Missional leadership takes place in the context of missional necessity. It might seem obvious, but the reality is that the church in Australia has been operating on a Christendom model of mission and ministry since its inception over two hundred years ago. It has done so through employing mission by attraction and expecting those outside the church to come to us, rather than us going to them. That may have been appropriate in a context where the majority of people in Australia went to church or connected in some way with it. However, it is no longer applicable today in a context where people have either walked away from the church or have little contact with it.
In modernity, church leadership primarily focused on the pastor-teacher role, to the neglect of the apostle, prophet and evangelist roles as outlined in Ephesians 4. But in this new world in which we live, we are by necessity having to rediscover both the missio Dei (the mission of God) and ‘the missionary nature of the church.’ With that comes the need for rediscovering more dynamic, world engaging, missional forms of leadership and mission. Ways, which are more appropriate to the context in which we now live, and those forms require a new understanding of the apostle, prophet and evangelist gifting for mission, rather than just the pastor-teacher gifting model that has been the norm since the Reformation.
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