way. They sang the same basic songs and followed the same basic order of service in their corporate worship. The sheer predictability of it all was quite shocking and deeply disturbing.” (p225)

“Furthermore, there seems to be painfully little permission, either from denominational, local, or personal leadership, to ‘go for it and try new things.” (p226)

“We must always struggle to express the gospel in new forms. This loss of the art of mission has contributed directly to the dullness of most churches.” (footnote 3, page 226).

Imagination is More Important than Knowledge

“Art is the struggle between inner meaning and outer expression: creativity and imagination add the element of art to church life, which in so many settings can be artless, predictable, controlling, and functional. Who would deny our near desperate need to recover the distinctly artistic element – that ingredient of surprise – in our worship, discipleship, mission, and community life together?” (p229)

“Adaptability, by its very nature, demands imagination and creativity.” (p230)

“The leader is the key person in the release of spiritual creativity and innovation.. But imagination takes courage, as it involves risk. In fact if there were no courage, there could be no imagination. And if there were no risk, there could be no apostolic leadership, only priestly maintenance and more of the same boring stuff that is keeping people from getting in touch with that most radical and dangerous person – Jesus.” (p232-3)

Ch.12 – Organizing the Revolution

Christology determines Missiology determines Ecclesiology (p255)

Core beliefs: Jesus Centred
The authority of the Scriptures for all matters of life and faith
Trinity: the mysterious three-ness and oneness of God
Resurrection as the prime miracle (p256)

Pioneered organisations should be designed as organic, reproducible, and sustainable learning systems. (p257)

Church-planting missionaries cannot know beforehand how a church might form and organise itself. (p259)

Ask, ‘Where are the ant trails? And where are they leading?’ (p260)

“We should always aim at reproducibility. The missional leader needs to genuinely commit to the idea of reproducibility prior to actually starting any new venture. .. fruitfulness actually constitutes the very means of survival and growth for all of Gid’s creatures.” (p263)

The Last Say

The established church is simply going to have to put up with more chaos and lack of clarity for a while. Chaos usually goes hand in hand with creativity.” (p271)

“The ship is safest when it’s in port. But that’s not what ships were made for.” – Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage.

…………………….
Other quotes include:

“Whether [new Protestant church movements] place their emphasis on new worship styles, expressions of the Holy Spirit’s power, evangelism to seekers, or Bible teaching, these so-called new movements still operate out of the fallacious assumption that the church belongs firmly in the town square, that is, at the heart of Western culture. And if they begin with this mistaken belief about their position in Western society, all their church planting, all their reproduction will simply mirror this misapprehension.”

“It is important to note that the missional church combines the concern for community development normally characterized by the liberal churches and the desire for personal and community transformation normally characterized by the evangelical movement. This blurring of the old lines of demarcation between theologies, doctrine, and ideology within the church makes the way open for much more integrated mission to occur. It’s like saying that we want to prepare like an evangelical; preach like a Pentecostal; pray like a mystic; do the spiritual disciplines like a Desert Father, art like a Catholic, and social justice like a liberal.”

“It will place a high value on communal life, more open leadership structures, and the contribution of all the people of God. It will be radical in its attempts to embrace biblical mandates for the life of locally based faith communities without feeling as though it has to reconstruct the first-century church in every detail. We believe the missional church will be adventurous, playful, and surprising. Leonard Sweet has borrowed the term “chaordic” to describe the missional church’s inclination toward chaos and improvisation within the constraints of broadly held biblical values. It will gather for sensual-experiential-participatory worship and be deeply concerned for matters of justice-seeking and mercy-bringing. It will strive for a type of unity-in-diversity as it celebrates individual differences and values uniqueness, while also placing a high premium on community.”

“The missional church will take context seriously, but will also work on recovering the biblical narrative with its richness and potency for today’s world. When story and context are equally embraced, we are beginning to think and act missionally.”
………………………………………………………

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A SORT OF ‘GUIDEBOOK’ FOR THE ‘EMERGING CHURCH’

Michael Frost is an Australian Baptist minister and theologian, who is the founding director of the Tinsley Institute, an Australian study centre. Alan Hirsch is a missions strategist for various churches, and founder of several organizations.

