Missional Communities: The Rise of the Post-Congregational Church

As part of the Uprising series at Revolution Church I’ve been reading a number of books on missional communities and the 4 identities. One of them was Missional Communities by Reggie McNeal. I have to admit, I’d read anything written by McNeal as it always challenges my thinking.

What McNeal does in this book is a real service to the church at large. He chronicles the story and history of missional communities, how they are playing out in America and Europe to see the variety of how they are being done, and how to transition into them.

Here are a few of the highlights of this book for me:

• Missional community is exactly what would happen if we had to be real Christians.
• The scorecard of a missional community is simple – are people of the community experiencing the abundant life Jesus promised and are they sharing it with others?
• The assumption churches make is that community and individual transformation will result from having great congregations with well-trained clergy and lots of programs.
• Being missional is the people of God partnering with him in his redemptive mission in the world.
• You can’t commute to your ministry.

While this book is a great dive into what missional communities are, churches who are pioneering them, what they look like, structure, etc. It is lacking what a transition looks like for this. That has been one of the difficult things for us at Revolution as we have transitioned from small groups to missional communities. Many of the churches who are centered on missional communities started that way. I have to believe many leaders and pastors will read this book, get fired up and get to the end and wonder what to do next. I would love to have seen more about this crucial transition and how to do it without blowing your church up. Thankfully, we’ve been able to connect with a number of churches, learn where they are and map a route to that place. I think many leaders will get excited about this concept but not be sure how to make the leap.

Sadly, this book ended rather abruptly because of that.

Still, if you are like I was 15 months ago and feeling like something is missing, feeling like you as a church or individual could be doing more in terms of mission, community, discipleship and care. This is definitely a book worth checking out. Especially if you know nothing about missional communities. It is a great 30,000 foot look at them and what is happening in our culture and in churches that are reaching the culture.