Ervin R. Stutzman has written an excellent paper titled “Preaching in the Missional Church” which can be downloaded here. Stutzman provides a brief analysis of the effects of secularization on the Christian church in the West. He then moves to discuss the response of the missional church to the secularization process. However, the majority of the seventeen page paper is focused on the missional church approaches to preaching. He suggests nine key characteristics of “missional preaching.” Below I have listed each characteristic, with a small portion of Stutzman’s explanation, for the first few points. For further clarification read the entire paper.

Missional preaching prepares God’s people for their work in the world.

Guder (Missional Theology for a Missional Church, 1998) maintains that effective Gospel preaching arises from a missional hermeneutic. This method of interpretation “works from the basic assumption that the New Testament writings are directed to communities which are primarily and essentially defined by their missionary vocation. They are apostolic communities, that is, churches founde.d by the apostolic proclamation with the purpose of continuing that witness in their particular contexts.”

Missional preaching grows out of the “agonistic” encounter between the gospel and the church.

Agonistic preaching is “the struggle to proclaim the gospel in such a way that it ‘frames’ the entirety of our ministry in light of the context we live in” (Wyatt, Preaching to Postmodern People, 1999). . . . Wyatt describes four key expressions of agonistic preaching. It is 1) iconic, 2) midrashic, 3) parabolic and 4) poetic.

Missional preaching takes place in many contexts outside the traditional worship service, including the public square.

Guder claims that “preaching” has come to mean something quite different from the New Testament definition of the word. In many North American churches, preaching is practiced only within the church, to the faithful, on Sunday morning. Such preaching probably bears more resemblance to the New Testament concept of ‘teaching’ than to its concept of ‘preaching.’

Missional preaching is concerned with authenticity of life and witness, not simply proclamation of spiritual propositions.

Daniel Oudshoorn avows that to be missional, the western church must learn to “speak Christianly in the midst of Babel.” Christian living, coupled with faith in the Holy Spirit, ought to provide the content and meaning of the Christian message.

Missional preaching deliberately draws contrasts between the gospel message and the practices and values of American civil religion, aiming for conversion from habits shaped by participation in American democracy to habits formed through Christian discipleship.

“Public announcements of God’s actions in the world are a call to conversion, to turning around, to giving up idolatries, and to placing one’s loyalty in the one true God and God’s reign.” This is just as true for believers in the church as for nonbelievers outside the church.

Missional preaching has a cross-cultural dimension.

The “tendency of early Christianity to cross cultural boundaries is a fertile starting point for developing a model of biblical interpretation. It is fertile, especially for our purposes, because it places the question of the relationship between Christianity and diverse cultures at the very top of the interpretive agenda.” Missional preaching, then, engages in various ways with people outside the dominant culture or even the “churchly” culture, the privatized gatherings of Christians in local communities of faith.

Missional preaching employs an interactive style of presentation that engages postmodern listeners in a participatory manner.

Missional preaching employs storytelling and metaphorical language in an “abductive” mode.

Missional preaching is shared among those in the congregation who are effectively sharing the gospel with others.

Stutzman concludes his paper with the following paragraph:

Finally, training schools must find ways to equip a range of people, beyond the seminarian or other matriculated student, for the ministry of preaching. To reach our world for Christ, we need a multitude of lay people (if such a term is even appropriate), to announce the gospel in every corner of our nation, indeed around the globe. These preachers can benefit from instruction in preaching even though they will not earn a degree in one of our evangelical institutions. We will do well to provide training for them in the context where they live and work.

(ht)

Here are two additional sessions from last month’s missional church conference. In these two sessions Eric Swanson speaks to the topic of community transformation. The final 30 minutes of session one includes the audio of an animated short film titled The Man Who Planted Trees. The film is the story of a solitary sheperd who patiently plants and nurtures a forest of thousands of trees, which single-handedly transforms his desert surroundings into a thriving oasis. The film sparked a very good discussion around the topics of focus, forbearance, and investing for the long-term. You can purchase the film and read multiple reviews here.

If I had to choose only one conference to attend in 2010 it would be Verge, February 4-6 in Austin. I have the privilege to be a part of the conference social media team, which means I will be blogging/twittering before, during and after the conference. I am very excited about the missional community focus on the conference, along with the stellar lineup of presenters, including Ed Stetzer, Francis Chan, Alan Hirsch, Neil Cole, George Patterson and Hugh Halter, just to name a few. For complete schedule and registration information go here.

I also anticipate this to be a great time of networking with like minded folks. If you plan to attend let me know, I would love to connect while in Austin. I’ll buy the coffee!

