Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World by Alan Roxburgh is a book concerning ecclesiology, specifically on the subject of the missional church movement. His writing is a critique of ecclesiocentrism, or being too focused on fixing the church rather than on the mission of God (p. 48). Roxburgh writes about his journey over the past several decades observing changes in culture, churches, and his own understanding of God within the context of the North American church. In part one he shares about the need for changes by walking the reader through what he calls the “Great Unraveling” (p. 18). Part two moves into offering ways to participate with what God is already up to in the world in the way of tangible experiments and practices for communities of faithful followers of Jesus.

Roxburgh wants the church to adopt a new imagination of what being missional is really all about: God. At the center of Roxburgh’s discussion of this new imagination is the idea “God’s primary location is out ahead of the churches, and not only inside them” (p. 52). This is difficult because whenever a group is formed and something good is happening the question usually goes, “well how do we get others in here to experience this.” Roxburgh points to this as the natural phenomenon in churches, only now it has become a problem because of the decline in attendance and lack of centrality in society.

Part one lands on a crucial change of perspective and practice for churches and communities of Jesus followers: listening. Roxburgh says churches are amiss about the role God is playing in our neighborhoods and community. The question becomes how do we foster environments where not only our leaders but the whole church and community is aware of what God is up to? This is the subject of part two. Before we can enter into creating a new environment full of practices and experiments that foster listening for where God is out in front, Roxburgh offers some ground work needed. First, we need to love our neighbors. Loving your neighbor is the second of the great commandments from Jesus and it is important for a church to get real about who their neighbors are. Next Roxburgh notes that we must surrender control to God, it is not natural but we must recognize God is the one in the drivers seat not us. Finally, we need to reclaim a theology of God as a missionary God, which then causes us to identify how God is sending us on mission into our neighborhoods, cities, culture, and global world.

My church is small but in a period of growth. We are trying to adjust structures and create new strategies to continue growth and fix problems. Reading this book I was challenged by own blindness to being so ecclesiocentric all the time. I was the first to suggest that what our church needed was a clear vision statement created by us and I am eager to skip over listening practices. My own leadership capabilities and theology is not grounded enough in my understanding of who my neighbors are or of God as missionary to lead my church in listening practices of what God is already up to.

In one of my other classes, with Chap Clark, we read Christina Cleveland’s Disunity in Christ where she talks the things that keep people separated. She says shared experiences breakdown the barriers that exist between people, many of the experiments and practices she names are ones I hope to share with our church, because to be missional we need to be united in Christ.

Originally posted on my old blog on March 31, 2017