The Forgotten Ways Handbook: A Practical Guide for Developing Missional Churches

In his best selling missional book The Forgotten Ways, internationally known missional church expert Alan Hirsch offered a vision for the future growth of the church coming about by harnessing the power of the early church. Now The Forgotten Ways Handbook moves beyond theory to practice, offering ways for any missionally minded person to apply the ideas contained in The Forgotten Ways to their life and ministry. This intensely practical handbook includes many helpful tools: summary sections encapsulating the ideas contained in each chapter in a popular way; suggested practices to help readers embed missional paradigms concretely; and adult learning based techniques and examples from other churches and organizations that enable readers to process and assimilate the ideas in a group context. Excerpt Make no mistake about it; the scope of the change that is required to shift to the kind of movement described in The Forgotten Ways is nothing less than paradigmatic. Every element of M.D.N.A. poses a direct challenge to the prevailing ways of doing church and mission. When taken together, all six elements of Apostolic Genius make the task seem enormous. But we don't think it is actually as difficult as it seems. And it is certainly not impossible. The Chinese church proves that a highly institutionalized form of Christianity can become a remarkable movement given the right circumstances. And we don't believe that we have to have persecution to activate Apostolic Genius. Less intense forms of adaptive challenges can, and do, force the church to respond. What we are witnessing in our own day indicates that. Because the church carries the gospel as well as the full coding of Apostolic Genius in her, the potential for world transformation is always present in us. We can always draw upon latent resources and instincts. God is able and very willing to stir his church up. In fact we see this as one of the very special works of th

Alan Hirsch is the founding director of Forge Mission Training Network and a sought-after speaker and trainer who travels the world extensively sharing his missional church experience. He is coauthor of The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church.

Darryn Altclass is a practitioner with direct, current experience in initiating and developing the incarnational approach in difficult social settings in Australia.