Reggie McNeal, author of The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church, talks in the following interview about ways church leaders are becoming more missional--releasing God's people for ministry beyond the walls of the church. The interviewer is Carol Childress, an information broker with WorldconneX (www.worldconnex.org), a Dallas-based world mission network that connects "God's people for God's vision."

What does it take to release the people of God for ministry? Think of a computer programmer who releases a virus, or an agonized mother who starts a movement by setting up shop outside a ranch in Crawford, Texas. As leaders, we are used to being able to control the agenda. We may be nervous about others who set the pace, but the future requires a type of leadership that is personal and not positional. Our job changes when our role becomes one of making sure folks who are exercising personal leadership are on an agenda that is partnering with God.

Reggie McNeal

How does someone transition to becoming that kind of missional leader?

It's difficult, but possible. Many of us will mess up a lot more times before we get it right. We're so used to our scorecards that track how many people we can bring to a meeting. I was recently in a church, and

they were trying to figure out how many hours a week a really committed leader should give to the church. Talk about not getting it! Clocking hours is the wrong motivation. The challenge is to experiment until we learn how to turn our people loose for ministry.

How do leaders transition their leadership style and the style of those around them? Most people do only what they see their leaders doing. If we're not personally developing missional expressions and experimentations, we should find ones that take us into uncomfortable places. We can't ask other people to do what we're not doing ourselves. We have to start saying, "We're going to limit the hours per week that you spend working on the machinery at church." Or at the least, we'll look at every leadership component, asking that it include a leadership role in the community or through some other missional expression.

Carol Childress

I hear you saying that authentic disciples view their role as being dispersed in the community, in the world for God's mission.

I don't like the word disciples any more. It has lost its meaning. Suppose we substitute with "followers of Jesus," which means you actually follow Jesus. You're wanting to know, literally, "Where's Jesus?"