Cultivating missional change

Description

SUBTITLE: The future of missional churches and missional theology

FORMAT: Book

PAGES: 440

SUMMARY: Cultivating missional change reflects extensively on developments in the broad missional movement since the publication of the seminal book Missional church (1998). Purposely looking backwards, it endeavours to discern the way forward for missional theology and missional churches.

This publication is the outcome of a conference on the future of missional theology and missional churches, held in 2015 in Stellenbosch, South Africa.

The book is much more than conference papers. Important themes concerning the future of being missional surfaced during the conference. The collection, therefore, includes ten chapters written afterwards, serving as an indispensable roadmap for the continuing conversation on central missional themes.

Although critical of the way in which some missional views and practices developed, Cultivating missional change is convinced the term “missional” is just too important, too central and too meaningful for the Christian tradition to be abandoned.

Cultivating missional change offers a clear understanding of being missional, and promotes a more biblical and well-defined grasp of the Christian church as a missional church.

CONTENT
Part I: Introduction

1. 1. Introducing this publication – Coenie Burger
   2. Why we need the missional conversation in South Africa now – Coenie Burger
   3. The missional renaissance: Its impact on churches in South Africa, ecumenical organisations, and the development of local congregations – Jerry Pillay

Part II: An overview of new missional initiatives

1. 1. 4. The background and roots of the missional movement – Darrell L Guder
      5. The history and challenge of the missional movement in South Africa: Perspectives from an insider – Frederick Marais
      6. History of the missional conversation in the United States – Patrick R Keifert
      7. The journey towards “missional” in the United Kingdom: The history and development of the missional movement in the United Kingdom – Graham Cray
      8. The history and current state of the missional movement in Germany – Michael Herbst
      9. Missional church in Denmark – Mogens S Mogensen

Part III: Missional initiatives in denominational systems and new contexts

1. 1. 4. 10. Denominations and the missional church: How the centre can facilitate the edge – a United Kingdom perspective from the Church of England – Graham Cray and Nigel Rooms
         11. Experiences with denominations in South Africa – Danie Mouton
         12. Becoming whom God wants us to be: The saga of a missional trek by the Mennonite Church USA – Stanley W Green
         13. How churches change: Reflection of a theologian on experience of local and systems change – Patrick R Keifert
         14. Experiences with denominations in South Africa: Complex leadership and transformational missional leadership in a denominational structure – Nelus Niemandt

Part IV: Critical reflection on the future of the missional initiative

1. 1. 4. 10. 15. The future of the missional movement and missional churches – Darrell L Guder
             16. Strangers and priests: Missional ecclesiology for a (very) secular environment – Stefan Paas
             17. Impressions: What we heard at the conference and what it tells us about the way forward – Coenie Burger

Part V: The way forward: mapping the conversation on specific missional themes

1. 1. 4. 10. 15. 18. Missional theology as Trinitarian theology: A conversation with Patrick Keifert – Patrick R Keifert
                 19. Missional ecclesiology – Coenie Burger
                 20. Performing the missio Dei: Participation in the story of God as a missional hermeneutic for congregations – Marius J Nel
                 21. Missional anthropology – Nigel Rooms
                 22. Theology of creation as position of strength in an old national church in a late modern society – Hans Raun Iversen

Part VI: More practical issues

23. 23. Missional leadership and theological education – Mike Harrison
    24. Missional practices: You learn so as to live – Stuart Burns
    25. Missional formation and discipleship – Frederick Marais
    26. Missional worship – Mike Harrison
    27. Discernment: The key to planting missional churches – Graham Cray

EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Editors: Coenie Burger, Frederick Marais and Danie Mouton
Contributors: Noted missional theologians such as Darrell Guder, Patrick Keifert, Hans Raun Iversen, Stefan Paas, Mogens S Mogensen, Graham Cray and Jerry Pillay are amongst the contributors.