The authors state in the introductory section of this 2003 book, “In this book expect to encounter revolutionary ideas that will sometimes unnerve you. We hope to … exhort God’s people to courageous missional engagement for our time---living out the gospel WITHIN its cultural context rather than perpetuating an institutional commitment APART FROM its cultural context. In writing this book we are advocating a wholesale change in the way Christians are DOING and BEING the church, and because of this ours is not necessarily a popular message…

“[W]e have not come to this place because of some liberal critique of the church’s supposed outdated theology, or merely because of fashionable anti-institutionalism, but rather from a direct sense of obligation to the primal evangelical yearning---that the gospel of Jesus Christ be heard and responded to in our time and in our place… While we admit to being unashamedly radical … in our reexamination of EVERYTHING in relation to standard church practice, we are nonetheless quite deeply committed to the historic, orthodox, Christian faith… we are devoted to the Scriptures and unmoving on the core Christian doctrines.” (Pg. ix)

They continue, “while the reader may find some practical approaches to mission in this book what we offer here is not so much a HOW-TO but more of a WHY-TO book written as something of a guidebook for the emerging missional church.. we hope to offer the reader some important hints of the way forward … for the church in the 21st century. We don’t see ourselves primarily as academics or writers, but as activists and missionaries.” (Pg. xi)

They outline, “we would like to propose three… overarching principles… 1. The missional church is INCARNATIONAL, not attractional, in its ecclesiology. By incarnational we mean that it does not create sanctified spaces into which unbelievers must come to encounter the gospel. Rather, the missional church … seeps into the … crevices of a society in order to be Christ to those who don’t know him. 2. The missional church is MESSIANIC, not dualistic, in its spirituality… Instead of seeing the world a divided between the sacred… and profane… like Christ it sees the world and God’s place in it as more holistic and integrated. 3. The missional church adopts an APOSTOLIC, rather than a hierarchical, mode of leadership… [It] embraces a biblical, flat-leadership community…” (Pg. 12)

They note, Some critics of the missional church ask, ‘When is the Bible taught? How do people learn doctrine?’ We recognize these as valid questions. But we believe such learning takes place much more effectively when the Christian faith community is involved in active mission. Too much existing Bible teaching happens to passive groups of Christians, many of whom are not involved in any kind of risky missional activity. A missional church mobilized all its members to be sent into the community.” (Pg. 27)

They suggest, “The missional-institutional church starts with the basic theological understandings: God constantly comes to those who are the most unlikely. For example, the Hebrews were the world’s outcasts… If we are to take incarnational mission seriously, then we must see that God’s future---his new creation---is not just among ‘’his people’ (churchgoing Christians) but it is among the ‘ordinary’ people---the lost, strugglers, and listless ones of our world.” (Pg. 42)

They assert, “The days when churches would build monolithic church buildings and proudly proclaim that they’ve been here since 1861 (or whenever) are ending. New churches will see themselves as strategic parts of an organic rhythm of witness. Some might exist for only a season, others might stay as an entity for generations, but the goal will be to reproduce, not just to sustain itself.” (Pg. 67)

They explain, “as proponents of contextualization, we believe that the core of the gospel is valid for all cultures and times… however, we recognize that such a gospel must be clothed in time-specific cultural forms in order for it to be communicated and understood… Contextualization attempts to communicate the gospel … and to establish churches in ways that make sense to people within their local cultural context… in such a way that it meets peoples’ deepest needs and penetrates their worldview, thus allowing them to follow Christ and remain in their own cultures.” (Pg. 83)

They report, “the theologians who worked on the doctrine of the Trinity… worked it into a full-fledged systematic doctrine… This analysis included determining… that the Son is coeternal with the Father but proceeds in eternal generation from the Father, and that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Son. And so on---hopefully, you get the idea… all we are saying is that whatever affirmations we wish to make about the eternal nature of God as Trinity must be done with a great deal of mystery and humility as the … topic [is] too great for us to truly comprehend.” (Pg. 120)

They argue, “Our spirituality must move from primarily a passive/receptive mode, to an ACTIONAL mode. This is … paradigmatically different from the way spirituality has generally been conceptualized in Western contexts. The church must recover the ability and inclination to find God in the place of action so that others might find him there as well.” (Pg. 135)

