“The rise of the missional church is the single biggest development in Christianity since the Reformation.”
— Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church, page xiii
“The rise of the missional church is the single biggest development in Christianity since the Reformation.”
— Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church, page xiii
Can’t say what I think about that until I know what he means by ‘missional church’.
Good point! So far in my reading he hasn’t issued a really concise definition of missional church, but his description overall suggests that it would be essentially compatible with my own, or that of most of us in this general conversation. He quotes Guder and Bosch, so there ya go! ;^)
I really need to read Reggie, especially since we relocated to Oklahoma; his network is particularly strong here and in Texas. Still, my guess (having not read it, so caveat emptor) is that he’s focused on the church in North America, and that’s where I’m going to have problems with this quote (assuming he doesn’t qualify it considerably).
I don’t think any development in the church in the United States can possibly rival the recentering of Christian faith to the Two-Thirds World that has taken place, almost unnoticed until recently, this past century. As our own country swiftly loses its economic hegemony in the world, we are quickly losing the main reason for our continued importance in the global Christian community.
We need a local ecclesiology, no doubt, one that speaks to the situation here in the United States. But to suggest that this (re)new(ed) iteration of church life is of such global significance as to rival the Reformation just doesn’t cut the mustard. It assumes that we’re more significant than we are, IMHO. (This, by the way, is a large part of my problem with Tickle’s book.)