How Churches Become Missional

By W. Rodman MacIlvaine III

[W. Rodman MacIlvaine III is Senior Pastor, Grace Community Church, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and Veritas Worldview Institute Fellow, Oklahoma Wesleyan University, Bartlesville, Oklahoma.]

How can churches shift to a missional focus? As Roxburgh and Romanuk put it, people ask, “How do we transition from a consumer model of church to one that is essentially missional in nature.”[1]

As this writer began to explore potential hypotheses for how missional change occurs, he assumed that senior leaders initiated changes in the conventional manner: (a) set down a plan, (b) recruit leaders, and (c) cast a vision. However, an extensive review of missional literature suggested that this is not the way missional culture change takes place in most churches. On the contrary the literature reveals that missional change is often quirky, nonlinear, and generally precipitated by a crisis.[2]

When a crisis is responded to in a spirit of humility and discovery, it creates an environment in which missional culture change can take place. This missional change is then expressed in service to the community (an external change), and a different way of worshipping as a community (an internal change).

Of course not all churches encountering a crisis will move in a missional direction. Some leaders respond to crises with anxiety and revert toward rigid leadership styles. Others seek to live vicariously through the ministry models of other churches. But churches primed for healthy missional change see their crises as an invitation to discover God’s new direction for ministry.

The Role Of Crisis In Leadership Development

In 2002 Warren Bennis made a claim that is rare in leadership literature. He suggested that he and his coauthor had made a new discovery. “We have developed a theory that describes, we believe for the first time, how leaders come to be. We believe we have identified the process that allows an individual to undergo testing and to emerge not just stronger, but equipped with the tools he or she needs both to lead and to learn.”[3]

Initially their research was designed to study generational differences in leaders. Interviewing eighteen leaders between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, and twenty-five leaders age seventy and over, their objective was to observe how leaders grow and change relative to their respective cultures. Their ultimate desire was to crystallize a comprehensive theory of leadership, but their research moved in an unexpected direction.

One theme proved common in each leader’s life: crisis. Each leader had experienced one or more painful events that became a defining moment and propelled them into greater leadership effectiveness. This was true regardless of their age.

Corroboration From Other Authors

In the years since its publication Bennis’s crucible model has powerfully influenced others who write about leadership.[4] Bill George calls these crises “transformative experiences,” defining them as follows: “A transformative experience may come at any point in your life . . . [transformations] for many leaders result from going through a crucible.”[5] Like Bennis, George suggests that these experiences cause leaders to reframe their stories and increase their self-understanding.

Writing from a distinctly Christian perspective, Dan Allender also suggests that crises are integral parts of leadership development.

“In order to reclaim the joy and passion of leadership, we must walk the valley of the shadow of death and name the cost of leadership. . . . Every leader must count the cost of leadership, and the cost includes . . . crisis. . . . No one escapes these twists and turns in the valley.”[6]

Mary Townsend writes, “Crises occur when an individual is exposed to a stressor and [when] previous problem-solving techniques are ineffective. This causes the level of anxiety to rise. Panic may ensue when new techniques are used and resolution fails to occur.”[7] This disequilibrium and lack of control cause people to seek help from mentors, counselors, or friends.

For the crucible to have its intended effect, leaders must have a process in place to forge meaning out of the crisis in a way that gives fresh hope.

Nine Types Of Crises That Fuel Missional Change

Crises that lead to missional change fall into nine categories.

First, spiritual crises. The leader comes to a place of doubt about some aspect of theology or even the goodness of God. During the crisis phase he encounters a personal “dark night of the soul.” As he begins to resolve this issue, he thinks differently about the mission of the church.[8] He identifies with the serving ministry of Jesus and seeks to emulate that in his leadership style.

Second, cultural crises. The leader experiences frustration that the North American church in general and his church in particular are failing to engage postmodern culture with relevant expressions of ministry. As the leader and his team wrestle with the implications of this for their church, he comes to see missional ministry as a way of re-engaging people who are dissatisfied with church.[9] Serving becomes a context for expressing God’s common grace.

Third, midlife crises. The leader becomes painfully aware that he has given the bulk of his ministry years to a consumeristic flock that is never satisfied and constantly demands more. He asks, “What am I going to do in my remaining years to advance the Lord’s work and not just play church?”[10]

Fourth, interpersonal crises. A senior leader clashes with a ministry partner, which crushes expectations and creates pain. As the leader works through that pain, he comes to see his ministry in a different light.[11] This broken relationship makes the leader sensitive to the hurts of marginalized people in his community.

