"The Ministry of the Missional Church," Craig Van Gelder (Baker Books, August, 2007)

This book is the long answer to the short question: What is a missional church? Don't expect to read simple tips for incorporating a missional ministry into your congregation. Craig Van Gelder's latest book, "The Ministry of the Missional Church" (Baker Books, 2007) reads more like scholarly research (which it is) than a ministry help handbook. Since most of the books I review for Church Central are more along the lines of church how-to books, I really had to settle slowly into this one. Its style is as different as its point.

While Van Gelder does differentiate "missional" from "emergent" or "purpose-driven" or other forms of church—something I expected—he does so in a very unexpected way. He first recognizes the trend to discover strategies to help congregations as a "seemingly endless obsession." Though he has served more than 25 years as a consultant to churches, Van Gelder is more interested in the timeless nature of effective church ministry that is based not on cultural fads, but on the essence of the body of Christ. He is also professor of congregational mission at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, former professor at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Mich., and holds degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and the University of Texas at Arlington.

Van Gelder provides complex concepts, philosophies and perspective on the history of the Church in the United States, as well as a glance to the future.

For example, he categorizes the typical ways churches respond to community changes as "relevance", "resistance," and "adaptation." His definitions and examples of each offer a particularly enlightening perspective. Relevance, he writes, is helpful for re-contextualizing a congregation, but can become faddish or too targeted on one particular generation. Resistance is usually exhibited by churches that assume they are being faithful. Instead these congregations usually become ingrown and continually fight a battle of retrenchment. Adaptation, too, is usually focused internally and offers too few changes too late. The alternative to these three poor choices, is the missional church's view of itself as always forming and reforming. Cues for these changes are taken both from cultural and community changes, and from the Holy Spirit.

Van Gelder zooms out further in his view of how churches operate to categorize them as corporate, established or missional. These are philosophies behind the church as either purpose-driven; the primary location of God's presence and activity in the world; or a spiritual social community called to God's mission in the world. He offers an intriguing argument about these differing types of churches and how their views of themselves impact their outreach.

Van Gelder also offers a detailed history of social sciences and the way they impact churches' leadership, organization and growth. He traces the lessons of business and industry through church polity, comparing and contrasting the operational forms.

This wide-angle perspective on the church as it impacts the world and is impacted by the world is a refreshing look at the "why" behind the "what" of doing church. Professor Van Gelder offers with this book a sort of foundational study of the way churches work and the way they should work.