by Alan Hirsch

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review by Timothy Friend

WHAT WILL the Western church of the future look like? It's hard to say, but if it is growing and healthy it will probably not look like it does today. Alan Hirsch, in his new book The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church, believes that it should look like it did in the first 300 years of its existence or like the underground church in modern-day China. He documents many similarities between these two explosive Christian movements. These findings explain a new (actually an old) way of church life. Hirsch—who draws from experience as church leader, strategist, educator, and missional activist—explains his frustration with current modes of church, echoing many other contemporary leaders:

As we anxiously gaze into the future and delve into our history and traditions to retrieve missiological tools from the Christendom toolbox, many of us are left with the sinking feeling that this is simply not going to work. The tools and techniques that fitted previous eras of Western history simply don't seem to work any longer. What we need now is a new set of tools. A new “paradigm”—a new vision of reality: a fundamental change in our thoughts, perceptions, and values, especially as they relate to our view of the church and mission. (p. 17)

Hirsch emphasizes the need to keep Jesus Christ first as the foremost informer of all aspects of church. This Christology determines our mission or missiology, which in turn determines the practice of church life (technically called ecclesiology). Using examples of churches from around the world to illustrate his ideas, Hirsch calls on his readers to actively engage the 21st-century Western culture in a biblical manner with an intentional focus on being missional. He calls this movement the “Emerging Missional Church” (EMC). His terms may be new, but the principles are certainly not. For example, this is how Hirsch explains what it means to be missional:

A working definition of missional church is a community of God's people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God's mission to the world. In other words, the church's true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true church. (p. 82)

Hirsch describes a way of church life and practice based on what he calls “apostolic genius”—“the built-in life force and guiding mechanism of God's people” (p. 18). Using biblical teaching mixed with sociological principles, he challenges us to become missional—nothing less than a serious and intentional call to follow Jesus. Hirsch suggests that every group of Jesus followers (church) has missional DNA (mDNA)—the components or elements that make up the apostolic genius. This mDNA is many times latent, but throughout history has become activated during times of persecution and rapid growth of the church. Hirsch believes that this core mDNA is what can make the church what Jesus called it to be, so we must create environments in which that mDNA can be activated.

At the epicenter of this apostolic genius is Hirsch's missional church principle of christocentric monotheism. This principle, which he states as “Jesus is Lord,” is the very foundation of the church and the center around which everything else moves. If this is not in place, mDNA will certainly not become active. Around this central theme are five other elements of mDNA, each of which are important to the health and well-being of the church. They are:

• Disciple Making
• Missional-Incarnational Impulse
• Apostolic Environment
• Organic Systems
• Communitas, Not Community

Hirsch unpacks each of these elements, which are founded in sound theology, in its own chapter.

If you are looking for a specific model on how to do church in the 21st century, you may be disappointed. Hirsch does not offer a cookie-cutter approach to church growth. While he gives many examples of churches and groups operating in missional fashion, he does not advocate a specific type of church practice. The principles he presents could be used in a variety of church settings. The ideas are especially suited, however, for a movement that takes us into the future using alternative methods of gathering together, worship, and reaching those who are not Jesus followers.

The section on “cultural distance” is very helpful. In the Western church we tend to reach out to people who are like us while ignoring the many subcultures all around us. But as this section reminds us, to reach those who are different we must become missionaries to their culture. Only then will they hear the Gospel message.

The process of change is always difficult and not without failures. The story of a church Hirsch led in Melbourne, Australia, illustrates the point. He documents the struggles and ups and downs of discovering a new way of doing church, and his transparency is very refreshing.

A comprehensive and growing Web site [link to theforgottenways.org] continues the discussion started in the book. From the Web site you can take a test to find out your leadership/ministry gifts. You can enter into a discussion about the missional church and find other resources and training opportunities. Clearly, Hirsch wants the missional conversation to continue.

This book, a continuation of the ideas addressed with coauthor Michael Frost in The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st- Century Church, is a must-read for those looking for effective ways to be the church and to reach an increasingly resistant and post-Christian Western population.

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