Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America Book

A good book. My understanding is that this is in fact THE groundbreaking book on missional hermeneutics/ecclesiology. It is easy to see why, both because the content of the book is so thoughtful and because its influence is present in the thinking of a lot of authors I enjoy (Wright, Goheen, Bolsinger, McKnight, to name a few). I benefitted from the authors' articulation of the mission/witness of the church as representing the reign of God in community, service, and proclamation. I found that easy to remember and transliterate (so to speak) into my own congregational context. This is a solid book for getting a "lay of the land" for both missional hermeneutics and "The Gospel and Our Culture" series.

My gripes are twofold. 1) As is often the case, this book didn't have to be this long (268 pages of reading). The final chapter was, in my view, gratuitous, and could have been dispersed throughout the other chapters. Also the chapters in general could have been condensed. 2) There were a number of moments where the academic disconnect was so blatant that I couldn't help but think "yeah right." One example is their concern for the concept of congregational "membership." I understand where they're coming from, I just think it's silly to suggest that "membership is an irrelevant concept" and that we would be better off using "venerable terms like novices or catechumens." For congregations where catechesis is a part of congregational life, perhaps such a notion could be entertained, but my Baptist parishioners would laugh at the idea. Sometimes the best way to redeem structures is to redefine the concept, not replace it.