Fifth, moral crises or potential moral crises. A senior leader confronts the presence of a habit in his life that is out of control. As he effectively engages this struggle, he begins to minister from the vantage point of the healing he has experienced.[12] As he communicates his struggles, others with this same struggle are attracted to his ministry.

Sixth, situational crises. A church that once occupied a vibrant place in an urban area is now surrounded by poverty and pain. Or a church that was once highly focused stalls, and the leaders ask, “Do we move? Do we shift our vision? Or, do we stay and minister—missionally—in the spot where God has placed us?”[13]

Seventh, health crises. The leader or a member of a leader’s family goes through a crisis. The physical or mental distress requires extensive treatment and time away from the daily tasks of the church.[14] But the crisis also causes the leader to be on the lookout for others with health issues and then minister to them.

Eighth, managed crises. Chase Oaks Church, Plano, Texas, moved toward a missional ministry through a managed crisis. At the beginning of their transition, they faced five challenges: an imminent pastoral change, a location change, a name change, a shift in worship style, and a realignment of their subministries. The convergence of these issues constituted a crisis. However, the crisis was anticipated, and through skillful management of these challenges, they were able to move in a missional direction.[15]

Ninth, learning crises. Many churches move in a missional direction by deciding to learn from experiences gained on short-term mission trips.[16] For instance a church that has historically excelled at foreign missions returned from a short-term trip and asked, “Why don’t we feel the same passion for our city that we had when we ministered overseas? And how might we do things differently if we regarded our city as if it were a foreign mission field?” This was the experience of Bishop Lesslie Newbigin. After retiring from ministry in India, he discovered his own country was a more challenging mission field than India, and he adopted missionary principles as he ministered within his city.[17]

Biblical Examples Of The Crucible Model

Job endured a severe illness and in the process learned about the presence and power of God. Abraham waited more than twenty-five years for the birth of Isaac. God led him into a crucible in Genesis 22. Joseph was imprisoned for over thirteen years. His imprisonment became formative to his eventual leadership as prime minister over Egypt.[18] Jacob wrestled with God and became “incapacitated at the center of his human power.”[19] But he became the progenitor of the twelve tribes. Moses was forced to flee Egypt and to tend sheep in the wilderness for forty years. God then called him to serve as liberator of His people (Exod. 2:11-5:23). Elijah faced solitude at the Brook Cherith (1 Kings 17:1-7) before confronting Baal worshippers. Daniel was forced to adapt to the secular culture in Bablyon as a prelude for serving three of the most powerful kings in the world at that time (Dan. 1-4). God prepared Jonah to minister in Nineveh through his painful crucible experience in the belly of the great fish (Jon. 2).

In the Book of Acts the church discovered its sending identity as it encountered a series of crucibles. In Acts 6:1-6 a crisis stimulated missional serving. In Acts 8 a crisis, in this case persecution, stimulated missional going. In 11:19-26 a crisis prompted the church to learn to minister to those on the margins, and in chapter 15 theological conflict prompted the church to make new theological discoveries that further stimulated mission.

Two Observations On The Biblical Model

This biblical data suggests that two important discoveries take place when leaders encounter a crucible. First, the leader learns something experientially about the person of God that previously may have been known only in a theoretical way.

Paul’s thorn in the flesh is a classic example. Committed to the rigors of travel, this thorn had the potential to be immensely discouraging. However, after three seasons of prayer Paul made fresh discoveries about the presence and power of God. He wrote, “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness’ “(2 Cor. 12:9). This led Paul to submit courageously to God’s ways. “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, and difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (vv. 9-10).[20]

Paul’s attitude toward his crucible was honorable, because he knew that the outcome was increased spiritual power. Following the general pattern of Bennis and Thomas, the Sloan Leadership Institute uses the term “sense-making” for leadership discoveries in the crucible.[21] Paul was able to “make sense” through prayer, reflection, and bold acceptance of his circumstances in light of God’s transcendent meaning.

A second observation about the biblical model is that the “in-crucible” leader discovers new insights about theological concepts. Stark suggests that theologians are often forced to wrestle with the Scriptures in fresh ways as they confront new realities.[22]

Jeremiah 29:4-7 offers a fascinating example of this. The recently displaced exiles faced a crisis of identity. Their city of Jerusalem lay in ruins. Their temple had been reduced to rubble, and the instruments of worship had been removed to Babylon, where the exiles were taken as captives (Dan. 1:1-2).

