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Forgotten Ways, The: Reactivating the Missional Church

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It isn't often that an author follows up a first release with a book that equals or surpasses it. Alan Hirsch has managed that feat with The Forgotten Ways.

The book is divided into two broad sections. Section 1 is "the making of a missionary." Alan tells his own story, a journey from attractional-evangelistic models to incarnational-missional practice. This section contains a lengthy introduction and then two chapters. Section 2 is "a journey to the heart of apostolic genius." In this section Alan works out what he calls missional DNA (mDNA). There are many points of contact with Neil Cole and some with Howard Snyder, both of whom made use of the DNA analogy, but Alan is more intent on fleshing out a missional ecclesiology than was Neil Cole, and his direction is both broader and more focused than Snyder's in "Decoding the Church." There is also some significant resonance with Alan Roxburgh's "The Sky is Falling," particularly with regard to the use of "liminality" and "communitas" vs "community."

Section two comprises 8 chapters and then a lengthy addendum and short glossary. All told the book is 288 pages in length.

Alan opens with the question you may have seen elsewhere:how did the early Christian movement go from roughly 25,000 members in AD 100 to roughly 20 million two hundred years later? More critically, how did they accomplish this without buildings, a coherent Scripture (other than the first testament), no professional leaders, no seeker sensitive services, youth groups, or worship bands.. and while the church was under persecution! (we probably wouldn't have even the membership we have today if that element was suddenly introduced).

Now, Alan doesn't anchor his reflection only in the early church. The church in China experienced nearly the same growth rate under similar conditions. Leaders killed or imprisoned, unable to use or build large meeting halls, no leadership training, almost no access to the bible etc. In his introduction Alan offers a foretaste of what is to come. He outlines six elements of mDNA:

* Jesus is Lord
* Disciple Making
* Missional-Incarnational Impulse
* Apostolic Environment
* Organic Systems
* Communitas instead of community

this is a must read for those who want church without religion.
alan unearths via the examples of the early church and china how the fundamental nature of christianity is anti-institution and anti-earthly power/politics and when it falls into these traps it starts to decay
thus what he has to say if VITAL to rebuilding a new church in the west.