Alan Roxburgh, Missional Map-Making: Skills for Leading in times of Transition. Jossey-Bass / Leadership Network, 2010.
Prequel: Roxburgh and Romanuk, The Missional Leader
Referenced in: Missional Strategies by Alan Roxburgh
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Alan Roxburgh is one of most significant leaders in the missional conversation through his books, consultation models, and Allelon. See the Ministry Resource Guide on Missional Strategies by Alan Roxburgh to understand the contribution of each of his works.
This text is designed as a follow up on Roxburgh/Romanuk, The Missional Leader. Those who engage the four interrelated processes described in the latter half of Missional Leader are likely to encounter serious challenges and roadblocks. Missional Map-Making says the fundamental reason for this is that the “cultural maps” that shaped the imagination in churches in North America for so long are no longer accurate. They are like following a GPS with malfunctioning maps. Church leaders often “aspire to the modernist maps of leadership highly dependent on techniques of church growth and markers of success such as numbers of people in attendance or numbers of decisions made at a meeting or the percentage of the congregation involved in certain midweek programs.” (6) We live in a very different postmodern reality, however. Thus the purpose of this book to “propose a way of journeying in this new space by addressing how we should be cultivating local communities of witness and mission in a world were metrics no longer provide useful information.” (xvii)
Missional Map-Making does an excellent job comparing “Modernity’s Maps” with the confusing realities of the “in-between time” of postmodernity. One of the best chapters discusses “Eight Currents of Change and the Challenge of Making New Maps.”
This is the kind of book that can appreciated only by those who are serious about the leading missional communities. For these, the combination of Missional Map-Making with the earlier volume, The Missional Leader provide an excellent guide.
Part One When Maps No Longer Work.
Chapter One Maps Shaping Our Imaginations in Modernity.
Chapter Two Leading in an In-Between Time.
Chapter Three When Common Sense Is No Longer Common.
Chapter Four From Playing Pool to Herding Cats.
Chapter Five Why Strategic Planning Doesn’t Work in This New Space and Doesn’t Fit God’s Purposes.
Chapter Six Eight Currents of Change and the Challenge of Making New Maps.
Chapter Seven Lessons from the Formation of the Internet for Leading in This New Space.
Part Two The Map-Making Process.
Chapter Eight Cultivating a Core Identity in a Changed Environment.
Chapter Nine Cultivating Parallel Cultures of the Kingdom.
Chapter Ten Map-Making Partnerships Between a Local Church and Neighborhoods and Communities.
From the Publisher
In the burgeoning missional church movement, churches are seeking to become less focused on programs for members and more oriented toward outreach to people who are not already in church. When church leaders decide to make the fundamental missional shift from focusing on the church itself to asking what God is up to in the neighborhood where their people live, it can be challenging for both leaders and congregants. In this important book, missional leadership expert Alan Roxburgh includes the information and tools leaders need to develop their own maps and chart new paths toward stronger, more vibrant, and more missional congregations. Using the engaging metaphor of map-making, the book explains the perspective and skills needed to lead congregations and denominations in a time of radical change over unfamiliar terrain as churches change their focus from internal to external.
- Offers a clear guide for leaders wanting to transition to a missional church model
- Written by Alan Roxburgh, a prominent expert and practitioner in the missional movement
- Guides leaders seeking to create new maps for leadership and church organization and focus
- A Volume in the popular Leadership Network Series
Building on the work in the groundbreaking book The Missional Leader and on his extensive consulting practice, Alan Roxburgh shows step by step how to implement the strategic missional church model. This proven model also defines the characteristics that describe an effective missional leader and shows how pastors and other clergy can develop the skills they need to best lead their congregation and reach out to the larger community.
Missional Map-Making gives leaders the help they need to nurture their church environments to become truly God centered so that his spirit will guide the mission and the work of their congregations.
This book is written to be accessible to all Christian congregational styles and denominations.
About the Author
Alan J. Roxburgh is a pastor, teacher, writer, and consultant with more than thirty years’ experience in church leadership, consulting, and seminary education. He works with the Allelon Missional Leadership Network in the formation of leaders for the missional church.
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