The video below (produced/edited by Bill Kinnon) is an interesting conversation between Alan Roxbugh and Pat Keifert. They discuss a wide range of issues, including definitions/descriptions of missional church, common views of the contemporary church, and leadership in missional congregations.
In the discussion on leadership I appreciate Keifert’s emphasis on leadership being more about time than about a position. He speaks about the leader cultivating segments of time to assist the congregation in discerning what God is doing in their local context. It is about taking the time to create environments for people to dwell in the Word. It is about having the time to be patient — to hear from God and to hear from each other.
Another topic that I found interesting dealt with Keifert’s journey towards the missional church conversation. He shares how it involved both “failure” and “discovery.” The failure involved disenchantment with his own ministry experience in a traditional church. The discovery included the reading of Newbigin’s “Foolishness to the Greeks.”
I think Keifert’s journey parallels the experience of many. There is a deep sense of uneasiness, frustration, or even failure in a current ministry setting. Church leaders recognize something isn’t right about how they do ministry. They sense that something has changed, but they are unsure about the essence of the change, or what changes might be necessary. At some point, however, they “discover” that others have experienced the same anxiety. They “discover” authors that begin to give language to these changes. Perhaps, like Keifert its Newbigin, or Bosch; or more recently, maybe it is Guder, Van Gelder, Hirsch, or Frost. But regardless of the author, they rediscover the missionary nature of God and His church, and the reality that the church is sent into the mission field that is now North America.
This has certainly been my journey. I wonder about your experience. Has failure + discovery propelled you into the missional conversation?
Definitely true for me. A general lack of transformation in traditional ministry models gave me a sense that “something is not right here.” This led to thinkers/authors who gave articulation to the unrest I was feeling, and eventually I found practitioners who were blazing a trail in this new world we find ourselves in.
I have been propelled toward missional because of the conflict I have experienced between what scripture says and what I experienced in the life of The Church. I hit a wall, not being able to reconcile those differences, and it shook my faith to the core, that was a type of failure, and it absolutely led toward discovery and seeking to work through the questions and frustrations.
My journey came as I more and more experienced a disconnect between what I read on the pages of scripture and the meager outcomes I experienced in church life. As a leader, I knew there was more to being the church God had in mind, than the church of my experience. The missional conversation is one I embrace, but it has given me a growing cynicism toward the church as it presently exists. After talking with an author I greatly respect and a man I believe has a good understanding of authentic community and the missional expression of it, he made this statement, “I see only about 1 in 200 churches ever make the changes toward a missional posture.” I think Dr. Keifert rightly made the point, we don’t know how to train leaders for missional leadership. We revert back to the modernity model of “control leadership.”
I don’t agree with your final comments as follows: “Perhaps, like Keifert its Newbigin, or Bosch; or more recently, maybe it is Guder, Van Gelder, Hirsch, or Frost.”
In historical terms, you cannot put Guder & Van Gelder in Hirsch’s or Frost’s age. In adition, you need to make sure of the theological differences between the former and the latter. In other words, even though both have used the same term “missional,” their theological starting points are quite different. For instance, their trinitarian understanding of mission; the former emphasizes trinitarian mission while the latter focuses primarily on christo-centric mission.
Byungohk, this post had nothing to do with placing authors in historical or theological categories, I was simply listing authors (all of which were significant for me) that may have played a role in giving language to what others were feeling or sensing.