Stetzer & Fitch – a missional conversation – Part III from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

Originally offered by Mike Noel and expanded a bit by J.R. Briggs, check out 21 Questions for Missional Leaders:

A few of my favorite include:

1. What are 8-10 characteristics of your ministry context?
2. What are 6-10 dominant culture values in your ministry context?
3. How does the gospel inform the values of your specific context?
4. How does your leadership team reflect your ministry context (culturally, ethnically, economically)?
5. How do you measure “disciple maturity” in your church community?
6. What verifiable, transformative impact has your church’s ministries had on: individuals, families, corporate congregrational life, your geographic context, the leadership and organizational structures of your church community?
7. How do you monitor/assess transformative impact in each of these areas of ministry influence?
8. What are your primary missional objectives in the next 1-3 years?
9. What structures/systems/attitudes/behaviors do you identify as obstacles to your missional effectiveness?
10. What structures/systems will you simplify in order to reduce need for finances/personnel while preserving relational effectiveness?
11. What discernment strategies will you teach/model as prerequisite to decision making?
12. As you consider (a) the needs of your ministry context (b) your vision for transformative ministry and (c) the passions God has given you and your leadership team; what will you need that you don’t presently have?
13. What for you are the essential elements of a missional congregation?
14. Who in your community and context could you listen to and learn from regarding the values of your city?
15. What are 3-5 ways you and your church are currently blessing the neighborhood?

Bill Kinnon produces another great video featuring part two of the conversation between David Fitch and Ed Stetzer. For part one go here.

Ed Stetzer & Dave Fitch – a missional conversation Part II from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

I know a couple of these links have been out there for a while but if you haven’t seen these be sure to check out the following.

Outstanding post from last month by David Fitch on moving from “the bridge” to “the onramp.” Today’s post by Fitch on Missional Discipleship is also well worth reading. Also I am looking forward to Fitch coming to Kansas City next month.

Tony Stiff and Reading the Bible Missionally. You can also follow a conversation about Tony’s thoughts at JR Woodward’s blog here and here.

Another great analysis by Ed Stetzer in Five Reasons Missional Churches Don’t Do Global Missions And How to Fix It.

Neil Cole and Church 3.0

Organized For Mission and Four P’s For Church Planting at Next Reformation.

Jonathan Dodson and Is Your Mission Driven by Prayer?

On Reaching a City.

Missional Small Communities from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.

Over the past year I have enjoyed many wonderful posts from The Art of Manliness blog. If you are not familiar with this site then check out these two recent posts for an excellent sample of what you are missing:

Every Man Needs a Man Mentor and Great Lessons From Great Men

Here are two excellent presentations from Reggie McNeal recorded at the Reformed Church in America’s One Thing Conference last February.

While McNeal’s presentations are always laced with an abundance of humor, he never fails to present a great challenge to the church to struggle deeply with why and how the church functions. These two sessions are certainly no exception. I especially appreciate McNeal’s emphasis on the Kingdom in the first presentation. His thoughts on developing a “blessing strategy” are also very refreshing and applicable.

You can also download the audio of both sessions here.

If you are not already familiar with the resources available at Shapevine be sure to check out this site. Shapevine is a multi-dimensional website created to provide a forum for discussion with a wide variety of authors and leaders.

The dialogue is made available via video cafes, podcasts and live Webinars. Some of those participating include Alan Hirsch, Reggie McNeal, Michael Frost, Neil Cole, Leonard Sweet and others. Shapevine looks to have the potential to be an excellent learning community for missional leaders and church planters.

My friend Georges Boujakly shared the following newsletter article from Margaret Benefiel, author of Soul At Work and Founder of Executive Soul. Benefiel writes that Advent ought to be a season for waiting and looking for what God is doing. She writes:

Advent is about waiting for God, looking for the new thing that God is doing. Advent holds a lesson for all of us in this busy world, especially organizational leaders.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like waiting, thank you very much. Like most of the people around me, I tend to rush from one thing to another in my busy life. When the bank puts me on hold during a phone call, or when I find myself stuck in a long line at the post office, I get impatient.

This season leading up to Christmas is Advent, a season of waiting for Christians around the world. What’s the point of a season of waiting? Read the rest of this entry

I spent the majority of this week with a group of denominational leaders discussing various issues dealing with congregational health and the need for rethinking denominations and judicatories to be better equipped to coach and resource churches. The bulk of our discussion centered around the book “Hit the Bullseye: How Denominations Can Aim the Congregation at the Mission Field” by Paul Borden.

While my expectations of the book were not very high initially, the more I read the more I appreciated Borden’s candor in regards to the ineffectiveness of much of what takes place in denominational life. Here are a couple of samples of what I mean:

The problem with denominations is that they want to shape the mission around their polity, rather than shape the polity around the mission. The latter view is the spirit of all the founding fathers and mothers of every denomination, while the former is the sorry state of every denomination today. The lack of mission urgency in North America means that denominational leaders think they still have time to develop modest, incremental strategic plans to tinker with polity, and time afterwards to then go about mission. The truth is just the opposite. The eternal destinies of individuals do not allow such laxness.

And:

Our current polity systems usually enfranchise those people who are the least able to lead while tying the hands of the most creative and able leaders. This statement assumes that the most able leaders are still around after any brief exposure to how religious bodies function. Our polities allow the managers, administrators, and politicians who understand complex bureaucratic systems to become the leaders in congregational, judicatory, and denominational life. In the meantime these systems weed out those with entrepreneurial and leadership skills. These people for the most part leave and create their own ministries or shadow organizations that go around the bureaucracies created by our polities.