They summarize, “Sustainability is the final component of the ecology of healthy missional leadership and structuring. If ‘organic growth’ ensures the right inner life and appropriate structure for the missional church, and ‘reproducibility’ ensures that the church remains true to the gospel and missionally honest, ‘sustainability’ ensures that the church keeps itself on task over the long haul.” (Pg. 216)

They conclude, “We have written this text with the hope that it might give some legitimacy to the emerging missional church … As it stands now, we believe the whole missional church project is … somewhat precarious… Much will depend on how the now well established forms of church and Christianity respond to the whole project. Will they give permission for experimentation… or will they seek to further marginalize the fragile emerging churches popping up in the strangest places? The established church is simply going to have to put up with more chaos and lack of clarity for a while. Chaos usually goes hand in hand with creativity…” (Pg. 223)

This book will be of keen interest to Christians wanting to know more about the ‘Emergent Church.’

[Nathan Chud · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in 2005 or so at the prodding of a mentor named Floyd McClung. While there was minimal life experience for me to place it in, it has always stuck with me... enough that twenty years later I decided to revisit it. It rings true today as ever.

Notes:
- What has God called us to be and do in our current cultural context? Cultural context is essential because the missions church shapes itself to fit that context in order to transform it for the sake of the kingdom of God. By definition, the mission church is always outward looking, always changing (as culture continues to change), and is always faithful to the word of God.
- The kind of thinking that will solve the world’s problems will be a different order to the kind of thinking that created those problems in the first place. - Einstein
- The missional church is incarnational, not attractional. Messianic, not dualistic. Apostolic, not top-down one dimensional.
- Christendom refers to a period in history when the church assumed influence by its connection to temporal, secular power. A helpful way of looking at the post Christendom church is to see not disorder, but a diaspora. The whole tenor of this book will be to call post Christendom to see itself again as a missionary movement rather than as an institution.
- Christology determines missiology , and missiology determines ecclesiology, which in turn returns back to Christology in a continuous cycle of renewal.
- The church that Jesus intended was clearly meant to be a permanent revolution and not a codified civil religion.
- It’s more often than not Ben the case that Sunday services are planted rather than missional Jesus communities. When asked to discuss specific ways they can recalibrate themselves to become missional churches, many leaders begin talking about how to change their Sunday service.
- We talk routinely about the world out there. What else can that mean other than that we, the church people, are in here! This dualism has over 1700 years created Christians that cannot relate their interior faith to their exterior practice and this affects their ethics, their lifestyles, and their capacity to share their faith meaningfully with others.
- Missional church factors: focus on journey of faith, desire for less structure and more direct involvement by all, sense of flexibility, sustaining of discipleship.
- Ivan illich was once asked what is the most revolutionary way to change society. Is it violent revolution or is it gradual reform? He gave a careful answer. Neither. If you want to change society, then you must tell an alternative story
- If we want to make a thing real, we must make it local.
- The great danger in failing to practice mission incarnation is cultural imperialism.
- Jesus’ fishing disciples spent most of their working day not out on the lake surface, but on the shore, mending their nets. What might those nets be for us today?
- Little to no thought is given to established what Church members are already doing in their neighborhood and places of work.
- We need to be asking, what is good news to these people? What would the church look like for these people? Listen to your patients. They’re telling you how to heal them.
- Recognize the difference between church traditions and the Christian tradition.
- The gospel says go, but our church buildings say stay. The gospel says seek the lost, but our churches say let the lost seek the church.
- Text civilization is when the gospel presented and the response called for offense for the right reasons and not for the wrong ones.
- 70% of people describe their conversion as gradual. The average time taken is about four years.
- Jesus used parables to fail his meaning, not to make it clearer. In our attempts to make the gospel clear, we have often squeezed all the life out of it. Jesus parables were intriguing, open to interpretation, playful, interesting. They provoke people to search further for the truth.
- The world will never start for wonders, but only for the want of wonder. - Chesterton
- The Bible unhesitatingly affirms that God is constantly at work in the world in many ways, times, and places. Evangelism is not about Christians working on God’s behalf because God is powerless without them. Effective evangelism must start with recognizing where God is already at work, and getting alongside, got it what is going on there. God’s story, not ours, is the authentic starting point.
- We should read all the writers in scripture through the perspective of the gospels, including Paul.
- Hegel suggests that world history is God’s autobiography. We disagree: world history of God’s biography, as written by God and people; God supplies the letters and people write in the sentence.
- It is our contention that by focusing on development of the speculative doctrines, the early church lost the vital focus on the historical and practical implications of the faith. Mission and discipleship as such between marginal to theological correctness. Orthopraxy gave way to orthodoxy.
- The impression given to non-churchgoers is that the church suppress life.
- Holiness is primarily defined not by what we don’t do, but rather by what we do in our hallowing of the every day. The mission task of God’s people is to make them not yet holy into that which is holy. This is done by the directing of the deed toward God not away from him, and by the level of intentionality and holiness with which we perform our daily tasks.
- All vices are virtues gone wrong. - Lewis
- The Bible records God’s mighty actions in history. What we overlook is that on every page of the same Bible we come up upon God and waiting for his people’s mighty acts.
- I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. -Einstein
- Been more missional might actually mean doing fewer things.
- If the leader or team starts with reproduceability as a prior, non-negotiable, commitment, he or she will design the life of the church around that commitment and not try to add it as a subsequent, and somewhat inorganic, attachment.
- We need eco-diversity to create long-term organic, spiritual health. there is room for many different expressions of church.

