“You may not change the world, but you can change the world for one person.” So goes the old adage. We as God’s people are tasked with a global work which can seem utterly overwhelming at times. Perhaps you’re thinking: “I can’t even keep my personal/work life and family straight! How can I even make a difference to some nation or culture on the other end of the world?”

Almost 20 years after the publication of Missional Church by Darrell L. Guder, there is a lot of misunderstanding and misuse surrounding the term missional. But the missional movement generated by Guder and his colleagues is substantive, and I’d like to give the authors of the book a fresh hearing.

Missional leadership in this time of anxiety can seem like facing a heavyweight prize fighter who comes at us with steady jabs of guilt and demoralizing right hooks.