Borden argues that there is far more time and effort spent on keeping the institution going than on focusing resources on the local congregation as the major unit of mission. Deep, paradigmatic change is needed if there is to be hope, and such change must be systemic not incremental.

However I am afraid that the vast majority of those in denominational life have been fitted with one of these: (HT: geez)

“In addition to holding a clear vision, missional leadership involves facilitating the emergence of novelty by building and nurturing networks of communications; creating a learning culture in which questioning is encouraged and innovation is rewarded; creating a climate of trust and mutual support; and recognizing viable novelty when it emerges, while allowing the freedom to make mistakes.

It is for this reason that Roxburgh and Romanuk can say that the role of leadership within the church is to cultivate environments wherein the Spirit of God might call forth and unleash the missional imagination of the people of God.”

- Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways

Here is an excellent article from The Alban Institute titled “Changing the Conversation: Nurturing a Third Way for Congregations.” The article, written by Anthony Robinson, first appeared in Congregations magazine and last week was included in Scot McKnight’s weekly meanderings over at Jesus Creed. For a flavor of where Robinson is going in the article here is the opening paragraph:

For congregations—particularly congregations of the mainline Protestant tradition—the way forward has everything to do with changing the conversation. Is a third way possible—a way beyond the polarized alternatives of either liberal or conservative, left or right, red or blue, traditional or contemporary, praise or classical? If it is possible, is a third way merely a compromise between extremes, a muddle in the middle, or is it a vital center and a new framing of the conversation?

I want to make you aware of the Missional X conference coming up September 20-22 in Tucson. The conference will feature Jim Henderson, author of Evangelism Without Additives and Jim and Casper Go to Church and Darrin Patrick, pastor of The Journey in St. Louis and Vice-President of Acts 29. For more information, including workshop topics be sure to check out the site.

Here is an excellent article on the importance of teaching theology from a missional perspective by Dr. John Franke, Professor of Theology at Biblical Seminary. The article focuses on the implications of understanding Christian theology as a discipline that should assist the church in it’s missional vocation.

Drew Goodmanson presents a couple of outstanding posts on developing a “triperspectival ecclesiology.” The first post is here. Second post is here. A follow up post on missional leadership is here. Be sure to examine the diagrams with each post. How do you see these diagrams assisting the formation of your community? How do they help you communicate?

I found the possibilities of this event very interesting in light of several conversations we have been having about the need for some sort of missional order.

Does individualism pervert the gospel? Getting the Gospel right by Scot McKnight.

In small group ministry as well as house/organic expressions of church people inevitably ask “what to do with the kids?”

Finally, here is a nice resource of seminary courses from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. There are nearly a thousand free resources available for download in mp3 or pdf files.

In an earlier post I shared with you that the pastor of the church where my family and I attend resigned this past Sunday after confessing an adulterous relationship with a fellow staff member. Dan Southerland, author of “Transitioning,” founder of “Church Transitions” and frequent guest teaching pastor at this church brought the message this past weekend. Southerland’s message focused on how to understand and deal with crisis in our lives. He then transitioned into discussing the period of crisis that this local congregation was about to enter, in light of the moral failure of the senior pastor. I thought he did a very fine job. He spoke frankly about the moral failure of the pastor, but he did so with grace and an eye towards redemption. He spoke to the variety of feelings that people would experience and the proper way each ought to respond.

One of the major themes of Southerland’s message was the importance of not confusing the message with the messenger. A statement that was emphasized along this thought was: “Do not let the mess of the messenger negate the message.” While I thought this was an appropriate response and was surely helpful to many who were struggling to make sense of the circumstances, I later found myself reflecting on the delimma this statement creates. Read the rest of this entry

This morning (Sunday) the pastor of a large church where my family and I attend two or three times a month resigned after confessing an adulterous relationship with a fellow staff member. It was an enormous blow to everyone. If there was one pastor among the group of churches where I work (as a Church Planting Strategist) that I thought “had it all together” it was this pastor. In every area of ministry he seemed to always do the right thing. Over the past 17 years he led the church from a group of 75 to a church with an attendance of over 5,000. The church is a full blown PDC model with six services including one on-site video venue and two regional campuses. Read the rest of this entry

In chapter 6 of “The Forgotten Ways” Alan Hirsch focuses on the issue of leadership in the missional church. He begins by reflecting back on the introduction of the book where he discussed the phenomenal Jesus movements of history, namely the early church up until 300 AD and the Chinese church during the reign of Mao Tse-tung. The question that begs to be answered with each of these movements is “How did they do it?” Or more specifically for the focus of chapter 6, “What kind of leadership?” Read the rest of this entry

The last in our series on key characteristics of missional leaders is:

They believe the Kingdom of God is bigger than the church.

Missional leaders understand that the activities of God can and do take place outside the realm of the church. Therefore, they move out in ministry expecting that God is already at work in the lives of people. Morgan states “when the community of faith reaches out into their community, they find people prepared by him [the Holy Spirit] to believe. They find opportunities for service and witness. They find a door of ministry opened by him.” Read the rest of this entry