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Pattern 3: Taking Risks as a Contrast Community When a congregation discerns its missional vocation, it will probably discover that it is becoming different from the dominant culture around it. It is learning how to be different from the world for the sake of...
Missional Pattern 2: Biblical Formation and Discipleship The missional church is a community in which all members are involved in learning what it means to be disciples of Jesus Christ. The Bible is essential to this discipling process, because the missional church...
Missional Pattern 1: Discerning Missional Vocation How is God calling and sending your particular congregation? A missional congregation knows its vocation. It knows why God has called it into being. It knows the tasks that God has given it. Missional vocation is...
Introduction to the Missional Church Patterns A missional church listens to God’s specific call. It experiences and participates in God’s sending it and the Holy Spirit’s empowering it to participate in God’s mission in the world. It does this in such a way that both...
Missional Pattern 7: Journeying Toward the Reign of God The missional church understands its vocation within the context of the reign of God. The church has seen God’s rule in the past and present, and anticipates that in God’s future that reign will be fulfilled. ...
American pastors, says Eugene Peterson, are abandoning their posts
at an alarming rate. They are not leaving their churches and getting
other jobs. Instead, they have become “a company of shopkeepers, and
the shops they keep are churches.” Pastors and the communities they
serve have become preoccupied with image and standing, with
administration, measurable success, sociological impact, and economic
viability.
St. Paul continues to provoke people as much today as he did in the
first century. Some see him as the greatest teacher of Christianity
after Jesus himself, while others regard him as a pestilent and
dangerous fellow. Over the years, scholars have debated and written
books on the historic Paul and his role in the birth of Christianity.
Most recently, English novelist and biographer A.N. Wilson has revived
the old argument that it was Paul of Tarsus and not Jesus of Nazareth
who founded Christianity.
This award-winning book provides you with critical groundwork for linking faith, evangelism and worship for congregations and persons who want to share the good news of the gospel with others.
