Denominational Constructs of the Past Giving Way to the Church Prophetic: What Does a Life-Giving, Biblically Faithful Foursquare Church Look Like in the Twenty-First Century?

My selected title, 'Denominational Constructs of the Past: Giving Way to the Church Prophetic' is meant to communicate the need for deep change. I intend to examine and critique Foursquare's leadership function and to advocate the cause of missional leadership. My main goal is to develop tools to train church planters, and to see these tools broadly adopted and used within the Foursquare movement. Question to Answer: At the end of the day, I hope to arrive at a much greater understanding of this question, 'What Does a Life-Giving, Biblically Faithful Foursquare Church Look Like in the Twenty-First Century?' My selected title, 'Denominational Constructs of the Past: Giving Way to the Church Prophetic' is meant to communicate the need for deep change. I intend to examine and critique Foursquare's leadership function and to advocate the cause of missional leadership. My main goal is to develop tools to train church planters, and to see these tools broadly adopted and used within the Foursquare movement. Question to Answer: At the end of the day, I hope to arrive at a much greater understanding of this question, 'What Does a Life-Giving, Biblically Faithful Foursquare Church Look Like in the Twenty-First Century?' Ministry Problem and Proposed Solutions The Foursquare Church is in the aftermath of its second major reorganization in the past seven years. The first took place from June 2002 to January 2003, when in less than a year Foursquare centralized administration, leadership training church health, and the Central Offices took ownership of planting new churches. This move displaced district and local church leadership, even though the spoken goal was to multiply the numbers of empowered missional leaders. The unintended consequence of hijacking critical missional elements coincided with the distinct plateau and beginning decline of the numbers and health of Foursquare churches. The shaded area on the graph1 in Figure 1 represents the first reorganization the Foursquare Church called 'District Multiplication.' The number of Foursquare districts went from ten to seventy eight, led by bi-vocational pastors. Hindsight revealed this structure to be unsustainable. Time has shown that only a third of the supervisors had the capacity to lead both their churches and districts effectively.