[Joey Coons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Partly because I’ve very familiar with the concepts. It felt a little bit simplistic and shortsighted especially in the years since it has been published. Many of their suggestions have proven to work, but also many have fallen victim to loosing themselves to their mission. Also, this book could have been 100-125 pages shorter. They repeated ALOT of concepts. I understand repetition is the price of learning, but man!

But overall it IS a good read and some very variable insights to mission, especially to a church who hopes to be active in reaching the culture around us. But I wish it would have been more thoughtful on how to integrate some of the spiritual formation practices and values that have been in the church since the beginning. We are in a formation crisis in our day and age, and there was very little attention given to that.

[Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

For those with an interest in the "missional" church and its emergence as a significant cultural and religious adaptation, this book will be useful. There is much here that is theologically familiar to evangelicals who want to remain within that stream of the Christian tradition, but there is also a fresh thinking about the intersections of religious life and sociocultural context that would be useful to progressive Christians with globalization and religious pluralism in mind.

[Peter Holford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Frost & Hirsch's book, The Faith of Leap some years ago, and found it challenging and invigorating in a most positive way. I picked up a copy of the present book late last year and found myself dipping into it early this year after talking about apostolic leadership with some of the leaders of my church. Like many evangelical Christians, one of them flinched at the use of the adjective "apostolic" in connection with contemporary leadership - they get a sort of twitch in their face, because they have been taught for so long that the only apostles were the Twelve plus Matthias plus Paul. Plus they tend to have a fairly skewed understanding of Ephesians 4:11ff. I think it was Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones who said in his epic series on Ephesians that apostle, prophet and (even) evangelist died out with the first generation of Christians, and that pastor and teacher are basically the one role, namely, that person we call "the minister of the church." But Frost & Hirsch are among a growing number of Bible-teaching evangelicals who are bold enough to start talking again about apostolic leadership, and (like others) speak of it in terms of the APEPT (or APEST if you prefer "shepherd" to "pastor") of Ephesians 4:11. It was after the twitchy response of one church leader that I decided the take The Shaping of Things to Come off the shelf and read it, beginning with the final section, "Apostolic Leadership" and "The Genius of APEPT."

This book is incredibly rich. Readable, but dense: content heavy. It throws down the challenge to start turning back to mission as the basis for the church, rather than mission being one of the numerous things that some churches do from time to time. The book is timely, recognising the season we are in: Christendom (not Christianity) is over, folks. Its hard to put a firm date to the end of Christendom, but it was probably sometime around 2000, after a century of slowly but reluctantly winding up its affairs. The church today has more in common with the church pre-313 AD (the edict of Milan) than at any time in the last 1700 years: Christians are outsiders, on the margins, misunderstood, discriminated against, lied about and (increasingly) persecuted.

