Brian McLaren’s says "This is more than a book, it is a manifesto, a proposal for a new way of imagining a common life together as the pilgrim people of God seeking to fulfill God’s purposes for the world in our time."

Alpha USA president, Todd Hunter comments, "here is the conceptual framework every leader needs to navigate “stuck-ness” between a past to which we cannot return and a future yet to emerge."

Fuller’s Doctor Mark Lau Branson states "if you believe, as I do, that churches today have encountered profound cultural shifts, that leaders need conversations across tribal boundaries, and that we need our imaginations to be immersed in biblical narratives, then this book is what we need to deepen and guide our discourse."

I haven’t read the book. Yet! But we’ve ordered it. (Actually we’ve ordered two copies – one for a Pastor friend of ours.)

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Al for over twenty years. Our families are wonderfully interwoven. Imbi and I met Al first as a pastor, then as team leader in a church context where we were team members. Al has lived with a mission to  encourage and train leaders for as long as I’ve known him. From his days sitting in coffee shops with young leaders (then) like myself, through his time teaching in seminary, to the church and denominational consulting he does today. As Al says in an article at the Allelon site published yesterday,

I have been practicing, writing, teaching and consulting on the themes of missional leadership for many years. Over those years it’s become clear that if we’re to cultivate a missional church we have to address the question of leadership. And if we are to see unfold among us the kinds of local missional communities we talk and write about then it is going to require a multi-generational movement of men and women committed to this journey. I have said many times that this missional journey is one in which the shape of the church and its leaders will only take form long after I have left the scene. That’s not a morbid statement; it recognizes the massive adaptive challenges before us. In the middle last century Niebuhr wrote that nothing worth doing could be done in a lifetime. This is particularly true of the leadership formation required to form local missional communities. For too long the missional conversation has been limited to abstract conversations that rarely land in the lived contexts of leaders. This needs to be addressed!

The sub-title of Al’s book is Leaders Lost in Transition and BTS President, David Dunbar writes,

Alan Roxburgh provides a realistic analysis of this crisis and warns us not to look for easy answers or quick solutions—the time of transition will be with us longer than we like. So he does not provide the latest “how-to” manual for successful church leadership—we have enough of those already! But neither does he get stuck in “analysis paralysis.” Instead he suggests a way that we might work together long-term to develop a more faithful engagement of the church with the mission of God

Order the book, or get on the list to borrow Imbi’s and my copy.

Technorati Tags: Alan Roxburgh, Allelon, Brian McLaren, Emergent Church, leadership, missional leadership, The Sky is Falling!?!