Missional Change: Beginning a Missional Transition in a Seventh-day Adventist Congregation

The goal of this study is to reconnect God’s mission with his church in a Seventh-day Adventist context by providing a viable Seventh-day Adventist missional theology for being God’s church to a postmodern Canadian context. The study argues that missional thinking is definitely biblical and also prevalent in the writings of Seventh-day Adventist pioneer, leader, and prophet, Ellen G. White. It maintains that missional thinking is in fact the predominant worldview through which White understood Jesus Christ and the gospel of the kingdom of God. It also explains that the present Seventh-day Adventist Church is not functioning in line with God’s mission to the world. This study contends that in order to follow both the mandate of Scripture and the mission God gave to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church must return to functioning in a missional paradigm. Contemporary Christian authors are used to understand contemporary missional theology and also to inform a Seventh-day Adventist missional theology. This thesis was explored and implemented through a missional transition process in the New Life Seventh-day Adventist Church in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. The process was centered on a congregational study of Reggie McNeal’s Present Future DVD series over a period of nine weeks. It also included the implementation of missional experiences in the community, as well as the formation of missional leaders and communities in the congregation. Overall, these components were successful in terms of the congregation beginning to establish, embrace, and embody missional principles in its everyday practices. This study concludes that missional theology offers Adventism perhaps its only viable lifestyle for making the reign of God visible to a postmodern and secular world. Returning to the missional roots of Adventism is the only way of truly fulfilling the unique mission God has given to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Theological Mentor: Kurt Fredrickson, Ph