Don't read this book unless you're ready to be challenged. It is provocative; deliberately so, I would say. That's because the call it sounds to return the church to the mission of God in a post-Christendom, postmodern and post-Christian west is urgent.

On the verso page facing the contents page is the following quote from the Reverend Father Hans Küng, Swiss priest and theologian. You may not agree with everything Küng said and wrote (I don't think I do), but this quotation seems entirely appropriate to this book by Frost & Hirsch:

A church which pitches its tents without constantly looking out for new horizons, which does not continually strike camp, is being untrue to its calling. ... [We must] play down our longing for certainty, accept what is risky, live by improvisation and experiment.

[Jed Sanford · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch argue that if there is to be renewal in the declining modern Western church, Christians cannot just keep doing things the way they already are, only better; instead, there needs to be a radical rethinking of how we "do church." Criticizing the institutional church, which they see as operating on an attractional, dualistic, and hierarchical model, they propose a new way of doing church that is missional, incarnational, messianic, and apostolic.

I think the authors are exactly right that there needs to be some radical rethinking of how we "do church," and some of their ideas about what this should look like are sound, such as their idea that evangelism must involve forming real friendships with people outside the church, and their questioning of the idea that churches must always have buildings and full-time, paid, professional clergy.
However, I found some of their ideas very questionable. They repudiate a hierarchical model of church leadership as an unbiblical idea originating with the Constantinian church. In its place, they propose a fivefold leadership model of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, claiming this is how churches MUST operate. However, this proposal is based on a questionable interpretation of a single passage of Scripture (Eph 4:1-16); it ignores the fact that other New Testament passages suggest a hierarchical model, and that by the early second century, the Church had already developed a clear hierarchy of presbyters and bishops.
To me, the most problematic proposal they make is that the church should be a "centered set" with very fuzzy boundaries, rather than a "bounded set" with a clear distinction between the Church and the world. This is basically a repudiation of biblical church discipline, which the Church has always regarded as vitally important for maintaining the integrity of the church's life and witness. The authors provide no explanation for why clear biblical teaching about church discipline should be ignored, or why we should think that there should not be a clear difference between those inside the church and those outside, marked by baptism (incidentally, the sacraments are practically never mentioned in the entire book, a glaring omission in a book about ecclesiology). The early, pre-Christendom Church universally took for granted the importance of strict Church discipline. Shouldn't the post-Christendom Church do the same?

Overal, the book is a mixed bag of some good ideas and other ideas which are questionable or even highly problematic.

[Rob Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revolution in the Making

Reading this book was inspiring. The authors provided a well structured book on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. There is an introduction followed by the three main sections (Incarnational Ecclessiology, Messianic Spirituality and Apostolic Leadership). In each section the authors detail a specific aspect of church as God intended. The book is targeted towards church planters but is a great resource for anyone interested in knowing more about being a disciple and being church ought to mean.

[Robby Eckard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made a strong case that new ways of thinking about church and church planting are needed, though perhaps too quick to completely throw out existing church models. I would have appreciated further discussion on where the current model and the model proposed here could work together in the spread of the Gospel. But overall the model they propose is compelling and I believe should be considered heavily when planting a new church.

[Taylor Reavely · Rating 5 out of 5]

I appreciated this book because it articulated my own mind and heart more clearly than my mind had thought or my heart had felt. If you don't agree with the premise that the era of Christendom is over, then you probably won't feel the same affinity. Whether this book affirms what you already think, or challenges your missional strategy, I recommend it.

[Phinehas Osei · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a breath of fresh air! If you are tired of seeing the church drag itself on through the arena of modern times, you should read this. It's filled with such insights about what is hampering the progress of the church, and offers ideas about how to get the church running again.
In the end, you'll be reinforced in your belief that Christ will build his church.

[Luke Mohnasky · Rating 2 out of 5]

The shaping of things to come does okay in introducing pluralism/postmodernism to fundamentalist Christians, but is an empty shell besides that. This book offers claim after claim without convincing evidence. It feels like, as a reader, I’m just supposed to believe the authors because they said it, not because they show extensive research or biblical theology.

[Claire Stamper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow wow!! A favorite read for sure. So inspiring. These men are modern day prophets, Jacque Elluls of the 21st century church.

