The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Paperback)

~ (Author), Leonard Sweet (Foreword)
Key Phrases: apostolic genius, organic church, church planting movements, New Testament, Jesus Christ, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Alan Hirsch is convinced that the inherited formulas for growing the Body of Christ do not work anymore. And rather than relying on slightly revised solutions from the past, he sees a vision of the future growth of the church coming about by harnessing the power of the early church, which grew from as few as 25,000 adherents in AD 100 to up to 20 million in AD 310. Such incredible growth is also being experienced today in the church in China and other parts of the world. How do they do it? The Forgotten Ways explores the concept of Apostolic Genius as a way to understand what caused the church to expand at various times in history, interpreting it for use in our own time and place. From the theological underpinnings to the practical application, Hirsch takes the reader through this dynamic mixture of passion, prayer, and incarnational practice to rediscover the dormant potential of the modern church in the West.

From the Back Cover

"Hirsch has discovered the formula that unlocks the secrets of the ecclesial universe like Einstein's simple . . . formula (E=mc²) unlocked the secrets of the physical universe. There are some books good enough to read to the end. There are only a few books good enough to read to the end of time. The Forgotten Ways is one of them."--Leonard Sweet (from the foreword)

"With The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch has brought us closer to the reality of seeing a true apostolic church-planting movement in the West. This is a seminal work that will change our thinking, our vocabulary, and hopefully our way of being the church in this new century. I have already read the book twice and will probably devour it again."--Neil Cole, author of Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens and Cultivating a Life for God

"A full-blooded and comprehensive call for the complete reorientation of the church around mission. Nothing less than the rediscovery of a revolutionary missional ecclesiology will do for Alan Hirsch. A master work."--Michael Frost, coauthor of The Shaping of Things to Come and author of Exiles

"Every chapter has the kind of rich insight and inspiring challenge that we have come to expect from Alan Hirsch."--Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christian, A Generous Orthodoxy, and The Story We Find Ourselves In

"A fascinating and unique examination of two of the greatest apostolic movements in history (the early church and China) and their potential impact on the Western church at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The book may well become a primary reference book for the emerging missional church."--Bill Easum, Easum, Bandy & Associates

"It is refreshing to read a book relating to the missional church that provides theological depth coupled with creative thinking. The Forgotten Ways helps to rescue the concept of church from the clutches of Christendom, setting it free to become a dynamic movement in place of a dying institution."--Eddie Gibbs, coauthor of Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures and author of LeadershipNext: Changing Leaders in a Changing Culture

"The Forgotten Ways is a compelling challenge to awaken the church's innate entrepreneurial instinct and propel it into the fringes of our emerging culture. I recommend it highly, especially to those endowed with the boldness to align the church's operating system with the missional heart of God. markers in the field of mission--this is one such book. It is essential reading for all those who are grappling with the key issue of what the church can and must become."--Martin Robinson, author of Planting Mission-Shaped Churches Today

"This is a provocative and insightful contribution to the discovery of effective missional engagement with post-Christendom Western culture. Grounded in Alan's own experience as a missionary pastor and illustrated by examples from various places, The Forgotten Ways challenges and equips both inherited and emerging churches to recover the dynamic of a missional movement."--Stuart Murray Williams, author of Church after Christendom and Changing Mission: Learning from the Newer Churches

"It is AD 30 all over again. While many church leaders are trying desperately to retrofit institutional expressions of Christianity in hopes of achieving better results, Al Hirsch helps us understand the necessity for us to reengage the movement in its primal missional form."--Reggie McNeal, author of Practicing Greatness: 7 Disciplines of Extraordinary Spiritual Leaders and The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church

"With a scholar's attention to detail and the critical lessons of history, as well as a first-century missionary's creative passion, Alan Hirsch recalls us to a faith life that is flexible, fast-moving, and unbound. He rescues the term 'missional' from the mass grave of church buzzwords in the process."--Greg Paul, author of God in the Alley: Being and Seeing Jesus in a Broken World; founder and director of Sanctuary Ministries in Toronto

