Breaking The Missional Code (Review)

In his book, “Breaking the Missional Code,” author, Ed Stetzer describes a plethora of ways churches are effectively reaching the 21^st century North American culture. The adjective, “local” church has been referred to as, “glocal,” to better illustrate for us how diverse our country has become and to better define the church that’s reaching out to that diversity. Communal awareness, (i.e. ethnicity, age, location, vocation, education, etc…), is what the glocal church digests; an understanding of these cultural characteristics, marinated with a desire for outreach, is what allowed Christ to transform the church into the type of body He needed them to become in order to reach the community they found themselves in. The churches that become aware of their community and submit to this transformation are the glocal churches that are reaching people and growing exponentially in the process.

As Mr. Stetzer shares the locations many of these churches have manifested and how they came to be, we discover methods used to establish successful churches in these areas in the past have changed. The message from God hasn’t changed but the methods used to relay His message has, and it is completely related to the church’s understanding of its missional outreach to a specific people. The author describes what God is doing through this glocal church as, “breaking the missional code”.  Here is where the author suggests the need for a church to become indigenous; within the culture, but not to be a participant in its behavior. The indigenous church offers sanctuary for people to come as they are, without expectations from them to conform to a certain behavior or type. An indigenous church learns to contextualize Scripture, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to its culture, therefore, transforming behavior and type from within a person. This is a description of a glocal church; breaking the missional code and reaching people for Christ!

As a church pastor wanting to obey the Commission as commanded by Christ, succeed in the battle for the lost, and become part of the church Christ is establishing and growing, I see the value of becoming, for loss of a better term, a “glocal” church. Why? Number one, the harvest is right before us. One of our stumbling blocks has been looking beyond the community, our Judea, thinking that in order for us to grow we needed to reach out beyond our boundaries. Although this may happen, and should, it never will, if we don’t allow the Holy Spirit to sensitize us and make us aware of the lost right beside us. This book has challenged me to re-access the community in our midst. It gives me hope to know we have an opportunity to reintroduce ourselves to the culture surrounding us as a body that cares for them, understands them, and welcomes them as they are without expectations from them to conform to us, but be transformed by the Holy Spirit. Number two, instead of falling into the trap of copying the success of another church, we can focus through prayer and practice what kind of a church Christ needs us to be in order to reach the culture we are a part of; our identity becoming whatever Christ transforms it into. Number three, and the most important, as a glocal church, submitted to the culture Christ has planted us in, we can be certain through obedience that everyone in our immediate area will have the opportunity to hear the gospel, repent, be baptized and walk in the power of Christ! It alarms me to think of how many people in our neighborhood go overlooked and therefore, fall through the cracks! I’m not suggesting that simply becoming an indigenous church that learns through grace, how to effectively contextualize the Word for the culture is going to bring salvation to everyone within the given community, but a church that is intentional about breaking the missional code within that community is going to give everyone a chance to receive Christ, and no stone will be left unturned!