Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community

Breaking the Missional Code is about how every church should approach their communities with a missionary mentality in order to reach different cultural groups with the Gospel. It endeavors to explain why some churches are growing and thriving in a modern world and why some are shrinking and failing. The churches that are thriving are said to be “breaking the code,” a term that is used dozens of times throughout the book.The church in America faces serious challenges. Secularism is on the rise. People are no longer Biblically literate. The number of unchurched people is rising. No longer is America a Christian nation. When missionaries visit foreign countries, they are encouraged to translate the Gospel message into a form that can be understood in the culture they are ministering to. With the rise of diverse ethnic groups, language groups, and cultural groups in America, a similar missionary approach is needed.In the 90’s, the “purpose driven” model of church growth of Rick Warren and the “seeker-sensitive” model of Bill Hybels became popular. However, the exact methods, strategies, and formulas of Warren and Hybels do not automatically translate into every context. The authors of this book argue that a new paradigm of church growth is needed, a paradigm they call the “missionial church.” Missionial churches do not look like one another, however, they do share a common philosophy. They approach their communities with a missionary mentality that strives to translate the Gospel into terms their communities can understand.Missional ministry is not an option for an engaged church, it is a necessity. Jesus commanded the church to “Go into all the world,” so every church has a mandate to reach out to the world that surrounds them. The church is sent by Jesus on a mission, a mission to reach the lost. In other words, “your church is intended to be God’s missionary church” (p. 42). Becoming a missional church requires a shift in thinking. The missional church must move from programs to processes, from demographics to discernment, from models to missions, from attractional to incarnational, from uniformity to diversity, from professional to passionate, from seating to sending, from decisions to disciples, from additional thinking to exponential thinking, and from monuments to movements. Missional leaders have a strong sense of calling, character, competency, comprehension, commitment, and courage.Contexualization of the gospel is important for the missional church. The “eternal, universal truth of God’s word is understood and appropriated by people through a cultural grid or framework” (93). The authors argue that “evangelism should be less programmatic and more process-oriented” and it should be “less propositional and more relational” (102). The authors argue for a discipleship process that involves searching, believing, belonging, becoming, and serving. The authors discuss a variety of practical suggestions for inviting guests, welcoming guests, engaging guests, connecting guests, assimilating attenders, and discipling members. They discuss models for launching a “code breaking” church including: pioneering, branching, partnering, restarting, and catalyzing churches. They look at the benefits and challenges of different methods of planting churches including “core-to-crowd” and “crowd-to-core.” Questions that church planters should ask include: Am I ready to plant? Are my teams in place? Have I solved the resource challenge? Have I determined the right place to plant? Do I have a clear vision? Have I networked my community? Am I ready to go public? Do I have an assimilation process in place? The authors warn that “techniques, paradigms, and methodologies” do little good without “genuine biblical and missiological convictions” (184).EvaluationEd Stetzer holds the Billy Graham Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College and he is the executive director of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism. He is the interim pastor at Moody Church in Chicago. He plants and revitalizes churches and trains pastors and church planters. David Putman is a Lead Navigator with Auxano where he helps bring clarity to people’s visions. He is a consultant and a coach. His mission is to equip ordinary disciples for planting the Gospel where they live, work, and play. They write to pastors, and church planters, and to seminary students who might start a church someday.One small problem that makes the book dated is that this book quotes Mark Driscoll several times and holds Mars Hill Church up as an example of a missional church. But, the fall of Driscoll and the complete disappearance of his church makes his story a cautionary tale instead of a good example. The amount of good that Driscoll did is probably equal to the amount of bad that happened after the dissolution of his church.The word “missional” has only recently been coined and in some ways it is a confusing, imprecise, and overused term. This book uses the root phrase “mission” in a variety of ways. It refers to “God’s mission.” It says a church