There have been a lot of talk on the topic of “being missional.” It is exciting to hear about churches that are living out their calling as the “church.” In the Greek, the church is known as the “ekklesia.” It is made up of two words “ek” (out of) and “klesis” (calling). The word, “klesis” comes from the root word, “kaleo” which means “to call.” Therefore, the church is to “be the called out one” who is suppose to “be calling out.”
This is why when Peter wrote, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Pe 2:9-10), we are reminded of our calling as the church.
But like with all things, everything rises and falls with leadership. This book addresses more of the issue of leadership within the missional movement. There are plenty of books and articles on the topic of “being a missional church,” but not too many on missional leadership.
This is why Roxburgh’s and Romanuk’s book adds value to the whole missional movement. They go over some of the key character traits of a missional leader which I found to be fairly helpful. It is interesting that no matter what context the topic of leadership is talked about (business, church, sports, missional, etc), there are always familiar character traits that we cannot avoid.
Great movements always have great leaders. God uses leaders to sustain the movement by His Spirit. As the 21st century church is trying to go back to its 1st century roots (the book of Acts) the need for better leaders will be evident.
It is my prayer that we will be focused on raising better leaders rather than trying to come up with better organizational methods.