The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church

Hirsch dose a masterful job in showing how the church of the western world has forgotten the way to be a Christ follower. As Hirsch puts it, "... all God's people carry within themselves the same potencies that energized the early Christian movement and that are currently manifest in the underground Chinese church." (Hirsch, 2006, p. 22) Hirsh then introduces the term: Apostolic Genius which the primary missional strength of the gospel and God's people. He expresses that this strength lies dormant in each Christian and local church that seeks to follow Jesus faithfully in any time. The problem, he rightly recognizes is that today's Christian culture has forgotten how to access and trigger it. Hirsh writes this book to help reactivate it so Christians can transform the world by living transformed lives. Hirsch identifies in the book six simple but interrelating elements of missional DNA, forming a complex and living structure. They are: 1) Jesus Is Lord: At the center and circumference of every significant Jesus movement there exists this very simple confession. 2) Disciple Making: This is the life-long task of becoming like Jesus by embodying his message. Hirsch believes that this is perhaps where many of our efforts fail. Disciple making is an irreplaceable core task of the church and needs to be structured into every church's basic formula. 3) Missional-Incarnational Impulse: Hirsch examines missional movements that seed and embed the gospel into different cultures and people groups. 4) Apostolic Environment: This relates to the type of leadership and ministry required to sustain metabolic growth and impact. 5) Organic Systems: Determining appropriate structures for metabolic growth. 6) Communitas, not Community: Too much concern with safety and security, combined with comfort and convenience, has lulled us out of our true calling and purpose. Hirsch wisely spends much attention as to how in the modern and the postmodern situation, the church is forced into the role of being little more than a vendor of religious goods and services. Which is why many of it's members have become passive. The church is supposed to radically change society and to do so we must tell an alternative story Hirsch ends quoting church consultant Bill Easum. Easum is right when he notes that "following Jesus into the mission field is either impossible or extremely difficult for the vast majority of congregations in the Western world because of one thing: They have a systems story that will not allow them to take the first step out of the institution into the mission field, even though the mission field is just outside the door of the congregation." (p. 252)

Using studies by Rodney Stark, Hirsch calculates that the early church grew from 25,000 in AD 100 to about 20,000,000 in AD 310. How did this happen? What was going on in early Christianity to experience this type of growth? To illustrate that this phenomena was not just an early church experience Hirsch shares the example of the church in China. When Mao Tse-tung took control of China there were approximately 2 million Christians. However, when the Bamboo Curtain was lifted some estimated the Christian population in China to be near 60 million. Moreover, the number of Christians in China today are around 80 million. Once again, how did this kind of growth happen? Hirsch states some qualifications: 1. They were an illegal religion throughout this period. 2. They didn't have church buildings as we know them. 3. They didn't have scriptures as we know them. 4. They didn't have an institution or professional forms of leadership. 5. They didn't have seeker-sensitive services, youth groups, worship bands, seminaries, etc. 6. They actually made it hard to join the church. In chapter one, titled "Setting the Scene" and subtitled "Confessions of a Frustrated Missionary" Hirsch tells a bit of his own story as leader of South Melbourne Restoration Community. Hirsch shares how he and his wife were brought to the church as a kind of last ditch effort to revive a church that had experienced birth, growth and decline in its 140 year history. Through the process the Hirschs came to the conclusion that they wanted to be involved in a church that was highly participatory (much more than the 20:80 rule) and missional. Hirsch provides a good contrast between the typical church growth principles that are used today to grow a contemporary church and the essential components that best describes the nature of the church. Hirsch states "if you wish to grow a contemporary church following good church growth principles, there are several things you must do and constantly improve upon: 1. Expand the building for growth. 2. Ensure excellent preaching that relates to the life of the hearers. 3. Develop an inspiring worship service with an excellent band. 4. Make certain you have excellent parking facilities. 5. Ensure excellent programs for children and youth. 6. Develop a program of cell groups rooted in a Christian ed model. 7. Make sure that next week is better than last week. In contrast to the above, Hirsch discusses the nature of, or innate purpose of the church according to scriptures: 1. A covenanted community 2. Centered on Jesus Christ ("Jesus is Lord"). 3. Worship, defined as offering our lives back to God through Jesus. 4. Discipleship, defined as following Jesus & becoming like him. 5. Mission, defined as extending the mission of God through the activities of the covenanted community. In the last section of the chapter, and my favorite, Hirsch discribes the practices that their faith community "came up with" as: 1. The basic ecclesial (church) unit was