must “do mission.” It refers to “missiology,” and to “missionaries.” At its heart, the term “missional church” means “a church that focuses on its mission to reach the lost.” One drawback of telling every church they are a missionary church is that it subtracts value from those who are missionaries in the traditional senses. If everyone in the church is a missionary, then what should “real” missionaries be called? Many North American churches have significantly or completely cut out their mission’s budgets because they have decided to focus on their own neighborhoods. While it is good to reach American neighborhoods, there is still huge need for real missionaries in the far off corners of the earth. For example, in Tulsa, there is a church on practically every corner, but in Pakistan there is one missionary for every one million Muslims. Where is the greatest need?The authors argue that discipleship begins long before conversion occurs. They tell several stories of individuals who participate, serve, and even go on mission trips before they actually decide to follow Jesus. In their view, it may take several months or even years of participation and exposure to a church before someone is saved. While it is important for a church to provide opportunities for seekers to be included and even involved, in this author’s view there is a serious problem with a church where one can attend for several months and not get saved. The authors write, “Asking people to literally change their worldview after simply hearing the gospel, with no previous exposure to a Christian worldview, is usually unrealistic” (84). This ignores that fact that the Holy Spirit is involved in the conversion process and that many people do in fact get saved in an instant. They do acknowledge that “in some cases…conversion can be instantaneous” but they believe that “in most cases, God draws people to himself through a journey that includes making connections with a Christian community” (123).This book is “church centric” instead of being “kingdom centric.” The authors believe that the local church is the main expression of God’s mission here on the earth. They write, “The church is God’s primary instrument for communicating the Good News. The church is God’s missionary to the world” (122). But, why cannot a missionary be God’s missionary to the world? The authors believe that churches that are trained to do evangelism are less effective at evangelism (122), which is a counter-intuitive conclusion. They believe that “the church is the best place for evangelism to occur” (145) which is not necessarily true. They write, “people can make a dangerous decision (for Christ) in a safe place (the church)” (145). The problem with making the church the focus of evangelism is that lost people usually do not come to the church. The key to evangelism is not getting people to come into the church building; the secret is to get the church to go out to where the people are. As an evangelist, this author often holds evangelistic meetings on soccer fields or cricket field because many people who would never step foot inside a church are willing to visit a neutral sports venue, especially in foreign nations like Pakistan where it is completely impossible for a Muslim to attend a church. On this point, the authors of this book would disagree with this author. They say, “Evangelism became identified too closely with great campaigns or crusades designed to win individuals to a commitment to Jesus Christ” (227). This is an ironic position for Ed Stetzer to take since he is the executive director of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism. Often, the best place to evangelize is on the street, or on a sports field, or around a dinner table; not inside a church building. However, I do say a hearty “amen” when the authors write “the mission of the church to fulfill the Great Commission does not get relegated to a program of evangelism, but it becomes intricately woven through the entire fabric of the local church” (228). Ultimately, every church should be enthusiastic about the mission of leading the lost to Christ and every believer should help to fulfill the Great Commission.

This book made me think hard about my church. The authors assert that we are living in an essentially pagan culture, and unless churches today adopt a missionary mindset, they are going pass into irrelevancy and eventually vanish. We must stop worrying about our worship style preferences and other forms of ministry that make us comfortable, and instead think about what is most needed to reach people outside of our church. In short, we must become missional. We must figure out how to reach people where they are at and not expect them to come to us.My copy is underlined and starred on virtually every page. It took me a longer time than normal to read this book, because I had to stop every few paragraphs to absorb what the authors were saying and to think through the implications of their teaching for my church. I have already recommended it to several of my friends and colleagues. Highly recommended for pastors, elders and other church leaders.

