The Pastor as Missional Church Architect

Team Members/Contributors

Derrick Lemons The Wesleyan Church Contact Me

About this pastoral study project

The missional church movement has distilled from Scripture various patterns of the church in mission, yet little has been written concerning how to bring about lasting missional cultural changes in existing churches. Many pastors want to lead missional churches, but they struggle to know how to bring about the needed cultural change in their churches.

As a part of my Doctor of Ministry requirements at Asbury Theological Seminary (ATS), I developed a culturally-sensitive approach to shifting an existing church culture toward a more missional culture. Influenced by the fields of applied anthropology and diffusion theory, I designed a cultural-change process which encourages pastors to approach their ministry with a missionary mindset. With my dissertation complete, I want to utilize a twelve-week study sabbatical to prepare a book manuscript for publication that will give pastors a practical guide to instigating a missional cultural shift in their churches. The manuscript will be based on my dissertation research and will be further informed by data I collect from pastors and pastors-in-training who participate in interactive seminars that I will lead at ATS and Duke Divinity School.

Image Title Year Type Contributor(s) Other Info
  “The Evolution of Missional Church Characteristics” 2009 Journal Article Derrick Lemons
Winter 2009, pages 51-58