I remember feeling this feeling...it was 28 years ago when I first read C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity"...when things I had formerly just "known intuitively" were suddenly jumping off the page in waves of recognition! I also remember having to read slowly without skimming or jumping ahead. C. S. Lewis was a very intentional writer. There was a plan to his pace that demanded respect. I have encountered this phenomenon again with Alan Hirsch's "The Forgotten Ways." No quick skim through the Table of Contents to what catches my eye will do. I must follow Alan's carefully crafted train of thought, if I am to mine this book for its many treasures. For those impatient ones who are widely read on this topic, I refer you to Leonard Sweet's prophetic statement at the end of his Foreword: "There are only a few books good enough to read to the end of time. "The Forgotten Ways" is one of them." This statement is true because the many concepts, stories, charts, graphs and tables in this remarkable book are examples of what Alan calls the "simplex"--simple enough to immediately resonate, yet complex enough to continue to yield nuanced gems for those willing to get their hands dirty and dig deeper. I expect to be "cleaning under my nails" for a very long time, indeed!

It's a powerful followup to The Shaping of Things to Come. Alan builds on the imagination and passion of the earlier work with Michael Frost to offer a vision for reinvigorating a missional movement that became an unholy alliance with the state under Constantine. With the legacy of Christendom rapidly becoming a piece of history, we have an opportunity to discover our missional DNA (mDNA). What is the dynamic that caused the church to grow from 25,000 souls to 20 million in 200 years? What similar dynamic empowered the Chinese church, while existing underground and outlawed, to expand at the same rate... without professional leaders, training facilities, or buildings? Is there hope for the Church in the west, mired as we are in modernity, in love with our buildings and comforts? Perhaps Roland Allen, in a quote offered by Hirsch, offers us a clue: "The spontaneous expansion of the Church reduced to its elements is a very simple thing. It asks for no elaborate organization, no large finances, no great numbers of paid missionaries. In its beginning it may be the work of one man, and that a man neither learned in the thigns of this world, nor rich int he wealth of this world.. What is necessary is faith. What is needed is the kind of faith which unity a man to Christ, sets him on fire." At the heart of the transition toward rediscovering this mDNA established communities made these changes: 1. the basic ekklesial unit becomes much smaller - not mini churches but meta church or house church. 2.not a new philosophy of ministry per se, not renewed vision and values, but a covenant and core practices. 3. each group becomes engaged in a set of disciplines 4. the movement exists in three rhythms - a weekly cycle of house meetings, a monthly tribal meetingm and a biannual gathering of all tribes in the network. 5. each group covenants to multiply itself. Alan is his usual calculating self here.. there are many diagrams and tremendous fodder for the imagination, many examples and diagrams and charts. In short, its a sweeping and integrative attempt to reimagine the church around her mission - what a novel thought!

Alan Hirsch nails it and nails it right with The Forgotten Ways. With deep thought and deep heart he has written what most surely will become THE primary text that will be used by missional church planters, trainers, and agencies for years to come. The combination of scholarship and practical example brings the much needed orthopraxic manual for missional development that so many of us have needed and desired. If you dug Shaping of Things to Come by Frost & Hirsch you will be hard pressed to lay TFW down even to eat. Alan has developed a great interactive online course as an essential tool based on The Forgotten Ways. The course can be found on The Forgotten Ways website.