This crucible of epic proportions could have destroyed their faith, but in the midst of that crucible Jeremiah penned a prophetic letter with insights that must have seemed radical. God instructed them to do four things: (1) build houses and plant gardens—build a financial presence, (2) take wives and start families—build a domestic presence, (3) seek the welfare of the city—cultivate a civic presence, and (4) pray for the city—have spiritual influence.

The exiles learned theological truths that they might not have learned apart from this crucible. The crux of their learning could be stated this way: common ground with secular culture is a vehicle for advancing God’s work in the culture, provided there is no moral compromise. This is the same principle on which Jesus built His ministries with tax collectors (Luke 5:27-32) and Paul with Gentiles (1 Cor. 9:19-23).

Examples Of The Crucible Model In Church History

In church history many leaders experienced crucibles that radically shifted the direction of their ministries. When Martin Luther became the leader of the Protestant Reformation, he pioneered new theological positions. Many of these positions had to be worked out quickly as he translated the Bible into German and prepared for his daily preaching and teaching.[23]

Embracing Psalm 119:71, Luther sought to learn theology experientially through his suffering. He developed the conviction that suffering was an important key to understanding what the Scriptures mean and how they apply to life.[24] He suffered from kidney stones, headaches, ear infections, constipation, and hemorrhoids.[25] However, he said that these were the trials that made him a theologian—precisely what the movement needed from Luther at this nascent stage.[26]

Charles Haddon Spurgeon offers another example of the crucible model. On October 19, 1856, when Spurgeon was twenty-two, massive crowds jammed into the largest public building in London. Someone cried, “Fire!” During the ensuing chaos, congregants, fearing for their lives, bolted from their seats. Some were killed; others were injured. Spurgeon spent the next several weeks in seclusion, suffering depression and anxiety from which he never fully recovered. At a time when authenticity was in vogue in the general culture but not in the church culture, Spurgeon’s deep struggles propelled him to levels of authenticity unknown among evangelical pastors. Moreover, Spurgeon’s ministry was missional long before the word came into fashion. Through Spurgeon’s leadership, over thirty ministries were started to meet the desperate needs of London’s poor, including orphanages and homes for elderly women.

Summary

The crucible model of leadership is well established within three literary streams: the biblical narrative, church history, and current works on leadership. However, the presence of a crisis does not automatically guarantee leaders will make missional changes. For missional change to take place, a certain kind of learning environment must also be present within the crucible.

Moving From Crisis To Missional Vision

Many assume that missional transitions in churches are primarily organizational in nature, led by senior pastors who learned the principles of engineering missional transitions and then mandated them on the strength of their charisma.

This suspicion is fueled by the massive literature from the “church-effectiveness movement” (ca. 1990-2004),[27] most of which is still in print and is selling well. Mancini notes that this movement came about in the early 1990s as church-growth writers recognized that church-growth techniques did not always work. Therefore a slightly different genre emerged: the “leadership effectiveness” genre, still cast within the worldview of modernity.[28]

However, the majority of missional authors reject both the church-growth model and the church-effectiveness model, assuming that long ago North American culture became thoroughly entrenched in postmodernity.[29] Therefore modernist notions of church effectiveness no longer apply and even frustrate change.

Without necessarily embracing the postmodern worldview, missional authors such as Roxburgh, Hirsch, Kiefert, and Frost ask, What are the new processes for moving toward missional ministry, given the reality of postmodernism? Today Roxburgh is the author most published in the field of missional change. Basing his change model on the research of anthropologist Victor Turner,[30] Roxburgh explores the sociology of transition in three phases: separation, margin (also known as liminality), and reengagement.

Separation Phase

In the separation phase a group loses its connection with an older, more established and more comfortable order. Roxburgh suggests that churches are currently experiencing this separation phase on two levels.

At the macrolevel the North American culture has changed radically in the past twenty-five years. The Christendom model, which suggested that the church was the chaplain to society, lasted in the West from roughly A.D. 313 into the late twentieth century. As the Christendom model has disintegrated, church leaders have sensed their marginalized status. Olson shows that church attendance is in decline,[31] McNeal explains that the church is seen increasingly as irrelevant,[32] and even within the evangelical community some suggest the local church, as currently conceived, is not only irrelevant but even pagan.[33] Moreover, the church is experiencing an increasingly strained relationship with the state and with secular universities, largely because of disagreement about the origin of life and the sanctity of life in the womb. Thus the church no longer enjoys the central place in North American culture it once did.

