Saturday, March 14, 2009

Missional Communities

I am starting to work on my next project for my IME degree. The good thing is that I can write about a question that I am seeking an answer to in my own context. This is my question:

"What is a missional church community and how are they created?"

One of the people who has been helping me to think about this is Reggie McNeal and I am halfway through his new book 'Missional Renaissance'. In doing this, I have also discovered his book 'The present future: 6 tough questions for the Church' which came out some years ago but is still very relevant. 

I am thinking about his 6 questions and you might like to join me:

1. The collapse of the church culture
  • Wrong question: How do we do church better?
  • Tough question: How do we deconvert from Churchianity to Christianity?
2. The shift from church growth to kingdom growth.
  • Wrong question: How do we grow this church?
  • Tough question: How do we transform our community?
3. A new reformation: Releasing God's people.
  • Wrong question: How do we turn members into ministers?
  • Tough question: How do we turn members into missionaries?
4. The return to spiritual formation.
  • Wrong question: How do we develop church members?
  • Tough question: How do we develop followers of Jesus?
5. The shift from planning to preparation.
  • Wrong question: How do we plan for the future?
  • Tough question: How do we prepare for the future?
6. The rise of apostolic leadership.
  • Wrong question: How do we develop leaders for church work?
  • Tough question: How do we develop leaders for the Christian movement?
(H/T M Blog)




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reggie raises some good questions. I feel that question number four could be adjusted to ask, how do we make disciples of Christ? Our goal is to move them from outside the family of God to reproducing disciples. Also would give attention to spiritual awakenings for I believe that this holds the key to our future... a movement of God!

David Cooke said...

I agree and thank you. I too yearn for a movement of God.

Saturday blog-sweep

 Some interesting books for pastors The State we're in Attack at dawn Joseph Scriven Joy comes with the morning When small is beautiful