J.R. Woodward - The Church as Movement: Starting and Sustaining Missional-Incarnational Communities

InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
ivpress.com

2016 by JR Woodward and Dan White Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Pressis the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIVCopyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

While any stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information may have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Material taken from JR Woodward, Creating a Missional Culture, is copyright 2012 by JR Woodward. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA. www.ivpress.com.

Material taken from Dan White Jr., Subterranean: Why the Future of the Church Is Rootedness (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2015) is used with permission from Wipf and Stock Publishers, www.wipfandstock.com.

The Baptism of Christ and The Last Supper images by Martin Erspamer in chapter five are reprinted from Clip Art for Year A by Martin Erspamer, OSB, 1992 Archdiocese of Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Cover design: Chris Diggs @ dribble.com/chrisdiggs and Dan White Jr.
Images: esdrop/Fotolia.com

ISBN 978-0-8308-9362-1 (digital) v3_9.6.16
ISBN 978-0-8308-4133-2 (print)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Woodward, J. R., 1963- author.
Title: The church as movement : starting and sustaining
missional-incarnational communities / JR Woodward and Dan White Jr.
Description: Downers Grove : InterVarsity Press, 2016. | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016010703 (print) | LCCN 2016013160 (ebook) | ISBN
9780830841332 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780830893621 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Church development, New. | Discipling (Christianity)
Classification: LCC BV652.24 .W66 2016 (print) | LCC BV652.24 (ebook) | DDC
254/.1--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016010703

People in any organization are always attached to the obsoletethe things that should have worked but did not, the things that once were productive and no longer are.

Peter F. Drucker

I f we can accept Einsteins dictum that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, and then use it as a lens to assess the prevailing organizational habits of the church, we can actually shed light on a fair bit of organizational insanity laced into the prevailing practices of most contemporary and historical expressions of church. It always astounds me that many leaders seem to think that simply repeating and optimizing the inherited habits of church will eventually deliver paradigm-shifting results.

Part of the problem we face in the twenty-first century church is that most churches operate out of a largely obsolete understanding of the church that was developed in a completely different age and for a completely different set of cultural and social conditionslargely that of European Christendom. This is like trying to negotiate New York City with a map of Paris or Rome. We can all spot the insanity of this with regard to geographical maps, but we persist in doing this with our ecclesial ones. The very marginalization of the contemporary European church itself is a tragic witness to this obsolescence. This alone should shock us into reality and yet, in the name of some absurd commitment to long-hallowed church habits, we persist in using outworn ecclesial maps to negotiate new cultural territories.