Churches are changing at the microlevel as well. The modernist ideal of the senior-pastor-dominated church has led to a crisis among pastors.[34] Hallmarks of the church-growth movement—contemporary worship, small groups, and the use of spiritual gifts—were not producing the numerical growth or spiritual growth that were expected.[35] Discouraged pastors wondered what they were doing wrong, not realizing that their increasingly marginalized, minority status was the result of broader culture shifts.

Roxburgh and Romanuk have underscored that the kind of change taking place in the postmodern matrix is not predictable change, but “discontinous change,” a change so profoundly different and unsettling that leaders quickly realize they are unprepared for its onslaught.[36] When church leaders finally realize that they are in crisis, and fully accept this reality, they enter a new phase, the liminal phase.

Liminal Phase

In the liminal phase (from the Latin limin, “threshold”), a group enters a transitional period with a purpose. The liminal phase refers to rites of passage in preindustrial cultures. “Individuals [were] detached from their established and normal role in society by being placed outside the social nexus in an in-between state. After some ritualized passage of time, they [were] returned, inwardly transformed and outwardly changed, to a new place and status.”[37]

This concept of liminality is an apt metaphor for churches in missional transition because of the assumption that church leaders should encounter this transition in community as a team. More-over, this metaphor is entirely biblical. But as Newbigin suggests, if missional churches are to be effective in the postmodern context, they must champion their countercultural identity, as a community, and offer a new expression of life in Christ.

The following agenda for the liminal phase may be suggested. First, the team becomes open to a renewed relationship with God as the pain of the crucible intensifies.[38] They express this openness by engaging in corporate spiritual disciplines.[39] An especially important component of this is the “de-catastrophizing of the crucible” by reflecting on God’s goodness and His sovereign control even in the crucible.

Second, the team moves toward a self-identity called communitas—the transformation of a group into an extremely close-knit team. When a leadership team in crisis feels marginalized and senses they are endangered, they commit to their common cause with renewed vision.[40]

Third, the team nurtures a different leadership environment. Consciously moving away from the modernist, top-down, proclamation of new vision, they suggest a bottom-up discovery process in which leaders speak with church members about where and how God is working in their midst.

Fourth, this renewed missional leadership team then begins to experiment with missional initiatives. Many missional authors suggest a five-step “Missional Change Model,”[41] based on Everett Rogers’s “Diffusion of Innovations” model,[42] in which change is viewed as a zig-zag process or an S-curve. Robert Lewis reflects this same kind of thinking.[43] Roxburg and Romanuk’s missional change model seems to have become standard in the literature. It includes five steps.

Step one: Awareness of the need for missional transition within the church. At this level the church begins to sense the crisis within the wider culture, and simultaneously senses God’s nudge to exit their comfort zone. Sometimes this step is precipitated by discussions with neighbors who surround the church.[44]

Step two: A growing understanding about what a missional transition might mean for the church. This step can be aided by reading about others who have experienced missional change.

Step three: Evaluation of what is happening in the church. Jim Collins’s dictum, “Face the brutal facts,” is a step toward the process of sensing the future God has in store for the church.

Step four: Creating missional experiments within the immediate local community and then evaluating those experiments. A crucial component of these experiments will typically be a renewed commitment to the biblical value of hospitality in which people use their homes as beachheads for ministry.[45]

Step five: Commit to a process of including a majority of church members in missional ventures so that a culture of communitas begins to develop.

Reengagement Phase

After successfully coming through the liminal phase the group is equipped to reemerge into their specific indigenous context—their city—with a new missional vision.

Summary

As missional leaders experience brokenness, they call their congregation into a new spiritual experience. Empowering church members to embrace their exilic—resident alien—status, these leaders foster a sense of communitas around a missional vision. The church then begins to engage its city in a countercultural way of life found in Christ.

How then do missional churches serve their cities?

Serving The Community

Historical Background

The body of Christ has enjoyed a glorious history of meeting significant needs within indigenous cultures around the world.[46] In the first three centuries it was service primarily that contributed to the exponential growth of the church throughout the Mediterranean world.[47] Even the pagan emperor Julian the Apostate admitted that religions rooted in polytheism did not have adequate resources to sustain service, especially when natural disasters such as plagues and fires swept through cities.[48]

Moreover, during seasons of spiritual renewal (such as the awakenings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) Christians recommitted themselves to the value of serving. For instance England experienced a profound evangelical revival in the mid-1800s, characterized by a renewed commitment to serving the poor.[49] Lord Shaftsbury helped enact laws protecting children.[50] George Mueller created orphanages, and William Wilberforce, in addition to helping abolish slavery, worked for the protection of animals, a commitment that stemmed from his belief that Christians are stewards of God’s creation.

