Explore Missional Congregations

Welcome

The Department of Missional Congregations builds on the biblical and theological foundation of the missio Dei in and to particular peoples, contexts, and cultures. Graduates learn how the transcultural gospel has been taken to all peoples through starting missional congregations in diverse contexts global contexts throughout history, and thus are equipped to fulfill their own missional calling in specific congregations contexts.

Why Leading & Starting Missional Congregations?

The Great Commission to make disciples of all nations is the Lord’s undeniable command. Starting & leading New Testament churches in and for every culture and people is the undeniable biblical strategy. Those convictions drive the Department of Missional Congregations to search Scripture, study history, and understand people groups and population segments so that students called to gather disciples into congregations and lead them out to engage their communities may be equipped to do so faithfully and fruitfully.

The Department of Missional Congregations challenges students to explore, analyze, and evaluate their own contexts and church backgrounds, and the contexts where God may be calling them to live and work missionally. Graduates then are able to lead out and participate in congregational development that is biblically faithful, theologically driven, and historically, sociologically, culturally, and contextually informed.

Why Missional University?

Missional Congregational Studies at Missional University are based on the six core values of the University:

Biblically Based:

The Department assumes and builds on faithful research and application of the Biblical text, which is the starting point, motivating factor, and strategic basis for contextual congregations.

Missionally Driven:

Our concern is not to simply understand historical and contextual congregations for information sake, but for the development and implementation of missional congregational strategies.

Interculturally Focused:

God’s mission, and the one his people are called to, is that all nations (peoples) may know him and that someday those from “every tribe and language and people and nation” may give him praise. Therefore, the Department of Missional Congregations is grounded in God’s belief that a missional congregation requires intercultural input with an intercultural goal.

Contextually Informed:

The Department is driven by the understanding that culture and context matters for congregational development. Such global diversity is assumed and welcomed. It is also an integral part of the interpretation and development of missional congregations because our assumption is the full authority and ability of the Bible to transform every culture.

Practically Minded:

The goal of the Department of Missional Congregations is transformation and fruitfulness in students’ lives. Students are challenged and taught to take what they have learned and apply as they participate and lead out in congregational development.

Experientially Transformed:

The study of congregational development from and for a missional perspective will not be a mere intellectual or academic exercise. This will, rather, thoroughly engage the student for both personal transformation and ministry effectiveness through opportunities for reflection and the theological analysis and evaluation of missional congregational philosophies, strategies, and methods.