Roger Helland and Leonard Hjalmarson
InterVarsity Press, 2011, 240 pp., $16
The first sections of Missional Spirituality are highly diagnostic, describing in detail the common quirks, foibles and serious shortcomings of western Christianity. Helland and Hjalmarson boldy claim, “80 percent of churches in North America have plateaued or are in decline because most of them don’t know how to handle change or how to engage their culture.”
The authors prescribe a new trajectory for Christians and for the church they call “missional spirituality.”
After laying the theological groundwork for their presupposition, they build a framework of “practices for cultivating a missional spirituality” so as not to leave the reader with only theoretical rhetoric but also a practical scheme to pursue.
While dissatisfaction with Christian churches as they presently function and tagging the word missional onto any new program or new mindset are nothing new, Missional Spirituality has a few original nuggets to add to the conversation. It may not pack as profound a punch as Alan Hirsh’s (who wrote the forward) The Shaping of Things to Come, but it certainly has the potential to inspire readers, especially if they are new to the missional movement.