But the social-gospel movement in the United States in the early twentieth century challenged this historic culture of service. Social-gospel proponents served their cities, but they had no use for evangelism. Evangelicals became passionate about sharing the gospel, but they showed little concern for social action.

A historic shift seems to have occurred in 1973. Through the influence of two men, evangelicals became reawakened to the value of serving. John R. W. Stott’s leadership in the Lausanne Movement and the books he authored set the stage for “the whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world.” For Stott the whole gospel included social action.[51] Stott’s theologically conservative pedigree caused evangelicals to take a second look at social action as a legitimate expression of God’s method for engaging the world.

Francis A. Schaeffer awakened evangelicals to a cause with clear moral implications: abortion is the taking of a human life.[52] Evangelicals who watched Schaeffer’s films soon became passionate about serving unwed mothers in an effort to help stem the tide of abortions across the country.[53]

However, this new foray into service was frequently inconsistent. While evangelicals could become passionate about serving those in need overseas, they were somewhat less passionate about serving the needy domestically, and while evangelicals became passionate about serving unwed mothers, they were not quite so passionate about serving those stricken with AIDS.

Recent Evangelical Shift

A cluster of works between 1991 and 2001 awakened a new generation to the value of service. Specifically Sjogren’s books give examples of churches reaching into their communities by being God’s conduits of common grace.[54]

Robert Lewis’s seminal work The Church of Irresistible Influence seems to have helped launch a missional movement.[55] Lewis reported on a solidly evangelical church passionately devoted to working with their community, meeting needs, and seeing significant fruit. Lewis’s second work, Culture Shift solidified his role as the leader in missional transitions among evangelicals.[56]

Theological Reappraisal

Missional theologians began to focus on the serving nature of God.[57] Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah called Him a servant (Isa. 52:13; 53:11; Zech. 3:8). Jesus summed up His ministry as one of service, when He said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

This theological construct about God being a serving God encouraged evangelicals to reemphasize His role in common grace. If God is lavishly generous to those who do not bow to His lordship, how can His followers do any less? Should they not serve those on the margins of society?

Public Schools As A Target For Service

Churches moving in a missional direction will want to examine the specific needs of their local culture, paying special attention to those institutions that are experiencing chaotic changes. Mancini suggests that in many cases churches will discover tremendous needs in their local school districts. For instance a church might recognize that in certain parts of the city, “the education system is a huge failure; gaping community need is evidenced by a high percentage of high school dropouts.”[58] Many missional churches find that their first foray into missional ministry is through the public schools because their children spend most of their time there and they are most aware of their needs.[59]

From Shotgun Service To Targeted Service

In 2005 the Kennedy School of Government released a case study entitled, “A Mega-Church Takes on Urban Problems: Fellowship Bible Comes to South Midtown.”[60] One of the important discoveries in this study is that this church now targets its serving efforts to a specific part of their city. Rather than maintaining the shotgun approach that many missional churches adopted in their early transition, Fellowship Bible Church, Little Rock, Arkansas, targeted a specific geographic area of the city for an extended period of time with the intention of making a sustained missional change. Their theme “One Church, One School, One Neighborhood” emerged in 2003. Their goal was not a quick-fix approach. On the contrary, they looked at making changes over four generations or perhaps over fifty years.[61]

Deeply rooted in the biblical concept of common grace, Robert Lewis’s strategy looks for sustained social transformation. In this vision, as applied by Fellowship Bible Church, “school mentoring would serve both as an end in itself—to improve student performance and provide a volunteer opportunity for church members—but also to serve as a means for [the church] to raise its profile in the neighborhood and gain the confidence and trust of residents and local churches. Both would be important in helping [the church] realize its larger goals.”[62]

Summary

In missional churches service is seen as a return to a historic value of the church, temporarily lost during the twentieth century. In the missional construct, service is especially local. “What are the needs in our immediate situation? How can we meet those needs as an expression of God’s common grace for long-term sustained culture change within our community?”

