The Missional Church in Perspective (The Missional Network)

Author: Craig Van Gelder
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1441232060
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
In this book, two leading ministry experts place the missional church conversation in historical perspective and offer fresh insights for its further development. They begin by providing a helpful review of the genesis of the missional church and offering an insightful critique of the Gospel and Our Culture Network's seminal book Missional Church, which set the conversation in motion. They map the diverse paths this discussion has taken over the past decade, identifying four primary branches and ten sub-branches of the conversation and placing over one hundred published titles and websites into this framework. The authors then utilize recent developments in biblical and theological perspectives to strengthen and extend the conversation about missional theology, the church's interaction with culture and cultures, and church organization and leadership in relation to the formation of believers as disciples. Professors, students, and church leaders will value this comprehensive overview of the missional movement. It includes a foreword by Alan J. Roxburgh.

The Missional Church in Perspective

Author: Craig Van Gelder
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 0801039134
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
Two ministry experts map the variety of missional church visions over the past decade, opening up new horizons for extending the conversation biblically and theologically.

The Missional Church and Leadership Formation

Author: Craig Van Gelder
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802864937
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
In this volume the third book in the Missional Church series eminent missional church expert Craig Van Gelder continues to track and contribute to the expanding missional church conversation, inviting today s brightest minds in the field to speak to key questions concerning church leadership.

Missional Church

Author: Lois Barrett
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802843500
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
What would a theology of the Church look like that took seriously the fact that North America is now itself a mission field? This question lies at the foundation of this volume written by an ecumenical team of six noted missiologists—Lois Barrett, Inagrace T. Dietterich, Darrell L. Guder, George R. Hunsberger, Alan J. Roxburgh, and Craig Van Gelder. The result of a three-year research project undertaken by The Gospel and Our Culture Network, this book issues a firm challenge for the church to recover its missional call right here in North America, while also offering the tools to help it do so. The authors examine North America s secular culture and the church s loss of dominance in today s society. They then present a biblically based theology that takes seriously the church s missional vocation and draw out the consequences of this theology for the structure and institutions of the church.

Lessons from Laodicea

Author: Ross A. Lockhart
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 149823903X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
"I'm rich and I don't need a thing," bragged the early Christians in the big city of Laodicea. The Apostle John, however, saw their affluence and arrogance through a theological lens. He declared them to be bankrupt, "lukewarm Christians" whom God would gladly gargle and spit out. Today, the mainline church in the West finds itself in a dominant culture of Laodicean affluence, where even faith is a commodity to be consumed. While the gospel spreads and thrives in the global South and East, the Western mainline church looks longingly back at Christendom and forward in fear. As Christians living in a North American culture that highly prizes the unholy Trinity of individualism, consumerism, and secularism, we require a new kind of missional leadership to "pray" attention to what God is doing in the world around us. This book names the challenges and promises inherent in partnering with the Holy Spirit in order to offer missional leadership in a culture of affluence. It is about both living in Laodicea and leaving it behind. We are no longer in a Babylonian captivity but a Laodicean one. This work helps chart a course for Christians who long to let go of "country club religion" and instead belong to a community that helps equip missionary disciples, resistant to the dominant culture and resplendent in the love of our triune God.

Russian Baptist Mission Theology in Historical and Contemporary Perspective

Author: Andrey Kravtsev
Publisher: Langham Publishing
ISBN: 1783687487
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 351

Book Description
Since the disintegration of the USSR many Russian Baptists have actively engaged in evangelism, church planting, and acts of social service. This book is a response to the need to critically evaluate the effectiveness of past mission efforts and their undergirding theology. In this detailed study, Dr Andrey Kravtsev combines historical and qualitative studies to outline the understanding of mission developed by Russian Baptists during the Soviet era when they were almost completely isolated from global missiological developments. First, Kravtsev identifies four key missiological concepts and uses them to analyze the history of mission theology in global evangelical mission movements and the Russian Baptists. He then interviewed thirty leaders from the Russian Union of Evangelical Christian-Baptists to find their view of these concepts, and their convictions of the need to reconsider traditional missiological views. From his findings, Dr Kravtsev suggests five themes for facilitating the transition of Russian Baptist mission theology from the late-Soviet model of eschatological escapism, to a holistic, missional evangelicalism. This book places evangelical mission in contemporary Russian socio-political and ideological contexts and provides an important contribution for leading churches to a renewed missionary encounter with culture.

The Church in Mission

Author: Betril Ekstrom
Publisher: William Carey Publishing
ISBN: 164508213X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 434

Book Description
What does it mean today to be a church totally committed to the gospel and fully engaged in God’s mission? What major religious and sociological trends in our world are affecting the role of the global church and local churches? How must we understand and be prepared to face these trends? How do we define “church” in the twenty-first century, being faithful to the Scriptures and at the same time relevant to a generation that does not believe in the institutional church anymore? What are some good models of missional churches in different regions of the world that will encourage and inspire those who long to see a church making difference in society and in the world? These are some of the issues that the book you are holding in your hands addresses. There are certainly no final answers and magical forms; rather, we present a broad and deep discussion on how the gospel should be lived out by Jesus’ followers in our time and through our communities. Questions are raised and analyzed both from the perspective of a local church as well as from a global and general understanding of the Christian church. Some of our examples will focus more on local realities, others more on global challenges. The first part of the book is dedicated to a biblical and theological reflection on gospel, church, and mission. It includes Old and New Testament studies on the theological implications of being church, based on the biblical narrative. The second part deals with a variety of contemporary missiological issues related to the broader theme of church and mission. Different perspectives from current discussions and dialogues around the globe are included, covering both ideological reflections and practical aspects of being a mission-shaped church. The third part presents regional and national case studies that show the enormous creativity in church planting and engagement of local communities in their own societies. Models applied in the secularized Europe are contrasted to ways of functioning as church in fast growing congregations in the global South.

Cultivating Sent Communities

Author: Dwight Zscheile
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802867278
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
"Cultivating sent communities reimagines spiritual formation through the lens of mission, covering such topics as the role of Scripture, congregational discernment, and short-term missions and drawing on case studies from diverse contexts including Ethiopia, England, Leipzig, and San Francisco."--Back cover.

Missional Discipleship After Christendom

Author: Andrew R. Hardy
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498244831
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
It is not a changing culture, reduced resources, or a rescinding Christian memory that creates the greatest challenges for the church in the West. It is the lack of a clear commitment to the intentional, authentic, and contextual expressions of missional disciple-making, which will shape current and future generations of followers of Jesus to express the values of the Kingdom today. This book offers stimulating historical, biblical, and theological reflections on discipleship and considers some of the possibilities and opportunities afforded to us by our post-Christian context. Missional discipleship allows the missio Dei to shape us in our engagement our practices and sustain us in the lifelong journey of becoming and developing disciples that follow Jesus today.

Worship, Mission, and the Church Year

Author: Nicholas W. Monsma
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532618697
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 155

Book Description
How many ways can your church’s worship equip the congregation for its mission? Worship changes through the seasons, from Christmas, through Lent and Easter, and beyond. The way worship relates to your church’s mission should change, too. This book explores those seasonal changes by examining both worship and mission as aspects of union with Christ. Just as we are to follow Christ through the various stages of his life and work in worship during the church year, we can follow him in our mission through these same stages of his life and work.