"Alan has been shattering paradigms and challenging ideas for years. Now, in The Forgotten Ways, Alan describes missional movements and challenges us to reorder the church around its mission, all filtered through his deeply personal experience. You will be provoked, challenged, and motivated to embrace the missional DNA and incarnational impulse of the early church in your own life and ministry."--Ed Stetzer, author of Breaking the Missional Code and Planting Missional Churches

"The age of Christendom is over, but a renewed age of true Christian movements and discipleship is dawning. Churches and leaders who don't pay attention to the analysis presented here are liable to be deceived into a Christianity that is either locked in the passing Christendom mode or, conversely, lost in mere emerging fads. The biblically based and Jesus-centered focus of this book makes it stand out above dozens of other books on similar themes. It must be read and pondered. Alan Hirsch's analysis is on target historically, biblically, and theologically."--Howard A. Snyder, author of Radical Renewal, The Community of the King, and Models of the Kingdom

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Brazos Press (January 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587431645
• ISBN-13: 978-1587431647
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #42,644 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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91 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars must read for missional thinking, March 26, 2007

By	B. Brisco (KC, KS, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Using studies by Rodney Stark, Hirsch calculates that the early church grew from 25,000 in AD 100 to about 20,000,000 in AD 310. How did this happen? What was going on in early Christianity to experience this type of growth? To illustrate that this phenomena was not just an early church experience Hirsch shares the example of the church in China. When Mao Tse-tung took control of China there were approximately 2 million Christians. However, when the Bamboo Curtain was lifted some estimated the Christian population in China to be near 60 million. Moreover, the number of Christians in China today are around 80 million. Once again, how did this kind of growth happen?

Hirsch states some qualifications:

1. They were an illegal religion throughout this period.
2. They didn't have church buildings as we know them.
3. They didn't have scriptures as we know them.
4. They didn't have an institution or professional forms of leadership.
5. They didn't have seeker-sensitive services, youth groups, worship bands, seminaries, etc.
6. They actually made it hard to join the church.

In chapter one, titled "Setting the Scene" and subtitled "Confessions of a Frustrated Missionary" Hirsch tells a bit of his own story as leader of South Melbourne Restoration Community. Hirsch shares how he and his wife were brought to the church as a kind of last ditch effort to revive a church that had experienced birth, growth and decline in its 140 year history. Through the process the Hirschs came to the conclusion that they wanted to be involved in a church that was highly participatory (much more than the 20:80 rule) and missional.

Hirsch provides a good contrast between the typical church growth principles that are used today to grow a contemporary church and the essential components that best describes the nature of the church. Hirsch states "if you wish to grow a contemporary church following good church growth principles, there are several things you must do and constantly improve upon:

1. Expand the building for growth.
2. Ensure excellent preaching that relates to the life of the hearers.
3. Develop an inspiring worship service with an excellent band.
4. Make certain you have excellent parking facilities.
5. Ensure excellent programs for children and youth.
6. Develop a program of cell groups rooted in a Christian ed model.
7. Make sure that next week is better than last week.

In contrast to the above, Hirsch discusses the nature of, or innate purpose of the church according to scriptures:

1. A covenanted community
2. Centered on Jesus Christ ("Jesus is Lord").
3. Worship, defined as offering our lives back to God through Jesus.
4. Discipleship, defined as following Jesus & becoming like him.
5. Mission, defined as extending the mission of God through the activities of the covenanted community.

In the last section of the chapter, and my favorite, Hirsch discribes the practices that their faith community "came up with" as:

1. The basic ecclesial (church) unit was to become much smaller so as to transform from the active:passive ratio from 20:80 to 80:20.

2. They would not devleop a philosophy of ministry per se, but rather a covenant and core practices.

3. Each group had to be engaged in a healthy diet of spiritual disciplines, following the TEMPT model:

T: Together we follow -- community focused.
E: Engage Scripture -- integrating Bible into life.
M: Mission -- missional activities bring cohesion.
P: Passion for Jesus -- worship and prayer.
T: Transformation -- character development & accountability.