Conclusion

Senior leaders in contemporary churches recognize that massive shifts are taking place in their culture, requiring fresh and sometimes counterintuitive ways of engaging secular and postmodern people. The seeker/performance model, pioneered by Willow Creek Community Church, helpful in the 1980s and 1990s, does not seem to attract young postmoderns.[63] Younger Christians regard other structured models with suspicion as well.[64]

Increasingly this group looks at megachurches with suspicion, wondering if behind their massive size is a pastor whose real passion is power instead of God’s work.[65] Church leaders wonder if a missional approach to ministry might be the way to connect with postmodern people who feel the church is out of touch with emerging spirituality and isolated from the needs of hurting people.[66]

This article has argued that most churches moving in a missional direction do so because of a crisis. So the final word to leaders in transition is this: Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace (Dan. 3:24-25), accept the crucible and Christ who reveals Himself from within it.

Notes

1. Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006), xiii.
2. Roxburgh offers a helpful perspective on the nonlinear nature of missional change (ibid., 84-103).
3. Warren Bennis and Robert J. Thomas, Leading for a Lifetime: How Defining Moments Shape the Leaders of Today and Tomorrow (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007), 4 (italics added).
4. Bennis’s influence as the elder statesman of leadership theory is clear from the “Warren Bennis” imprint at Jossey-Bass publishers. Clearly anyone writing under this imprint will have studied Bennis and taken his theories into account.
5. Bill George with Peter Sims, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007), 45 (italics added).
6. Dan B. Allender, Leading with a Limp: Turning Your Struggles into Strengths (Colorado Springs: WaterBrook, 2006), 28-29.
7. Mary C. Townsend, Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing: Concepts of Care, 4th ed. (Philadelphia: F. A. Davis, 2003), 205.
8. Dave Tomlinson cites an example of this in The Post-Christian Evangelical: Revised North American Edition (Grand Rapids: emergentYS Books [imprint of Zondervan], 2003), 18.
9. A growing number of authors are concerned that the church has failed to engage the postmodern culture. Their work has resonated with younger pastors seeking to reach peers in their own cohort. These authors include Dan Kimball, They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007); David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007); Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005); Sarah Cunningham, “Interview: Dissing Illusionment—Counter Culture Currents,” Leadership (winter 2007): 17; Katie Galli, “Dear Disillusioned Generation—the ‘Failed Experiment’ Called the Church Still Looks Better than the Alternatives: The CT Review,” Christianity Today, April 2008, 69; and David Olson, The American Church in Crisis: Groundbreaking Research Based on a National Database of Over 200,000 Churches (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 191-226.
10. Milfred Minatrea has observed this in his consulting with seasoned pastors (interview by the author, July 26, 2007).
11. This seems to have been the experience of Dieter Zander at Willow Creek Community Church (Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches, 323-28).
12. Chuck Colson exemplifies this. A convicted and released felon, he started Prison Fellowship as a way to serve prisoners and transform the prison system. Many pastors who have started Celebrate Recovery ministries in their churches have done so because they detected the presence of an addictive habit in their lives. They now minister out of the strength of their recovery.
13. College Hill Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio, moved toward missional ministry in a crisis brought on by denominational conflict. To cast vision during the crisis Stephen Eyre suggested, “The missional process is the shift from the church as an institution in a Christian culture, to a community in mission in a non-Christian culture” (“Can the Church Be Converted: How ‘Missional’ Came to College Hill Presbyterian Church,” Theology Matters [September–October 2004], 6-10). Lois Barrett also suggests that a crisis is a common precipitating cause for missional change. “A congregation’s sense that it has a missional vocation, and its idea of what that vocation is, comes about out of the crucible of struggle” (Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004], 53).
14. Lon Solomon of McLean (VA) Bible Church was motivated to start a ministry to the handicapped after the birth of his special-needs daughter (Todd Phillips, interview by the author, July 29, 2008). See also Lon Solomon, Brokenness: How God Redeems Pain and Suffering (Potomac, MD: Red Door, 2005).
15. Chase Oaks Church, Plano, Texas, church staff (interview by the author, July 25, 2008).
16. Case-study interviews with Irving (Texas) Bible Church and Christ Chapel Bible Church, Fort Worth, Texas, reveal that both churches had extensive experience in sending short-term mission teams before they embraced a missional philosophy of ministry. Their involvement in missions gave them a way of thinking about crosscultural ministry that was instructive as they ministered in their particular indigenous neighborhoods in the Dallas/Fort Worth area (see Rod MacIlvaine, “Selected Case Studies in How Senior Leaders Cultivate Missional Change in Contemporary Churches” (D. Min. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 2009), chapter 4.
