A Letter From the Editor
From Sustaining Missional Leadership to Maintaining Missional Momentum
By Daniel Lautenbach

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At the end of April, Church Innovations and Allelon hosted the first in a series of Spring Conferences: Sustaining Missional Leadership. More than 80 people attended coming from as far away as South Africa, Europe and Australia as well as from throughout the US. They represented many denominations and independent churches. They came to share their experiences and to learn more about leading missional congregations in a series of seminars, break-out sessions and worship experiences.

We learned as well. There is tremendous excitement about the idea of becoming more missional. However, there are some who are uncertain about what it means to be a missional church and more background information would have served these congregations well. On the other hand, there are congregations who are familiar with the concepts but were looking for specific ideas or next steps to take their congregations to the next level.

As summer progresses we want to harness the energy from the Sustaining Missional Leadership conference and use it to maintain missional momentum by addressing these requests. This edition of Partners In Innovation is devoted largely to this end.

Patrick Keifert provides his perspective on the conference in his “Letter From the President.”

Jannie Swart, CI's Director of Partnership for Missional Church, presents an introduction to the concept of missional church in his article, “What is Missional Church”? This is the second in a series of articles devoted to unpacking the PMC process. The first, “PMC From 50,000 Feet,” written by Barbara Miller, appeared in the previous edition of PII. Subsequent articles in this series will present the phases of PMC in detail and provide stories about its transformational power for congregations.

Some additional resources about missional church are listed in “Further Reading About Missional Church.” It presents books appropriate for learning the basics and for acquiring a deeper understanding of the concept.

Four articles about the conference present it from different perspectives. Amy Lewis, a partner of Church Innovations but someone not “on the inside,” delivers a view of the conference from a lay perspective in her article, “A Layperson's View of the Sustaining Missional Leadership Conference.”

Kyle Schiefelbein, who has worked for Church Innovations while finishing his studies at Luther Seminary, presents an insider's view with “Inside the Sustaining the Missional Leadership Conference.”

Scott Hagley goes deeper into specific topics addressed at the conference in his two articles, “Congregational Mission Reshapes Theological Education,” and “Boundary Crossing and Missional Transformation.”

Additionally, our friend Jim Johnson has contributed another in his series of Crossing the Bar stories, “The Attack of the Bible Thumpers,” and Pat Taylor Ellison (currently on sabbatical at Princeton University) reports on the most recent meeting of the International Research Consortium. Upcoming events are presented in the “News and Events” section.

We hope these resources provide some added energy to your missional momentum.

Peace,

Daniel Lautenbach