4. They would organize the movement in three basic rhythms: a weekly cycle of TEMPT groups, a monthly regional meeting of TEMPT groups, and a biannual gathering of all the groups in a movement-wide network.

5. Each TEMPT group would covenant to multiply itself as soon as it is organically feasible and possible.

In chapter two of "The Forgotten Ways" author Alan Hirsch proposes that the decline of the church in Western culture can be attributed to defaulting to a Christendom mode of thinking. Moreover, because of our Christendom default mode we don't even know that there is a better alternative.

Quoting Bono from U2, "we are stuck in a moment and now we can't get out of it." Or from one with few more academic credentials; David Bosch in Transforming Mission states: "Strictly speaking one ought to say that the Church is always in a state of crisis and that its greatest shortcoming is that it is only occasionally aware of it."

For Hirsch the root of the problem is Christendom and our inability to adequately deal with the very assumptions on which Christendom is built and maintains itself. Relying partially on Stuart Murray's excellent Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World, Hirsch provides a convincing summary of the significance of Constantine's decisions. Just a few of the Christendom shifts include:

1. The movement of the church from the margins of society to its center.

2. The assumption that all citizens were Christian by birth.

3. Sunday as an official day of rest and obligatory church attendance.

4. A generic distinction between clergy and laity, and the relegation of the laity to a largely passive role.

5. The defense of Christianity by legal sanctions to restrain heresy, immorality, and schism.

6. The division of the globe into "Christendom" or "heathendom" and the waging of war in the name of Christ and the church.

7. A hierarchical ecclesiastical system, based on a diocesan and parish arrangement, which was analogous to the state hierarchy and was buttressed by state support.

Hirsch states: "This shift to Christendom was thoroughly paradigmatic, and the implications were absolutely disastrous for the Jesus movement that was incrementally transforming the Roman world from the bottom up."

He follows this up with a fantastic quote from church historian Rodney Stark: "Far too long, historians have accepted the claim that the conversion of the Emperor Constantine (ca. 285-337) caused the triumph of Christianity. To the contrary, he destroyed its most attractive and dynamic aspects, turning a high-intensity, grassroots movement into an arrogant institution controlled by an elite who often managed to be both brutal and lax."

On page 64 Hirsch offers an excellent comparison table (which was previously published in "The Shaping of Things to Come" p. 9) between three "church modes." He compares the "Aposotolic & Post-Apostolic Mode" (AD 32 to 313), the "Christendom Mode" (313 to present) and the "Emerging Missional Mode" (past 10 years) in six different categories.

The characteristics of the Christendom mode include:

1. Locus of gathering: Buildings become central to "church."
2. Leadership: Institutionally ordained clergy/professional guild.
3. Organizational structure: Top-down.
4. Means of grace: Sacraments experienced only "in church."
5. Position in society: Church is perceived to be central to society.
6. Missional mode: Attractional and extractional.

The characteristics of the Emerging Missional mode (and in most cases parallels the Apostolic mode):

1. Locus of gathering: Rejects need for "church" buildings.
2. Leadership: Pioneering-innovative, 5-fold ministry.
3. Organizational structure: Grassroots, decentralized movement.
4. Means of grace: Redeems/ritualizes new symbols, including Lord's Supper.
5. Position in society: Church is once again on the fringes.
6. Missional mode: Incarnational-sending and missional.

Hirsch offers (p. 75) a short introduction to the second section, in which he presents the core piece for the rest of the book - mDNA (missional DNA). He states on p. 76:

"With this concept/metaphor I hope to explain why the presence of a simple, intrinsic, reproducible, central guiding mechanism is necessary for the reproduction and sustainability of genuine missional movements. As an organism holds together, and each cell understands its function in relation to its DNA, so the church finds its reference point in its built-in mDNA. As DNA carries the genetic coding, and therefore the life, of a particualr organism, so too mDNA codes Apostolic Genius (the life force that pulsated through the New Testament church and in other expressions of apostolic Jesus movements throughout history)."

