Abstract
AbstractThe concept of missional church represents a confluence of ideas on spirituality, discernment and leadership. The very idea of participating in the missio Dei implies a spiritual journey and underlying spirituality, and discernment is widely described as the “first step in mission.” The missional church recognises the importance of leadership to envision, shape, and facilitate missional transformation. This chapter acknowledges the urgency and importance of discourses on spirituality and discernment, because of the context of the church finding itself in a complex world. The church is a complex system and finds itself in a dynamic reality where the dynamism also entails complexity—to the extent that Friedman (Thank you for being late: An optimist’s guide to thriving in the age of accelerations. Allen Lane, London, 2016) typifies our age as the “age of accelerations.” The research will introduce the idea of missional leadership and its relevance in the light of the renewed attention to concepts of missional church in South Africa, in many other contexts, and in ecumenical organisations. Defining missional leadership as the Spirit-led transformation of people and institutions by means of meaningful relations to participate in God’s mission, the chapter will attend to an appropriate understanding of spirituality. This will be against the background of a shift of spiritual formation from knowing and believing, to hungering and thirsting. In the final section, discernment will be described as entering into a trialogue: the discerning interaction between church, culture, and biblical narrative—to seek, discover, understand, and share in what the Holy Spirit is involved in the close-to-the-ground particulars of the church’s engagement in, with, against, and for the world.
Highlights
It is certainly limited by the scope of a single chapter and the fact that the researcher represents a particular facet of the complex denominational and religious landscape in South Africa, but attempts to contribute a perspective that can enhance the ability of the system to adapt to the changing context that equips leaders to act with more agility
Missional leadership recognises the fact that big systems, such as denominations, have “traders” and “gatekeepers” that determine the flow of ideas, the pace of transformation and orientation on the identity of systems
The concept of missional church is relevant due to the renewed attention it receives in many contexts, including South Africa, and in important ecumenical organisations
Summary
We live in complex times, in an age of acceleration. Friedman (2016, pp. 26–27) coined the concept of the “age of accelerations” to describe the rapid acceleration in globalisation where the flow of information and knowledge leads to a hyperconnected world; where the acceleration in climate change leads to biodiversity loss and the restructuring of mother nature; and the acceleration in computing power and smart technology to seamless complexity. This research focuses on leadership in the church and, missional leadership It is certainly limited by the scope of a single chapter and the fact that the researcher represents a particular facet of the complex denominational and religious landscape in South Africa, but attempts to contribute a perspective that can enhance the ability of the system to adapt to the changing context that equips leaders to act with more agility. This is typically the task of missional leaders, and a discerning spirituality will equip and assist missional leadership in this journey. The church needs missional leaders able to apply the wisdom of traders on the journey into an unsure and undefined future
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