Somewhere along the way, "missional" went from a rallying cry to a punchline, and a lot of young, theology-loving guys quietly stopped talking about reaching lost people at all. Fresh off the SBC and PCA conventions, the profs revisit the word everybody used in 2005, nobody trusts in 2025, and almost no one actually understands. Where did "missional" even come from (hint: not the conservatives)? How does a church plant quietly become a "consolidated schism," and why do a hip-hop church, a cowboy church, and a fistful of flower seeds thrown out a car window all miss the point? The guys trace the term from Newbigin to Keller to its slow slide into compromise, then make the case that doctrine, politics, and theological precision are all "antepenultimate": good servants of a greater mission and terrible masters of it. Because here's the line that should keep every faithful church up at night. If you're doing a great job of being missional and nobody's getting saved, it's a fail (Luke 19:10).

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