Summary: Reggie McNeal’s Missional Renaissance is an engaging stab at understanding and integrating a missional approach to church development. Reggie offers a missional manifesto of sorts, breaking down his argument into three distinct shfits: From internal to external, program development to people development, and church based to kingdom based. And it is this either/or approach that left me wanting in some respects. Reggie also offers some practical ways of taking on a missional mindset.
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Reggie, the ultimate insultant, offers a compelling dialog on shifting from attractional to missional. He explores the missional dialog in somewhat of a traditional way and even makes some traditional mistakes, in my opinion, to the dialog. I can easily see someone embracing this book wholeheartedly or throwing it across the room for this very reason.
The best chapter in my opinion is the first: The Missional Renaissance. You could read it and get a strong sense of the book. Hidden within this little chapter is a phenomenal idea, of the emergence of the altruism economy. I deeply wish he had explored this section (only 2 1/2 pages) in greater detail because I would offer that it is this shift, which is a movement of the Kingdom, is a large part of the conversation. My favorite quote of the book was:
“This increased spirit of altruism is calling the church out to play. It beckons the church to move from being the recipient of a generous culture (religious causes garner the largest percentage of charitable dollars-about one third) to actually being generous to the culture. It challenges the church to move beyond its own programs and self-preoccupation.”
Like I said before, Reggie has a way of being the ultimate insultant. He tells the truth about you and makes you laugh with him.
His second chapter, The Missional Manifesto, explores what it means to participate in the mission of God. This section had so many good quotes that I often found myself putting the book down to jot them down. Some include:
“When we use “A” instead of “The” in front of church, I think we miss the missional revolution in its true essence, by reverting to language supporting institutional implications. “A” church draws on centuries of thinking about a corporate something that exists apart from the people who make it up.”
“The missional church is not a “what” but a “who”.
“Declaring what the missional church is requires us to do some theological reflection, not just cultural exegesis.”
“This is what it means to be on mission with God, partnering with God.”
The third through eighth chapters explore the three shifts in greater detail and offers a scorecard to validating these shifts in real life. The first shift is where I had the most concern. He offers that it is a shift from internal to external in ministry focus. And it is the either/or approach that I think will frustrate people, mostly because I think it is a false dichotomy. The natural outcome of God’s mission is an outward focus, but it first means going inward. I’ve said this before, and I will say it again. Jesus spent three years leading twelve people intimately, showing them what love looked like. He allowed them to process their own journey. He only sent them out on one recorded journey. And then he said, “Go and do the same.” This inward and outward approach is more wholistic.
It is easy to look at attractional church and say, “You’ve got it wrong.” But the answer doesn’t lie in the opposite. It lies in the wholistic expression of the both/and. And this is where I think those stuck in an exclusively attractional model will simply say, “That BS,” and throw the book across the room. I felt like Reggie missed it on this one.
The two other shifts were awesome and only come after this first shift, so stick with the book. We need to move from program to people development. Yep. But people development also doesn’t mean throwing out the programs. It means shifting them as activity to development. I really didn’t like his scorecard for the second shift, but that was just me. The third shift from church to kingdom is one of the central breakdowns in the church and I hope that every leads reads this section.
Overall the book is a great read will advance the missional conversation greatly. My hope is that people can head the call to participate in what God is doing, mostly because it just works better.
