Missional Map-Making

Guidance for church leaders to develop their own maps and chart new paths toward stronger, more vibrant, and more missional congregations

In the burgeoning missional church movement, churches are seeking to become less focused on programs for members and more oriented toward outreach to people who are not already in church. This fundamental shift in what a congregation is and does and thinks is challenging for leaders and congregants. Using the metaphor of map-making, the book explains the perspective and skills needed to lead congregations and denominations in a time of radical change over unfamiliar terrain as churches change their focus from internal to external.

• Offers a clear guide for leaders wanting to transition to a missional church model
• Written by Alan Roxburgh, a prominent expert and practitioner in the missional movement
• Guides leaders seeking to create new maps for leadership and church organization and focus
• A Volume in the popular Leadership Network Series

This book is written to be accessible to all Christian congregational styles and denominations.

About Leadership Network vii

Introduction: An Uncertain Journey ix

Part One When Maps No Longer Work 1

Chapter One Maps Shaping Our Imaginations in Modernity 3

Chapter Two Leading in an In-Between Time 19

Chapter Three When Common Sense is No Longer Common 41

Chapter Four From Playing Pool to Herding Cats 59

Chapter Five Why Strategic Planning Doesn’t Work in This New Space and Doesn’t Fit God’s Purposes 73

Chapter Six Eight Currents of Change and the Challenge of Making New Maps 87

Chapter Seven Lessons from the Formation of the Internet for Leading in This New Space 111

Part Two The Map-Making Process 125

Chapter Eight Cultivating a Core Identity in a Changed Environment 127

Chapter Nine Cultivating Parallel Cultures of the Kingdom 143

Chapter Ten Map-Making Partnerships Between a Local Church and Neighborhoods and Communities 163

Notes 189

The Author 196

Index 197

ALAN J. ROXBURGH, president of Roxburgh Missional Network, is a pastor, teacher, writer, and consultant with more than thirty years' experience in church leadership, consulting, and seminary education. He also works with the Allelon Missional Leadership Network in the formation of leaders for the missional church. He writes a weekly online newsletter (roxburghmis sionalnet.com) as well as directing an international research project, the Mission in Western Culture Project. He the coauthor of The Missional Leader from Jossey-Bass.

MISSIONAL MAP-MAKING

When church leaders decide to make the fundamental missional shift from focusing on the church itself to asking what God is up to in the neighborhood where their people live, it can be challenging for both leaders and congregants. In this important book, missional leadership expert Alan Roxburgh includes the information and tools leaders need to develop their own maps and chart new paths toward stronger, more vibrant, and more missional congregations. Using the engaging metaphor of map-making, Missional Map-Making explains the perspective and skills needed to lead congregations and denominations over the often unfamiliar terrain of becoming missional.

Building on the work in the groundbreaking book The Missional Leader and on his extensive consulting practice, Alan Roxburgh shows step by step how to implement the strategic missional church model. This proven model also defines the characteristics that describe an effective missional leader and shows how pastors and other clergy can develop the skills they need to best lead their congregation and reach out to the larger community.

Missional Map-Making gives leaders the help they need to nurture their church environments to become truly God centered so that his spirit will guide the mission and the work of their congregations.

MISSIONAL MAP-MAKING

When church leaders decide to make the fundamental missional shift from focusing on the church itself to asking what God is up to in the neighborhood where their people live, it can be challenging for both leaders and congregants. In this important book, missional leadership expert Alan Roxburgh includes the information and tools leaders need to develop their own maps and chart new paths toward stronger, more vibrant, and more missional congregations. Using the engaging metaphor of map-making, Missional Map-Making explains the perspective and skills needed to lead congregations and denominations over the often unfamiliar terrain of becoming missional.

Building on the work in the groundbreaking book The Missional Leader and on his extensive consulting practice, Alan Roxburgh shows step by step how to implement the strategic missional church model. This proven model also defines the characteristics that describe an effective missional leader and shows how pastors and other clergy can develop the skills they need to best lead their congregation and reach out to the larger community.

Missional Map-Making gives leaders the help they need to nurture their church environments to become truly God centered so that his spirit will guide the mission and the work of their congregations.