17. See Michael Green, “The Apologetics of Lesslie Newbigin,” in The Lord Is My Light: RZIM Zacharias Trust Summer School (Oxford: Keble College, Oxford University, 2005), 3. This is also the experience of this author. After Grace Community Church, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, had ministered effectively in Cuba for three years, the elders felt convicted to think differently about the role of the church in its immediate neighborhood. This led to adopting a public school as a target for service and then praying regularly for its teachers. This has resulted in a lasting relationship and opportunities to present the gospel.
18. Joseph’s crisis ultimately led to powerful serving opportunities (Gen. 37-48).
19. In discussing the Jacob narrative Carolyn Arends explains how failure empowers leadership effectiveness (“Here’s to All the Losers: Why Defeat at the Hands of God Is Magnificent,” Christianity Today, July 2008; http://www.christian-itytoday.com/ct/2008/july/20.50.html (accessed November 15, 2008).
20. See Timothy Savage, Power through Weakness: Paul’s Understanding of the Christian Ministry in 2 Corinthians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 169-71.
21. Sloan Leadership Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “Leadership: Building Your Personal Development Plan! People and Organizations, Fall 2005”; http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Sloan-School-of-Management/15-668Fall-2005/885-F458F-2E1A-4005-BDD2-4060236717C6/0/lecture_15.pdf (accessed May 24, 2008).
22. Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (New York: Random House, 2008), 24-32.
23. At the height of his ministry Luther preached, on average, every other day. He wrote approximately 130 publications per year. And he taught regular classes at a university (John Piper, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy: God’s Triumphant Grace in the Lives of Augustine, Luther and Calvin [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000], 86-92).
24. Ibid., 104.
25. Ibid., 105.
26. Ibid., 106.
27. This term is used by Will Mancini, Church Unique: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), 29-31.
28. Ibid., 31-32. An example of a modernist approach to church growth is the work of Carl George, who proposed a highly structured church using the globe model and conceptualizing the senior pastor as the chief executive officer. Shortly after the metachurch model was adopted by Willow Creek Community Church, it was subsequently adopted by most churches in the Willow Creek Association. For several years this was likely the dominant model among churches in the States. Today the vast majority of church leaders admit that it did not work, in part because its modernist notions about control were becoming irrelevant. For further information on the metachurch see Carl George, The Coming Church Revolution: Empowering Leaders for the Future (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994); and idem, How to Break Growth Barriers: Capturing Overlooked Opportunities for Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993).
29. There are subtle distinctions among missional authors regarding missional change. Stetzer (Ed Stetzer and David Putnam, Breaking The Missional Code: Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community [Nashville: Broadman & Holman], 2006], esp. chap. 4) and Minatrea (Milfred Minatrea, Shaped by God’s Heart: The Passion and Practices of Missional Churches [San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004], 143-54)—from their Baptist perspective—and Craig Van Gelder (The Missional Church and Denominations: Helping Congregations Develop a Missional Identity [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008])—from a Lutheran perspective—are more conservative than others in their change models. Those with no denominational ties tend to be more radical.
30. Victor Turner, an English anthropologist, gained notoriety by updating the work of French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957) and his threefold structure of rites of passage. Turner’s seminal work is set forth in The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Piscataway, NJ: Aldine, 1995).
31. David Olson, The American Church in Crisis: Groundbreaking Research Based on a National Database of Over 200,000 Churches (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 177-80.
32. Reggie McNeal says this, in part, is because the church refuses to admit that most people in North American culture are thoroughly postmodern in orientation. Consequently the church assumes modernity and preaches to modernity (The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church [San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003], 54-55).
33. Frank Viola and George Barna, Pagan Spirituality? Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (Carol Stream, IL: BarnaBooks, 2008). While this author disagrees with the premises and the historicity of this work, it is part of the current missional conversation.
34. The modernist assumption was that the pastor was the “educated professional” set apart from the laity of the congregation (Alan J. Roxburgh, The Sky Is Falling: Leaders Lost in Transition, a Proposal for Leadership Communities to Take New Risks for the Reign of God [Eagle, ID: ACI, 2006], 176).