The book, Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community By Ed Stetzer, and David Putman is used in many seminaries across the land. This author would argue that Breaking the Missional Code is just one more threat to the unification of Christianity. It propagates the idea that you are to mold your church to reflect the makeup of your community. First, what exactly do theses authors mean by Breaking the Code?Breaking the code does not mean just finding the best model (or models) for your community. Instead, it means discovering the principles that work in every context, selecting the tools most relevant for your context (which may come from methods and models), and then learning to apply them in a missionally effective manner. It means thinking missiologically, and “if we are not focusing on missiology then we are being disobedient to the Great Commission.”[1] According to Mittelberg, “For those of us who have our sights set on reaching secular people in our increasingly post-Christian society, we must step back and figure out what our mission field’s cultural landscape looks like.”[2] (Stetzer and Putman 2006, p. 2)Ed Stetzer penned an article in the magazine Christianity Today on the topic of contextualization. “Contextualization involves an attempt to present the Gospel in a culturally relevant way. For this reason, discussions about contextualization are connected to discussions about the nature of human culture; we cannot separate the two.” Culture is the shared beliefs and values of group: the beliefs, customs, practices, and social behavior of a particular nation, people, or community. Stetzer writes, “The process of contextualization takes these facts about culture into account. It involves ‘presenting the unchanging truths of the gospel within the unique and changing contexts of cultures and worldviews.’[3] Dan Gilliland offers a full definition of contextualization. He defines contextualization as a tool ‘to enable, insofar as it is humanly possible, an understanding of what it means that Jesus Christ, the Word, is authentically experienced in each and every human situation.’[4] Such a tool is necessary because “while the human condition and the gospel remain the same, people have different worldviews which in turn impact how they interpret themselves, the world and the things you say.’[5]” Stetzer goes on to say, “Contextualization involves an attempt to present the Gospel in a culturally relevant way … Discussions about culture are unavoidable; all people live in a culture of some sort … Contextualization, then, is simply about sharing the Gospel well … Contextualization is an important component of effective Gospel ministry.”[6]In short, some innocent appearing terms and ideas are not so innocent once we start unpacking them. Before dealing with Breaking the Missional Code and these terms, let us consider another common term, the so-called “seeker-movement” or “seeker-sensitive,” which aims to make churches more accessible and sensitive to the needs of spiritual seekers. The “seeker-movement” or “seeker sensitive” label is associated with some megachurches in the United States where Christian messages are often imparted by means of elaborate creative elements emphasizing secular popular culture, such as popular music styles. Such churches often also develop a wide range of activities to draw in families at different stages in their lives. Even Stetzer and Putman admit, “A few in the seeker movement have watered down the gospel.”[7] I would venture to say that it is far more than a few. The truth of the matter, it all boils down to only being about the numbers, finding slick ways to reaching those within Satan’s world, and being success oriented.[8]Christianity for almost 500 years since the Reformation has missed the boat that all churches are to be missional to their community, and now they are looking for ways to make up the ground. This is all good and fine, but it seems that they now want to jump on another boat, `let us be like the world so that we can attract the world.' This is their version of Paul's words, “I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some.” What if Paul were alive today, and he was on a missionary journey into some African countries, visiting some established congregations, and he saw that in many of these churches, men came to church with several of their wives. Would he become all things and accept polygamy, because it is a part of their culture?Christians are humbly to share the Good News with all people, not prejudging them based on their race, culture, or background. (1 Cor. 9:22-23) Since the authors, Stetzer and Putman, chose how one dresses as an issue of knowing your mission field, we will address that as well.While this is true, no church should adopt any changes that would violate Scripture, nor would they water down their values and standards merely to please the world. Of course, we do not want a standard of dress that exemplifies wealth, snobbery, and so on. However, we would not want to wear a standard of dress that exemplifies the world either.There is a difference between a teen girl wearing something that only half covers her up, and respecting the African cultural kaba, a popular style of women’s attire. There is a difference between a young man wearing a heavy metal or rap T-shirt to church and respecting the Korean hanbok, a bolero-style blouse, and a long skirt, uniquely proportioned.