Wegner Rob - Missional moves: 15 tectonic shifts that transform churches, communities, and the world

I have no doubt that the nest of foundational theology, paradigm shifts, and key ideas that together inform, shape, and constitute what we call the missional movement represents the only viable future for biblical Christianity in the Western world. I, along with many of the key church leaders and thinkers in our time, believe this is undeniable. Taken as a whole, Christianity is on the retreat in every Western cultural context. Witness the wholesale decline of biblical Christianity in Europe, Australia, Canada. In Europe alone, the birthplace of Christendom, Christianity is all but extinct.

This secularizing phenomenon can also be seen in the population centers of America, previously considered a bastion of Christianity in the West. Churches on the East Coast, in the Pacific Northwest, and even in the Midwest are all experiencing trended decline. Whether we like it or not, the principles, methods, and thinking about the church that worked in the past and were well-suited for the past are simply unable to address the complex context of the twenty-first century. They no longer square with our situation and the profound challenges it represents to us. This decentering means that the forms of the church produced when the church was at the cultural center of society what historians call the Christendom paradigm are fading, and we are now entering what sociologists call a post-Christian culture.

This is a radical shift that necessitates an equally drastic modification in the way in which we go about being a people faithful to Jesus and his cause. It can no longer be business as usual. The naive expectation that a simple reappropriation of well-worn formulas will produce a revitalization of the church, faith, and mission is not only foolish but can actually jeopardize the mission of God.

This does not mean that the gospel has lost its power. Far from it. The gospel of the kingdom remains the sole source for the wholesale renewal of the entire cosmos, let alone of society and the human heart. But these massive cultural shifts do mean that the commissioned carrier of the gospel the church must now find new and more fruitful ways to meaningfully deliver it to a needy world. This is what the missional church seeks to achieve a recalibration of the church around the eternal purposes of God in and through the church of Jesus Christ.

This is no small task. It requires that we reconsider just about everything weve been doing, especially our culturally relative ways of doing church. Old habits of thinking and patterns of behavior must be thoroughly audited and evaluated to see if they are still consistent with Gods purposes in and through his people. This requires theological imagination (to break the hold of the old paradigms and usher in the new), missional leadership (to negotiate change and be able to lead Gods people into their own future), and courage (in the face of opposition both within and outside of the church). It will also require a serious commitment to ecclesial experimentation and innovation.

Granger Community Church in South Bend, Indiana, is a church that has risen to this challenge. Rob Wegner, Jack Magruder, Mark Beeson, Tim Stevens, and the other senior leaders at Granger embody the kind of imagination, courage, and leadership needed in the church today. With holy joy I have observed and at times even participated in what they are doing. In this book you will encounter leadership that has a clear vision of the future, a willingness to take risks and put the system on the line to achieve that vision, a great change process that enables a megachurch (and they are that!) to move to a missional mindset, and a capacity to create working models of church that ordinary people can live into.

Rob and Jack have been at the heart of this ecclesial re-architecting. They are joyous, humble, intelligent, compassionate, and highly committed disciples of Jesus. They are the right men for the job. It is my hope that with this book, Rob and Jacks influence will extend to the broader church and provide many with a model of apostolic leadership, sorely needed in our day, and a model of the missional church that can advance the cause of Christ in our time.

Alan Hirsch, founder of
Forge Missional Training Network