A Mainline Manifesto for Missional Transformation
The missional church movement returns to the mainline church in Mike Slaughter’s Change the World. Using straightforward comparisons, Slaughter challenges the assumptions of mission, ministry, and success as defined by most mainline churches. At the same time, an alternative picture is painted of a church more interested in others than self. Drawing on work from missional movement leaders, such as Alan Hirsch, Slaughter uses his own experiences to propose a more faithful way of being the church.
Grounded in Scripture and theology, Slaughter exposes the shortcomings of current church values, writing “Our churches reflect the economic homogeneity of our culture more than they do the priorities of the kingdom.” Slaughter makes clear that the people of God are intended to be agents of transformation who are sent to specific peoples for the purpose of multiplying movements of courageous disciples. This is in contrast to the church being seen as a place where special and similar people gather.
Slaughter saves some of his most direct discourse for the discussion of “Mission vs. Mortar” in chapter 6, where he laments the importance of buildings to the way the church currently functions. Facilities, their cost and prominence, drive how and why church is done. “Inflexible capital structures create systems that necessitate strategies of ‘bringing the world to church’ rather than the ‘church going to the world.’” While his words are tough, the experiences of churches who are in debt during the current economic downturn seem to lend affirmation.
Short on how-to and high on passion, Change the World presents an important contribution to the missional church movement. By virtue of the author’s experience, the book brings built in credibility for mainline denominations. Slaughter is the lead pastor of Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp City, Ohio, where he grew the congregation from averaging 90 on a Sunday to a current attendance of over 4,000. Change the World makes the missional movement more accessible to mainline churches and denominations.
Slaughter’s experience also raises questions, though. For example, readers may experience a disconnect as the pastor of a 4,000 antendee church decries attractional evangelism. While that possibility exists, Slaughter’s framework gives no impression that he is interested in keeping one foot in the mega church world and one foot in the missional church movement. In fact, his commitment to this transition may be communicated when he writes, “Faith is not the absence of fear. Faith is feeling the fear & then acting on the promises & purposes of God anyway.”
*It is a legal obligation for me to tell you that I received a copy of this book for the purpose of posting a review.
July 16th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
[...] Slaughter, in his book Change the World, gives a helpful image for what the church is not supposed to be. He says that the church, as the [...]