So what are the key elements of Apostolic Genius? The six distinctives identified by Hirsch (and illustrated more extensively in the diagram above which you can click on for a larger view) are:

1. Jesus is Lord
2. Disciple Making
3. Missional-incarnational Impulse
4. Apostolic Environment
5. Organic Systems
6. Communitas, Not Community

After introducing these six elements Hirsch then moves in chapter 3 to the heart of Apostolic Genius (and the reason it is at the core of the diagram) - "Jesus is Lord." I found much to like about this chapter. I enjoyed Hirsch's insights on how the early church, in order to survive in the context of persecution, had to "jettison all unnecessary impediments" such as an institutional conception of the church. Additionally, in the midst of persecution Hirsch maintains that the church had to "travel light" in regards to a simple Christology (essential conceptions of who Jesus is and what he does).

I also appreciated Hirsch's discussion on the Shema and the consistency that is to be found between it and Christ... Read more ›

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Alan Hirsch: The Forgotten Ways, April 29, 2007

By	Rowland Croucher (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Review: Alan Hirsch, 'The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church'. Michigan: Brazos Press, 2006.

Ivan Illich was asked what he thought was the most radical way to change society; was it through violent revolution or gradual reform? He gave a careful answer. Neither. Rather, he suggested that if one wanted to change society, then one must tell an alternative story.

And for Christians the alternative story has to do with the evils of institutionalism and clericalism. A quote from sociologist Robert Merton jumped out of a Masters' degree I once did at the University of Sydney: `The evil in institutions is greater than the sum of the evil of the individuals within them.'

Martin Buber warns that `centralization and codification, undertaken in the interests of religion, are a danger to the core of religion.' This is inevitably the case he says, unless there is a very vigorous life of faith embodied in the whole community, one that exerts an unrelenting pressure for renewal on the institution. C.S. Lewis observed that `there exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. So we must strive very hard, by the grace of God to keep the church focused on the mission that Christ originally gave to it.'

In this exciting, readable and provocative book, `emerging church' missiologist Alan Hirsch tells an alternative story by unlocking the secrets of the primal `pre-Christendom' apostolic church - and the church in modern China. Why were/are they so dynamic, whereas mainline churches over time suffer from what sociologists call `the routinisation of charisma'?

Historians have often accepted the claim that the conversion of Emperor Constantine (ca 285-337) resulted in the triumph of Christianity. To the contrary, he destroyed its most attractive and dynamic aspects, turning a high-intensity, grassroots movement into an arrogant institution controlled by an elite who often managed to be brutal and lax.

Hirsch suggests that the prevailing expression of church (Christendom) has become a major stumbling block to the spread of Christianity in the West. The `Christendom paradigm' doesn't work very well any more.

On the other hand the Chinese churches grew in spite of the following:

1. They were an illegal religion.
2. They didn't have church buildings.
3. They didn't have scriptures (the Chinese had underground, partial copies).
4. They didn't have any central institutions or professional forms of leadership.
5. They didn't have seeker-sensitive services, youth groups, worship bands, seminaries, or commentaries.
6. They made it hard to join the church.

One commentator has said that in this book Alan has challenged our thinking, our vocabulary, and `hopefully our way of doing church in this century' - particularly with the `Jesus yes, Church no' generations. Thus we have the phenomenon again where more people are coming to faith in small informal groups but don't want the organized part of the religion to be part of the deal.

Alan has several things going for him. He's read and digested the thinking of great missiologists like David Bosch. He was a missionary pastor - of an `alternative' church: the `South Melbourne Resoration Community'. I've spoken at this church (`church?'), and spent a weekend away with them. It was truly one of the rare communities of faith and hope which I could recommend to those on the `margins'.

He was also, later, a `denominational officer' who tried to plant these ideas into the thinking and praxis of established churches, with, he says, mixed success. And he is now the founding director of the Forge Mission Training Network.

How do we discover our missional DNA (mDNA)? What caused the early churches to grow from 25,000 to 20 million in 200 years? How did the Chinese underground church grow from 2 million to over 100 million in sixty years despite considerable opposition, and without professional leaders, training facilities, or buildings?

