Founder profile

Alan Hirsch

Co-Founder & Chief Movement Officer

Alan Hirsch is the missiologist who coined the term movemental, built the intellectual architecture much of the contemporary missional church runs on, and serves as Movemental's Chief Movement Officer. His magnum opus, The Forgotten Ways, introduced mDNA and Apostolic Genius; 5Q and The Permanent Revolution have made APEST one of the most widely adopted readings of Ephesians 4 in the Western church.

Alan Hirsch is the missiologist who coined the term movemental, the namesake of this platform, and built the intellectual architecture much of the contemporary missional church now runs on. Born in Johannesburg in 1959, raised in apartheid-era South Africa, he emigrated to Australia in 1983 and pastored the South Melbourne Restoration Community for fifteen years among addicts, sex workers, and the chronically housed before turning that ministry's lessons into theory.

His magnum opus, The Forgotten Ways (Brazos, 2006), introduced the mDNA framework and the concept of Apostolic Genius; 5Q (2017) and The Permanent Revolution (Jossey-Bass, 2012, with Tim Catchim) have made APEST one of the most widely adopted readings of Ephesians 4 in the Western church, with more than 150,000 assessments taken through his platforms. Across twenty books published with seven publishers, including The Shaping of Things to Come with Michael Frost, ReJesus, Untamed with Debra Hirsch, and Metanoia with Rob Kelly, he has built a coherent line from Christology through missiology to ecclesiology.

He founded 100Movements, co-founded the Forge Mission Training Network and 5Q Collective, and co-founded the M.A. in Missional Church Movements at Wheaton College. He teaches as adjunct faculty at Fuller, George Fox, and Asbury, and works as embedded consultant for Redeemer City to City and movement mentor for NewThing International.