Missional Moves by Rob Wegner and Jack Magruder

Missional Moves by Rob Wegner and Jack Magruder is a book about transforming your church from not merely having missions at your church, but turning your church to being Missional. It’s not just sending a check to missionaries overseas, but engaging your congregation to see ways in which they can reach out to their own community with the gospel. It is also, about multiplying and creating new churches through people you reach out to, who come to faith. This book walks you through 15 shifts to get you on your Missional journey as a church. Each section is in-depth with examples from their church Granger Community Church and how they have enacted these shifts in transforming their church.

The first section talks about our foundation and how we view the gospel. Rob and Jack coined the term the Saved Soul’s Gospel which is viewing the gospel as how do we keep out of trouble with God? If we just merely view the gospel as a get out of Hell free card we are missing out on the full gospel. The Saved Whole’s Gospel views the gospel as proclaiming that Jesus is Lord and explains the Good News in more tangible, as well as practical ways. Depending on how we view the Good News truly determines how our witness will be.

The authors bring up the point of boxes and how we love to put our lives into different boxes. We don’t want to mesh our faith with our life outside of the church setting. We’ve been programmed to separate our lives into sections vs living our faith into each of those sections and breaking down those box walls. By having boxes for everything it helps us avoid fully engaging ourselves because we shift like a chameleon depending on what box we are in.

I don’t want to give away too, much and spoil the excitement of discovering what the Missional journey can be about if you choose to take the steps. Reaching out to others with the gospel is changing. It is becoming more outside the box than being closed within it. It is getting out of our comfort zone and meeting people where they are at, engaging them and sharing about Jesus through the way in which live our life in front of them.

This book is a bit long, but it’s crammed full of insight, conviction, creativity, excitement and examples. If you want your congregation to catch the Missional wave I recommend this book. The examples given in each section are eye opening, challenging and encouraging. I received Missional Moves in exchange for this review care of Cross Focused Reviews. I am not a pastor or in leadership at a church, but this topic sounded fascinating, which is why I chose to read and review it. It was worth it.

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