The Missional Leader -- Review

Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk. The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World. Foreword by Eddie Gibbs. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2006. xv + 219 pp.

The world is changing and it’s changing at ever increasing frequencies. How then, does a church which has a history of nearly 2000 years keep up with the changes and reach that world? As a pastor of a small church who has heard all the sales pitches from the mega-church pastors, I’m interested in words of wisdom that will apply to my congregation, one that is without great talent and resources. We can’t put on over night a full fledged program for every age nor will our music wow the unchurched legions. Most of all, as a pastor, I’m interested in words of wisdom that apply not just to reworking the institution, but will help me and my congregation heed God’s call to be present in the world.

The Missional movement appears to be focused on the right things. Most of its better known figures are evangelicals and the two authors of this book and the writer of the foreword are just such people, but they are also people with strong contacts with the mainline churches. They offer a vision that won’t change the church overnight, but they do offer counsel for those willing to take a journey with God into the world. To be a Missional Leader is to have God’s vision for not just the congregation, but the congregation’s ministry in the world.

To be missional is to be a community of God’s people who “live into the imagination that they are, by their very nature, God’s missionary people living as a demonstration of what God plans to do in and for all creation in Jesus Christ.” Imagination is a key word, for to be missional is to think outside the box, to be willing to go in directions not previously considered. And to be a missional community is to listen for God’s voice emerging from the bottom up. This is no from the top, staff imposed, vision. Roxburgh and Romanuk trust the people to be a vehicle of God’s vision for the world. The role of the pastor – the missional leader (though it need not be a pastor) – is to nurture and encourage this imagination, to lead the people into the biblical stories so they might hear God and see his vision for ministry.

The authors take the reader out from the church into the world. As others have done, they introduce us to generational studies, helping us understand that different generations perceive and respond to change differently. The kind of change that the church faces is what the authors call discontinuous change, and this kind of change is extremely disruptive and difficult to plan for. It’s a bit like the forest fire that rages just miles from my community as I write this. It can’t be predicted, and so there is no “normal” and simply working harder won’t get the job done. To lead missionally is to think differently about the world, but knowing that this is a time of transformation when the church is called to be present and active so that the Spirit of God can do new things.

Most models of church transformation borrow from the business world, but our authors remind us that the church isn’t a business and so such models may often prove counterproductive. Another word of wisdom that stands out in this book is the counsel of patience. We all want quick answers to our questions, but such is not the case when missional ministry is engaged. It takes time and commitment, and as I read, I found myself saying – this is too much, and yet, it seems that this is the way we must go.

The book begins with theory but then moves to practical questions. Roxburgh and Romanuk lay out a Missional Change Model, which borrows from Everett Rogers’s model for diffusion of innovation – a model that involves: knowledge (awareness), persuasion, decision, experimentation/implementation, and finally confirmation and reinforcement. In the Missional Change Model, congregations begin their work with awareness, leading to understanding, evaluation, trial, and committal. What we learn from this book is that this is an ongoing process to be repeated time and again. With this model in place, the role of the leader is to help the congregation move along this path. Their job begins with knowing one’s context and then oneself, which is followed by listening to the congregation and the context. After this leaders help congregations focus on key issues, develop an action plan, focusing on areas of discomfort, and then finally leading the congregation to commit to the process. Again, much of the book focuses on listening skills, so that one learns to recognize the voice of God within one’s context.

As mentioned before, the authors caution against adopting wholesale business models, reminding the reader that the church is a spiritual entity, and to be missional is to be lead by and empowered by the Spirit, which requires developing spiritual practices, such as Bible reading and prayer. The goal of spiritual leaders is to become discerning of the Spirit of God and then providing theological grounding for the work of the church. That being said, it is not surprising that they take up issues of character, with a focus on issues of maturity, authenticity, and an ability to deal with conflict. As one who likes to avoid conflict, it is important to note that change involves conflict and that without conflict there is no movement forward. Thus, leadership requires both courage and an ability to engender trust.

As leaders – whether clergy or lay -- take up the missional calling they will be helping God’s people dream God’s dreams and then begin to live the gospel in one’s neighborhoods. The concluding chapter lays out a plan for developing a leadership team – including colleagues. This isn’t a calling for go-it-alone entrepreneurs; it is a calling for those willing to work as part of a team.

This is a most intriguing book. In many ways the principles are counter-intuitive, and taking this course won’t be easy. But at the same time it is doable for congregations of all sizes, including small ones. It simply requires a commitment to see it through to the end and not give up because the fix isn’t quick. And that is the difficult part, not giving up too soon, but this is why the counsel is to be firmly grounded spiritually.