Leadership Journal

In his role as super spy Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise portrays an agent willing to face incredible odds and unbelievable danger in order to accomplish a "mission: impossible." Church leaders face assignments just as tough: to lead congregations to serve Christ in a changing and sometimes hostile world.

The word for this ministry challenge is missional. How does a church become missional? And for leaders, is moving a consumer church to become missional, in itself, a mission: impossible?

If you are preparing to lead your congregation to become more missional, here are four things you'll need.

As with any transition, the shift to being more missional will be felt as a loss by those who are accustomed to traditional "the staff is here to meet my needs" assumptions. Churches that have long been self-focused have well-formed habits and attitudes that are tough to overcome.

Mike Breen of Community Church of Joy in Glendale, Arizona, says that many members resisted the emphasis on laity doing ministry: "They were used to being consumers who paid professionals to do the ministry. It was like we were a restaurant where they'd been coming for years and had always been served great meals. When we handed them an apron and asked them to help in the kitchen, many resisted and quite a few left the church."

That's how Jack Mercer describes it. A dogged resolve coupled with a relaxed willingness to let the Spirit blow in unexpected ways.

The leader must be direct and uncompromising in leading the church to live out the missional mindset. But once that mindset catches hold, the leader must step back and let go. Leaders who attempt to control the expressions of missionality will always be tempted to control them, and thus suffocate them.

Breen says that Community Church of Joy puts together community-size groups of fifty to gather around the vision of serving, but then lets each group give birth to its unique mission.

Like any birth, it is messy: "A leader with a controlling tendency—like most of us!—will try to come up with the mission for the community. But letting the group birth it allows the life of Jesus to be expressed in and through that community in ways the leader could never imagine."

Brian Wright is finding his leadership role in helping Northeast Baptist Church near Atlanta make the shift "from people being consumers to being producers." He has had to stop producing ministry for would-be consumers as well as cease trying to get people to resource his ministry ideas. Instead, he is setting his members free to dream of what God wants to do and is then empowering them to do it.

"We gathered people in groups of six to eight and let them dream up ways of creatively addressing the needs of our community," he says. "I've helped the groups find grants to support the ministries, and I encourage and coach them to invest their own time and energy as well. Really, my role is as much to stay out of the way as it is to be involved."

PAGE 1 of 2