35. Joseph R. Myers makes this point in his two books, The Search to Belong: Rethinking Intimacy, Community, and Small Groups (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003); and Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007).
36. Roxburgh and Romanuk, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World, 8-9.
37. Alan J. Roxburgh, The Missionary Congregation: Leadership and Liminality (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 1997), 24.
38. Ibid., 31-32.
39. Roxburgh, The Sky Is Falling, 180-87.
40. Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006), 217-41; and Roxburgh, The Sky Is Falling, 49-56.
41. Roxburgh and Romanuk, The Missional Leader, 105; cf. Keifert, We Are Here Now, 51.
42. Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 5th ed. (New York: Free, 2003), 269-91.
43. Robert Lewis and Wayne Cordiero, Culture Shift: Transforming Your Church from the Inside Out (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005), 155-68.
44. Meeting neighbors was the experience in the early missional transition of Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. “Some of our staff said, ‘Let’s go meet our neighbors.’ We discovered our assumptions were dead wrong” (ibid., 159).
45. Roxburgh and Romanuk, The Missional Leader, 155-58. For a detailed study of the biblical and historical model of Christian hospitality see Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).
46. See for example Alvin J. Schmidt, Under the Influence: How Christianity Changed the World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 125-70. See also Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett, “Christianity and Charity,” in Christianity on Trial: Arguments against Anti-Religious Bigotry (San Francisco: Encounter, 2002), 139-61.
47. Rodney Stark, Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 318-20.
48. Julian lamented, “Why do we not observe that it is in their benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead, and the apparent holiness of their lives that they have done most to increase [Christianity]” (quoted in Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity [New York: Atheneum, 1976], 75).
49. W. Andrew Hoffecker reconceptualizes the period of the Enlightenment, suggesting that the period around 1715-1815 should be termed “enlightenment and awakenings” and notes that each time an awakening occurred “there was a corresponding commitment to ‘involvement in public good works based on Christ’s redemptive work on the cross’ “(Revolutions in Worldview: Understanding the Flow of Western Thought [Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2007], 277).
50. John D. Woodbridge, More than Conquerors (Chicago: Moody, 1992), 245-51.
51. Stott spells out his agenda for social action in New Issues Facing Christians Today: Fully Revised Edition (London: Marshall Pickering, 1984), 3-32. The present author has spent many hours listening to missionally based sermons delivered by Stott in All-Souls Church in London. A biblically grounded vision of social action became a primary goal of his exegetical work and is clearly evident in his preaching.
52. Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? 3rd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1983); and idem, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1979).
53. The author attended a Whatever Happened to the Human Race seminar at Southern Methodist University in 1977, featuring Francis Schaeffer, his son, and C. Everett Koop. Schaeffer and Koop presented the problem in a compelling way, and they strongly suggested that social action was an option open to faithful Christ-followers.
54. Steve Sjogren, Conspiracy of Kindness: A Refreshing New Approach to Sharing the Love of Jesus with Others—No Guilt, No Stress, Low Risk and High Grace (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant, 1993), 149-65; and idem, Servant Warfare: How Kindness Conquers Spiritual Darkness (Ventura, CA: Gospel Light, 1996).
55. Robert Lewis, The Church of Irresistible Influence: Bridge Building Stories to Help Reach Your Community (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 140-55.
56. Lewis and Cordiero, Culture Shift, 135-68.
57. Examples of this include Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006), 65-67; and Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Mission in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 56 n 4.
58. Mancini, Church Unique, 103.
59. The recent missional changes at Irving Bible Church, Irving, Texas, and Christ Chapel Bible Church, Fort Worth, Texas, reflect this. See MacIlvaine. “Selected Case Studies in How Senior Leaders Cultivate Missional Change in Contemporary Churches,” chapter 4.
60. Howard Husock, “A Mega-Church Takes on Urban Problems: Fellowship Bible Church Comes to Midtown” (Kennedy School of Government Case Program, 2005).
61. Ibid., 14-15.
62. Ibid., 15.
63. Wade Hodges and Greg Taylor, “We Can’t Do Megachurch Anymore: What Happens When an Attractional Church Is Compelled to Go in a Different Direction?” Leadership, winter 2007, 49-51.
64. Sarah Cunningham, “Interview: Dissing Illusionment—Counter Culture Currents,” Leadership, winter 2007, 17.
65. The feeling among younger Christians that the megachurch movement is not authentic has been exacerbated by revelations that some pastors “cook” the numbers to make their ministries look better. See Warren Cole Smith, “Numbers Racket: Survey Results on Megachurch Growth Do Not Add Up,” World Magazine, December 1, 2007, 26-27.
66. Reggie McNeal, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 56-61.