The roster of books on leadership is full of high theoryand grand expositions of biblical principles. But there isprecious little practical advice for regular peoplecommitted to releasing positive change within their localchurches. Here one of the church's foremosttheoreticians and one of its most accomplishedtransformational leaders combine strengths to clarifyboth how sound congregational transformation can beaccomplished by regular folks and the very Christcenteredfoundations upon which transformation mustrest. With unflinching honesty and a deep, knowingsense for the joy that comes from Spirit-led change, theauthors guide the reader on a quest for a future churchalive with the abundant life God intended. A Field Guide to the Missional Congregation revealsseven "transformational keys," using real-life casestudies to illustrate each key. A reflective milestoneframework, including discovery questions for eachchapter, ground the book in a practical process.

"While the theory and theology of missional church are important, this book is about practice-a practical guide to MCs written by some of the people who were there at the beginning of their inception and know them inside out. This book, while helpfully summarizing all the theory on Missional Communities, is fundamentally about how to make them work in your church community."--From back cover

There is a growing body of literature about the missional church, but the word missional is often defined in competing ways with little attempt to ground it deeply in Scripture. Michael Goheen, a dynamic speaker and the coauthor of two popular texts on the biblical narrative, unpacks the missional identity of the church by tracing the role God's people are called to play in the biblical story. Goheen shows that the church's identity can be understood only when its role is articulated in the context of the whole biblical story--not just the New Testament, but the Old Testament as well. He also explores practical outworkings and implications, offering field-tested suggestions for contemporary churches.

In this volume the third book in the Missional Church series eminent missional church expert Craig Van Gelder continues to track and contribute to the expanding missional church conversation, inviting today s brightest minds in the field to speak to key questions concerning church leadership.

In this book, two leading ministry experts place the missional church conversation in historical perspective and offer fresh insights for its further development. They begin by providing a helpful review of the genesis of the missional church and offering an insightful critique of the Gospel and Our Culture Network's seminal book Missional Church, which set the conversation in motion. They map the diverse paths this discussion has taken over the past decade, identifying four primary branches and ten sub-branches of the conversation and placing over one hundred published titles and websites into this framework. The authors then utilize recent developments in biblical and theological perspectives to strengthen and extend the conversation about missional theology, the church's interaction with culture and cultures, and church organization and leadership in relation to the formation of believers as disciples. Professors, students, and church leaders will value this comprehensive overview of the missional movement. It includes a foreword by Alan J. Roxburgh.

In a time when churches are focusing on finding strategies and techniques to guarantee success, a movement toward the missional church is emerging. Missional churches are communities created by the Spirit with a unique nature and identity. Purpose and strategies of the church are derivative dimensions, the activities that flow naturally from the church that is focused on Spirit-led ministry. The Ministry of the Missional Church leads pastors, ministry leaders, and laypersons through three simple arguments--the church is; the church does what it is; the church organizes what it does--in order to make sense of how missional churches work. And by focusing the work of the church as the work of the Triune God, this unique book will change the way readers think about the church and the world.

What would a theology of the Church look like that took seriously the fact that North America is now itself a mission field? This question lies at the foundation of this volume written by an ecumenical team of six noted missiologists—Lois Barrett, Inagrace T. Dietterich, Darrell L. Guder, George R. Hunsberger, Alan J. Roxburgh, and Craig Van Gelder. The result of a three-year research project undertaken by The Gospel and Our Culture Network, this book issues a firm challenge for the church to recover its missional call right here in North America, while also offering the tools to help it do so. The authors examine North America s secular culture and the church s loss of dominance in today s society. They then present a biblically based theology that takes seriously the church s missional vocation and draw out the consequences of this theology for the structure and institutions of the church.