Missional Map–Making: Skills for Leading in Times of Transition

Praise for Missional Map–Making "Roxburgh continues to move the missional conversation forward! His Missional Map–Making creatively builds on his previous publications by offering critical perspective on how to navigate the overwhelming complexity of today′s world. This important book provides insightful historical perspective toward clarifying the contours of our present landscape, while also being deeply instructive for helping reflective and courageous Christians develop skills for creating new maps toward participating more faithfully in God′s mission." Craig Van Gelder, Ph.D., professor of congregational mission, Luther Seminary "What if a leader, contra modern expectations, is not to provide dependable predictions, vision, answers, strategic plans, and operational control? Roxburgh claims these modern ways, based on outdated maps, blind us to reality, stifle churches, and result in misplaced efforts, deepening disappointment, and fatigue. Instead, leaders are to be cartographers in a new terrain, shaping churches in which map–makers multiply as God is encountered in biblical texts and local contexts. Roxburgh challenges us with cultural studies and theology so that we gain needed capacities for shaping generative environments in which the Gospel′s truth and power forms a people in and for God′s mission. Pastors, judicatory leaders, and students need to engage this book." Rev. Mark Lau Branson, Ed.D., Homer Goddard Associate Professor of Ministry of the Laity, Fuller Theological Seminary "The issue of leadership is critical in a time of rapid cultural change. Alan Roxburgh helps us with a vital image in the critical quest to recast a leadership approach for our times. The skill of map–making rather than just reading the maps we have goes to the heart of the matter. This is a hugely creative and needed book to help us remake the New Christian West." Martin Robinson, national director, Together in Mission, and author, Faith of the Unbeliever and Invading Secular Space

Introduction: An Uncertain Journey. Part One When Maps No Longer Work. Chapter One Maps Shaping Our Imaginations in Modernity. Chapter Two Leading in an In–Between Time. Chapter Three When Common Sense Is No Longer Common. Chapter Four From Playing Pool to Herding Cats. Chapter Five Why Strategic Planning Doesn′t Work in This New Space and Doesn′t Fit God′s Purposes. Chapter Six Eight Currents of Change and the Challenge of Making New Maps. Chapter Seven Lessons from the Formation of the Internet for Leading in This New Space. Part Two The Map–Making Process. Chapter Eight Cultivating a Core Identity in a Changed Environment. Chapter Nine Cultivating Parallel Cultures of the Kingdom. Chapter Ten Map–Making Partnerships Between a Local Church and Neighborhoods and Communities. Notes. The Author. Index.