[9]Based on the definition of indigenous on pages 91-92, what does it mean for you to be an indigenous church?The idea behind indigenization is that a church should spring forth out of the soil in which it is planted. It is indigenous in that its leadership, expressions, forms, and functions reflect that of the context. At the same time, it serves as a transforming agent in the very culture that sustains it. When this happens, we can truly say we have an indigenous church.[10]Breaking the Missional Code seems to be saying, an indigenous church is reflective of its community. It makes the statement, “The churches mentioned throughout this book and Planting Missional Churches, even though very different in terms of form and style, are good examples of indigenous churches.” The idea is that “their style [the church, pastor/leadership] reflects their community.” (Stetzer and Putman 2006, p. 93) Really? I think it would be that the members of the church, who came out of the community, should reflect the image of God.While more Georgians are finding faith in Christ, statistics indicate that nearly 70 percent of the state’s 8,383,915 residents remain unchurched.” If this is so, then it is important that we ask the question how we can reintroduce people to church and ultimately to Christ. (Stetzer and Putman 2006, p. 90)No, the question is just the opposite, “how can we reintroduce God's Word to the people?” This author has stated it repeatedly in his writings, and will continue to do so, that we should conform the world to the true Christian, biblical way. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2, ESV)It must seem that I am setting aside what seems like reasonable ideas within this book and others, but we should see it differently. There are 41,000 different denominations, which call themselves Christian, all believing differently. Many of these so-called Christian dominations are becoming more like the world and less like their Creator. We should not agree with the status quo of where things currently are, but nor should we agree with most of the Breaking the Missional Code either. The whole point can be summed up in this; the whole congregation going into the community must share the Gospel, evangelize the community. The congregation must be first trained in witnessing, communication, reasoning, and teaching so that they can effectively relate the Word of God to the community. Yes, they need to be able to relate to the community.Stetzer and Putman write, “Ironically, it is often when we train people to do evangelism that they become less effective in the process.” (p. 122) This is such nonsense, and so untrue, it trouble me the moment my eyes fell on the words. From this comment alone, this book should be set aside for another. Evangelism training is not ineffective; the one who set up the program is ineffective. Jesus spent 3.5 years training his disciples in evangelism.Luke 6:40 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.Just how effective was Jesus? How effective was his apostles and early disciples? Jesus early disciples carried on the work that he had commanded them to accomplish, which ran throughout the Roman Empire, in Asia, Europe, and Africa. (Matt 28:18-20) At the beginning of the second century, there were over a million Christians and estimated to be between 5-7 million by 300 C.E. In fact, the Christians displaced pagan religion as the official religion by 400 C.E.Stetzer and Putman write, “Too often, we find the models they choose do not line up with the communities they are trying to reach.” (p. 154)Here again, we start off with the fact that the book is seeking to mold the church into the community, as opposed to molding the community into the church. The objective is to convert the community into Christians, not the convert the church into a community pleaser. Have a biblical model, and then learn to reach the cultural milieu(s) that exists within your community.Stetzer and Putman write, “A biblical church is a contextual church.” (p. 180) What is meant is adapting the church, without violating Scripture, to the local culture. What you have in these authors are missionary minded individuals who are used to the missionary field overseas. There they may have an African village, which has a single culture, or in China, a single Chinese community, or in Jordan, an Islamic community full of Sunni Muslims only, and so on.However, the Western world is a melting pot of cultures. Within a given community, you could have 20-30 or more cultures. Which one do you try to make your church mold to, or is it best to have a biblically based church, which relates to all cultures, and invites them in, accepting aspects of their culture unless it violates Scripture. Even of the many, many cultures within a given community, there are those that do not reflect that because we are all individuals after all.What if our context has to do with social status? If our community is made up of people with multimillion-dollar homes, should they waste money by building a church that is reflective of their mansions, costing millions upon millions on the look of the building? Should the pastors wear $5,000.00 suits? Should the pastor avoid sermons on money issues that are reflecting in New Testament teachings, for fear of offending the congregation?A Biblical ChurchThe Bible is their foundation in faith, truth and practiceBiblical preachingThe worship is based in Scriptural principlesThe building is designed based on Scriptural principlesThe music chosen is based on biblical principlesThe education is biblicalThe worldview and lifestyle of its members is biblicalIts evangelism is patterned after