There was a lot of inspiration and food for thought on beginning missional movements. I would like to hear the authors’ thoughts on revitalizing current church culture. Is there hope for that? What does it look like to step into that?

[Chris Wilder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a love hate relationship with this book. There are sections that were truly revolutionary and spoke to many of the concerns I have. Yet other sections were so insistent on overhaul without full understanding of all that would be lost

[Katie Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be a must read for all church planters and ministers in the US today. We need a new way forward to be relevant and helpful in the current age.

[Chad Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

~3.5/5

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great ideas but a bit too heady and wordy for its own good.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hirsch is profound as per usual. Wish I could make every pastor I know read this.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

A challenging read, which resonates much with me. I want to go through it again slowly and more critically in order to mine its treasures.

[Steve Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was encouraged to read this book because of how it talks about centered-set faith, which is really important in my life and church. Got that and at least 9 other things. 10 highlights for me, stuff I made a note to look back and read again.

1) The Paulo Coelho quotation (from The Pilgrimage) that the book ends with: "The ship is safest when it's in port. But that's not what ships were made for." (271)

2) Discussion of centered-set faith. "Core members of the church will exhibit the features of Christ's radical lifestyle (love, generosity, healing, hospitality, forgiveness, mercy, peace, and more), and those who have just begun their journey toward Christ... are still seen as belonging.... Belonging is a key value." (70) "Another advantage of the centered set is that it allows for massive diversity and for a deeper underlying unity based on Jesus and filtered through our distinctive organizational values." (255-256)

3) Discussion of what they call "incarnational evangelism" (pgs. 75-82) marked by holiness, prayer, socializing, support of gifted evangelists, and Jesus talk. Ways they define holiness: justice, mercy, walking humbly with God, while within sight and reach. And make sure that:
a) no one is alone with their problems
b) no one has to conceal their disabilities
c) there aren't some that have a say and others that have nothing to say
d) neither the old nor the little ones are isolated
e) one bears with the other even when it is unpleasant and there is no agreement
f) one can leave the other in peace when the other needs it.

4) Words on contextualization of the gospel. "...new converts understand their culture better than do those of us who examine it from without. If we teach the Bible effectively, and if we have examined the culture creatively, then we must trust the Christian community to evaluate the changes in language, customs, practices, and beliefs that need to be embraced in order to critically contextualize the gospel.... Leaders (can) trust the congregation, something that clergy have been notoriously poor at doing in the past." (116)

5) Encouragement to practice a "sensual, experiential liturgy." (132). LOVE this!

6) A "spirituality of engagement" (127) that includes living in wonder and peace. "To whisper into the souls of not-yet-Christians, we need to lie in the grass under a starry sky with them." (131)

7) Strong and extensive teaching on Hebraic, non-dualistic spirituality. (156-167)

8) One of Kierkegaard's parables of the geese - courage, we are meant to fly!

9) Visionary leadership as the "management of meaning." "All that a great visionary leader does is awaken and harness the dreams and visions of the members of a given community and give them deeper coherence by means of a grand vision that ties together all the 'little visions' of the members of the group." (232)

10) Key questions for church acculturation and growth:
-Observe the organic social rhythms of the host or target community
-Watch for social patterning.
-Ask where the social centers in your community are.
-Ask "What is church for this group of people?"
-Do not import an alien or artificial model of church. Develop one that is indigenous to that culture or subculture.
-Keep asking, "What is good news for this community?" (260)

[Karen L. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The authors define a lot of new emergent church terms and even have a glossary in the back of the book. He defines and discusses a need for more missional communities. They give some nice out reach examples, but these could be done by church folks in existing churches. No need to leave and start a new one.Having visited lot's of different churches and denominations (was a former missionary to a foreign field with a para church organization) , it seems that this emergent church mode gets into the fad or trendy out reaches. Basically if people are discipled and catechized well they become missional."Follow me and I will make you fishers of men" (Jesus). Even if they are not catechized, but are taught and discipled, they generally naturally live missional lives. There are enough denominations out there- far too many. New church plants aren't the answer. Why can't more of the Emergents work with the local churches in areas where they have a heart for the people. (Some of them do) Perhaps if they start humbly with submission to a local body, they can accomplish more. The Jesus people generation of the late 60's early 70's did not so much start their own churches, but were planted in the already existing churches in communities. The emergent church needs at least to keep connected to the historical church. There just seems to be wisdom in that. It seems the reinventing of the wheel keeps happening! I don't know if the emergent church is really doing anything that new? Yet perhaps some churches need to hear the missional message. No doubt going out and mixing with the community is important.

