Missional Communities by Reggie McNeal

[thomaslaw3]

As we move into the 21st Century we have been grappling with what it is to live in a Post-Modern culture filled with Millennials. McNeal takes us into the arena of the church with the assertion that we are not only moving into a new era culturally but also religiously – the Post-Congregational world. The author explores one aspect of this new reality – missional communities. In this book, McNeal highlights trends and examples of this phenomenon that are being developed in various parts of the country with varying styles and structures. He does this on purpose to illustrate that there is no normative “product” when speaking of missional communities. They will (and are) as varied as the people who populate them. This actually is one of their strengths as they reconnect the church to culture and society. McNeal points out that the church has developed into silos (some might say fortresses) which are increasingly becoming isolated from the world at large. Rather than equip people to be “salt and light” in their communities the church has taken people out of their communities. The missional community movement is an attempt to move the church back into the culture in order to be the transformative agent Jesus meant it to be.