the New TestamentThe pastors and servants are chosen based on ScriptureThe structure of leadership is based on ScriptureChurch discipline is based on ScriptureOrganized and governed based on ScriptureAnd so on ...All the while, its members can relate to whoever is in the community. It has acceptance of cultural aspects is biblical as well. This means that they are welcome to engage in any cultural lifestyle that does not violate Scripture. For example, a woman could wear any type of dress that is relevant to her culture, as long as it is modest. While the book hints at this, many of its statements throughout belie what is truly biblical.There are literally tens of millions of unbelieving, North Americans, walking around, who have a receptive heart to the biblical truth, the deeper Gospel. They are like low hanging fruit from the tree of potential disciples; all we have to do is pick them. Some will be easy to bring into the fold; some will have to be reasoned with to overcome their firmly entrenched ideas while some will have to have their criticisms overcome, before they will start to believe. Let us speak hypothetically, but realistically for a minute, to give us the real perspective.In the evangelistic year of 2016, we will say (hypothetically) that there are 10 million potential disciples available to be picked from the tree of humanity. Jehovah's Witnesses will take about 3-4 million of them while the Mormons will gather up another 2 million, and the Seventh Day Adventists will take between 1-2 million. The Witnesses will go out and win over the easy ones, the ones that have to have their false ideas overcome, as well as the ones that need their criticisms overcome as well. They will win over the blue-color worker, the teacher, the scientist, the professor, the Muslim, the Jew, the African, the Asian, even the occasional pastor, as they gather up 30-40 percent of the fruit available.What about so-called true Christianity, i.e. Christendom? Well, let us quote Stetzer and Putman, “This ‘humiliation’ of Christendom has been underway for two centuries. It is no longer appropriate, if it ever was, to speak of “Christian America.” (p. 228). The only fruit that Christendom will take in is maybe less than 50,000 depressed souls that walk into their church looking for hope because they do not go out and win over anyone. They will take in far less than 0.01 percent of the 10 million potential disciples, and will only keep a few thousand before they are stolen from the above groups.Stetzer and Putman write, “Did Jesus Christ not institute the church as his missionary instrument for fulfilling the Great Commission?” (p. 227)Yes, he did, and this includes all Christians carrying out the Great Commission, not just the pastors. The book makes this point as well.Stetzer and Putman write, “The heart of the Great Commission is to ‘make disciples.’ Earlier in this book, we described a disciple as one who lives like Jesus lived, loves like Jesus loved, and leaves behind what Jesus left behind.” (p. 227).In other words, a “learner” or better known as a “Christian” makes another “learner.” If a Christian is to make disciples and this involves making them into “people who are like Jesus,” then that would mean they are to be teachers of potential disciples, helping them as they transform into becoming a Christian disciple.Stetzer and Putman ask, “How do you turn your church into an army for breaking the unbroken code?”It is quite simple; make a biblical church that is reflective of the New Testament in principle, which has members that are trained in effectively sharing God’s Word to all sorts of people in their community, proclaiming, teaching and making disciples, regardless of the culture one is from. Make the maximum number of members in a church be 150, at which point 75 divide and build another church in the same area. This way you are growing away and out from your first local-missional minded church.[1] Reggie McNeal, The Present Future (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 51.[2] Mark Mittelberg, Building a Contagious Church (Grand Rapids: zondervan, 2001), 34.[3] [...][4] Dean Gilliland, “Contextualization,” in The Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, edited by Scott Moreau (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2000).[...] [6] What is Contextualization? Presenting the Gospel in .., [...] (accessed February 04, 2016).[7] Putman, David; Ed Stetzer (2006-05-01). Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community (p. 181). B&H Publishing. Kindle Edition.[8] Newton, Phil A. (May 2007). "The Package Matters: Problems with the Church Growth Movement". Areopagus Journal (Apologetics Resource Center) (Troublesome Movements in the 21st–Century Church).Seeker-Sensitive Problems, [...] (accessed February 04, 2016).[9] While there are both men’s and women’s styles of the hanbok, our discussion focuses on women’s.[10] Putman, David; Ed Stetzer (2006-05-01). Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community (pp. 91-92). B&H Publishing. Kindle Edition.

My first exposure to Ed Stetzer was throught the Resurgence.com and Mars Hill Church of Seattle. This book is an excellent as well as careful study on being a missionary to your surrounding community and just what that means. All American pastors would do well to give it a read. Too often churches speak of missions as something that happens on a far off continent with no consideration for being missional in their own communities. Good book. I would read another book by these authors.