[Frank Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an outstanding book. The topic is centred on what the Church of Jesus Christ should look like in the twenty-first century. The authors want the reader to understand how much of what we call church, has nothing to do with Jesus, or the Bible, but rather is merely tradition. Even more frightening, many of these traditions have their roots in archaic Roman government structures, and should have never found their way into churches in the first place. Frost and Hirsh start by showing us where we (as Christians) are right now, and how far we have embraced irrelevant (or even damaging traditions). They continue to describe Christian spirituality in light of these same traditions. In particular they show how the ideas of withdrawal from the world are based on a Greek philosophical mindset, and should have had no place in the church. In comparison, they recommend a traditional Hebrew (or Jewish) wordview, where the physical is recognised as a good part of God’s creation. This part of the book initially had me a sceptical, but they fully convinced me. The final portion of the book discussed what a church of the twenty-first century might look like, and how it may be led. This part of the book was quite brilliant. While, I never like McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message” the authors made considerable sense of this, relating to the Christian life: What we actually do, represents what is actually important to us, and this ends up being a strong message. It is therefore crucially important that our lives, and our churches act our those things that are truly important to God, and in so doing have the correct message.

[William Edward Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book paints an accurate picture of the major problems facing the Western Church and poses viable and theologically valid propositions for how to truly engage evangelism in this post-Christian American culture. I do, however, believe that there are many Pastors who would, if they had been properly educated and trained at the Seminary level, adopt a model of "Church" that sheds the hierarchal-authoratative structure and actually makes an impact in their communities. I also believe there are many Pastors who refuse to see that indeed there are many, many, many individuals who would say "Yes" to Jesus, if they did not feel compelled to say "No" to what church has become today. There is too much of a comfort level with "church as we know it", and little sense of urgency, it seems within churches, to engage (and love) everyone for the sake of the Kingdom. Somehow the mission to "love they neighbor as thy self" has become interpreted as "hang out in a safe and secure church setting with those who look, think, and act like you". This is apparent by the mere fact that 11:00am on Sunday morning is still the most segragated hour in the country; segregation which is not just racial, but is also cultural, socio-economic, class-related, and on and on. Homogeneity within local churches is a clear indicator that God's "mission" is not being engaged effectively.

[Roger Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished reading this a month or two ago - but I'm delayed in posting my reviews.

I enjoyed the majority of this book. Frost and Hirsch discuss what Christian mission looks like in today's modern developed world - and how certain mission strategies of the past are no longer effective in reaching post-modernists. I particularly enjoyed the many examples of Christians performing mission in new and unique ways that are relevant to the 'culture' they are attempting to reach. Part of my reading of this book was at the same time as taking the Perspectives on World Missions course - and they paralleled well (though Perspectives tends to have a greater focus on the undeveloped world, while Shaping of Things to Come has a focus on the developed world).

Portions of the latter half of the book were rather technical and abstract in nature, and made for difficult reading as a result. However, I did appreciate the summary chapter at the end that discusses some practical applications that can be taken from the concepts discussed in the book.

I'm giving away my paperback copy on my blog - http://family.bob-space.com. Check it out if you want to pick it up free.

[Steph Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. This was a great book. But also a somewhat unsettling book. It's the sort of book that challenges you to get up and do something, as illustrated so well by the image of Kirkegaard's geese who learn all about their ultimate destiny of flying but yet live in the safety of the farmyard. It is a book that I think I will be processing for a while. I may write about it on my blog if I have time. One last salient image I am pondering is that of the centered-set church (represented by a type of farming in which animals are drawn by a well), as opposed to the bounded-set church (represented by a farm bordered with fences). This is quite reminiscent of some of Rob Bell's ideas about the freedom we should have in Christ (see the images of the trampoline vs. the brick wall in Velvet Elvis).