The main purpose of this thesis is to provide a relevant corrective to the ministerial challenged in Minahasa through the concept of "missional church." To build an understanding of it, the writer constructs from the theory of Van Gelder where he explains the missional church with looking at the three elements: the essence of missional church, the direction and scope of the church's ministry, and the ministry of the church focusing on strategies and processes.
The primary reason why the author raised this issue - that is to develop the missional church to local church in Minahasa, because there is a misconception about mission. Mission is still considered as the church does rather than the church is. Basically, the addition of -al behind the mission has an aim to establish for the church to realize of their calling. God has called and sent the church to participate in his mission into the world. So this thesis also has a goal to make the community in Minahasa is more active to engage with the larger context.
All this time, the Minahasan church just concerns on their community rather than on the neighbors. Therefore, one of the focuses to establish the perspectives of missional church in this study is an open system. It has an intention that the members are not just open to the context but think openly to analyze its context in the light of the Spirit to forming and reforming. This means congregations actively engaging with its context but still nurture the historic of Christian faith.
Then, besides the open system, this study also emphasizes the missional church is a church's identity and ongoing process. Therefore to make this understanding reachable, the church's leader has a significant role to lead and equip the missional community.