In The Missional Leader, consultants Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk address two questions: "How do we do missional?" and "What does missional leadership look like?" Drawing on their many years of experience, the authors show readers how to bring God's word into the community outside the church's walls. They focus on how to lead missionally on the ground, in the local setting, even amid leaders' experience of massive change within the church and in the wider world. The challenge for many church leaders is that they are not equipped to lead a church in shifting from a consumer model of church to one that is missional. They were trained in a Christendom mindset--to meet the needs of the church's members. This book assists leaders in shifting from dominant models of leadership rooted in strategic planning--with mission and vision statements, desired outcomes, measurements along the way, and determined goals. It provides a praxis for beginning where people are, rather than where the leader wants them to go. Roxburgh and Romanuk give frank recognition to the fact that the shift from a consumer model to a missional mindset will almost certainly be stormy, disruptive, and disorienting. This is not a book of quick fixes and slick slogans, but one that sets out a comprehensive and in-depth treatment for a different way of leading. The Missional Leader is a critical commentary that needs to be read in the light of today's realities.

It seems that nearly everyone is talking about missional change for congregations. As a result, many church leaders are attempting to drive that kind of change for the ministries they lead. Some succeed. But many others hit a wall of considerable frustration as they find that congregations resist the very change that is so needed. The reasons for this resistance are many, and they are explored in this volume. What is required to move a church from resistance to readiness? Some resistance is deeply rooted in spiritual patterns. But there are other reasons as well, and they center on trust--personal trust in the leaders who offer missional change. For this work, the authors have done extensive primary and secondary research to identify patterns and behaviors that invite missional leadership. More than that, they've lived this out in their own ministries as pastors of traditional congregations. This book thus offers compelling first-person stories and congregational case studies alongside more generalized findings. Leading Missional Change was written to support pastors and other church leaders who experience resistance, to share wisdom and experience that may lead to readiness, and to give hope and encouragement toward a re-energizing of your own congregation.

The third book in the trilogy that explores the popular missional movement From Reggie McNeal, the bestselling author of The Present Future and Missional Renaissance, comes the third book in the series that helps to define and illuminate the popular missional movement. This newest book in the trilogy examines a natural outgrowth of the move toward a missional orientation: the deconstruction of congregations into very small Christian communities. For all those thousands of churches and leaders who have followed Reggie McNeal's bold lead, this book details the rise of a new life form in churches. Discusses how to move a church from an internal to an external ministry focus Reggie McNeal is a recognized leader in the missional movement Outlines an alternative to the program church model that is focused on the projects and passions of the congregants This book draws on McNeal's twenty years of leadership roles in local congregations and his work over the last decade with thousands of clergy and church leaders.

The purpose and aim of this book is to develop an appropriate leadership model for missional churches. This implies a positioning of this book within the broader theology of mission and a consensus on the theology of the Missio Dei, originating at the 1952 conference of the International Missionary Council in Willingen, Germany. In this approach to the theology of mission, mission is understood as the work of the Trinitarian God, and the church is privileged to participate in God’s mission. It is against this background that the growing consensus on missional ecclesiology challenges leadership models developed for a different time and a different kind of church (with less or no emphasis on the missional character of the church). The aim is to reflect theologically on the role of leadership in the missional church. What kind of ideas about power, authority and leadership are appropriate for a missional church? New missional challenges demand new ideas about missional leadership. Church organisation and leadership reflects a theological position – there is a strong relation between ecclesiology and church organisation. The nature of the church provides the framework to understand the character of the church. What the church is determines what the church does. The church organises what it does and agrees on rules that regulate ministries and organisation. Issues such as the way the church organises and governs what it does, and thus church leadership, need to be answered against this background and understanding. Church polity and organisation, as well as leadership, must reflect the identity, calling, life and order of the church. This book, therefore, addresses life in the Trinity, participation in the Missio Dei and contours of the missional church as the point of entry to develop leadership insights. It contributes towards the development of an appropriate model of leadership for missional churches, because although recent developments in the theology of mission comprehensively addressed the area of missional ecclesiology, there is a gap in the development of a leadership model based on the concept of authority in the missional church.

Reggie McNeal's bestseller The Present Future is the definitive work on the "missional movement," i.e., the widespread movement among Protestant churches to be less inwardly focused and more oriented toward the culture and community around them. In that book he asked the tough questions that churches needed to entertain to begin to think about who they are and what they are doing; in Missional Renaissance, he shows them the three significant shifts in their thinking and behavior that they need to make that will allow leaders to chart a course toward being missional: (1) from an internal to an external focus, ending the church as exclusive social club model; (2) from running programs and ministries to developing people as its core activity; and (3) from professional leadership to leadership that is shared by everyone in the community. With in-depth discussions of the "what" and the "how" of transitioning to being a missional church, readers will be equipped to move into what McNeal sees as the most viable future for Christianity. For all those thousands of churches who are asking about what to do next after reading The Present Future, Missional Renaissance will provide the answer.

Missiologist and church planter JR Woodward offers a blueprint for the missional church--not small adjustments around the periphery of the infrastructure but a radical revisioning of how a church ought to look that entails changing how we think about leadership and what we expect out of discipleship.

flu·en·cy / noun :the ability to speak a language easily and effectively Even if they want to, many Christians find it hard to talk to others about Jesus. Is it possible this difficulty is because we're trying to speak a language we haven't actually spent time practicing? To become fluent in a new language, you must immerse yourself in it until you actually start to think about life through it. Becoming fluent in the gospel happens the same way—after believing it, we have to intentionally rehearse it (to ourselves and to others) and immerse ourselves in its truths. Only then will we start to see how everything in our lives, from the mundane to the magnificent, is transformed by the hope of the gospel.

What does living for Jesus look like in the everyday stuff of life? Many Christians have unwittingly embraced the idea that “church” is a once-a-week event rather than a community of Spirit-empowered people; that “ministry” is what pastors do on Sundays rather than the 24/7 calling of all believers; and that “discipleship” is a program rather than the normal state of every follower of Jesus. Drawing on his experience as a pastor and church planter, Jeff Vanderstelt wants us to see that there’s more—much more—to the Christian life than sitting in a pew once a week. God has called his people to something bigger: a view of the Christian life that encompasses the ordinary, the extraordinary, and everything in between. Packed full of biblical teaching, compelling stories, and real-world advice, this book will remind you that Jesus is filling the world with his presence through the everyday lives of everyday people... People just like you.

Too often, the solution sought by many struggling churches is to make the homerun hire--to find the charismatic leader who will take them to the promised land of growth and vibrant ministry. While this strategy occasionally pays off, it has overwhelmingly failed as seen in the hundreds of churches across the United States that close their doors annually. Is it possible that there is another way forward for those seeking to lead local congregations into missionally vibrant ministry, especially those located in multiethnic urban areas? In Charismatic Leadership and Missional Change, one church's journey from a struggling, primarily Anglo congregation of less than 100 members to becoming a missionally vibrant, multiethnic church of more than 700 attendees with no clear ethnic majority documented. The charismatic leadership style that drove this change is discussed and critiqued, as well as the adaptive challenges that have arisen in the church because of it. An alternative approach--interpretive leadership--is proposed as a different pathway forward in response to these challenges. The result, the author suggests, will be to empower the diverse, everyday people of God to participate in God's mission in exciting and surprising new ways.