Introducing the Missional Church
Alan J Roxburg and M Scott Boren
Over the last half century Christianity has been progressively disestablished. In a pluralized and globalized world the position of the church has changed. Varieties of voices, cultures, religions, and mores compete for recognition.
At the end of the first decade of the new millennium, huge numbers of Christians are now wide awake to these new realities. At the same time, most churches operate with structures designed for a time when church was firmly at the center of life. Leaders are still trained to resource this form of church, but the culture has shifted. What was germinating beneath the surface has grown and foliated into a full-blown transformation so that attractional churches are falling like tired, browned leaves shaken loose by the winds of change. We are at the end of an era.
A missional church is no longer satisfied with being a provider of spiritual products; our national and global crises are just too big. We have to become missionaries in our own contexts and be God’s catalyst for a new future. Part of this means identifying strategies that cannot take us along this road.