Hirsch identifies six elements of Missional DNA:

· Jesus is Lord

· Disciple Making

· Missional-Incarnational Impulse

· Apostolic Environment

· Organic Systems

. Communitas

Wonderful principles, which are very hard to apply in practice. Why? My contention would be that the radicalization of family-units which imbibe a Western consumer culture with their muesli every day is a very challenging and difficult task. Parents want a `safe place' for their children - in `church', as everywhere else. They want peer-reinforcement of Christian faith and values for their teenagers. They look to the weekly gatherings of the Christian community to provide spiritual food for the journey, which in terms of work-stress or family-stresses may be a real battle. So they bring expectations `to church' as they do to every other facet of their privileged lives.

Christian communities come in four varieties (as do commercial retail enterprises) - megachurches (= shopping malls), boutiques, franchises, and `parish churches' (= corner stores). Many `emerging church' folks I meet despise the megachurch model, but they shop at supermarkets, for convenience and to save time. They're at home with technology - they have lots of powerpoint presentations, and audio-visual effects - but are (healthily) wary of multiplying committees and programs. Above all, they know that re-jigging the `ministry mix' won't bring life and health and peace to their community-of-faith. But on the other hand, they too can easily form `clubs-for-people-like-us' and forget their missional mandate.

Alan Hirsch writes: `We cannot consume our way to discipleship.'. (On this see also Ron Sider's `The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience' and Robert Webber `Ancient Future Evangelism'). The alternative? A covenantal approach to discipleship.

We have in Alan Hirsch an idealist, who is also a pragmatist. There are many diagrams, and excellent footnotes for further study.

Alan Hirsch is coauthor, with Michael Frost, of The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church. Another good read.

Rowland Croucher

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SIMPLY PROFOUND , October 18, 2007

By	Bruce Hopler "BRUCE HOPLER" (MARYLAND) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Hirsch dose a masterful job in showing how the church of the western world has forgotten the way to be a Christ follower. As Hirsch puts it, "... all God's people carry within themselves the same potencies that energized the early Christian movement and that are currently manifest in the underground Chinese church." (Hirsch, 2006, p. 22) Hirsh then introduces the term: Apostolic Genius which the primary missional strength of the gospel and God's people. He expresses that this strength lies dormant in each Christian and local church that seeks to follow Jesus faithfully in any time. The problem, he rightly recognizes is that today's Christian culture has forgotten how to access and trigger it. Hirsh writes this book to help reactivate it so Christians can transform the world by living transformed lives.

Hirsch identifies in the book six simple but interrelating elements of missional DNA, forming a complex and living structure. They are: 1) Jesus Is Lord: At the center and circumference of every significant Jesus movement there exists this very simple confession. 2) Disciple Making: This is the life-long task of becoming like Jesus by embodying his message. Hirsch believes that this is perhaps where many of our efforts fail. Disciple making is an irreplaceable core task of the church and needs to be structured into every church's basic formula. 3) Missional-Incarnational Impulse: Hirsch examines missional movements that seed and embed the gospel into different cultures and people groups. 4) Apostolic Environment: This relates to the type of leadership and ministry required to sustain metabolic growth and impact. 5) Organic Systems: Determining appropriate structures for metabolic growth. 6) Communitas, not Community: Too much concern with safety and security, combined with comfort and convenience, has lulled us out of our true calling and purpose.

Hirsch wisely spends much attention as to how in the modern and the postmodern situation, the church is forced into the role of being little more than a vendor of religious goods and services. Which is why many of it's members have become passive. The church is supposed to radically change society and to do so we must tell an alternative story

Hirsch ends quoting church consultant Bill Easum. Easum is right when he notes that "following Jesus into the mission field is either impossible or extremely difficult for the vast majority of congregations in the Western world because of one thing: They have a systems story that will not allow them to take the first step out of the institution into the mission field, even though the mission field is just outside the door of the congregation." (p. 252)