Church leadership is identified as a vital theological issue facing the twentyfirst century church in the midst of negative church growth statistics as well as the struggle of the church to be faithful and relevant in rapidly changing cultural contexts. Key indicators supporting this are the overall lack of scholarly research with respect to church leadership as spiritual leadership, the failure of the pastoral leadership model to address missiological and ecclesiological challenges as well contemporary approaches, either functional or organisational, offering only method and strategy rather than spiritual and theological remedies. Alternatively, the missional approach, rooted in the nature and purpose of the church, offers a theocentric rather than an anthropocentric remedy to the leadership issue. The goal of the study is to explore a framework for church leadership following the missional approach.

vZ-Slabbert-D-MTh-Thesis-FINAL-28Jan13