God’s mission is a global mission 2

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Bible, Christianity, Evangelicalism, Gospel, Great Commission, New Testament, acts, church, church planting, contextualization, culture, discipleship, eschatology, evangelism, kingdom of God, missio Dei, missiology, mission, missions, multiplication, post-Christendom, postmodern, world issues
• Date: Feb 24,2010

Last week, I posted on the importance of understanding that God’s mission is a global mission. I promised you some brand new and soon-to-be-released books that will help you put the “mission” back in “missional.”

Recently released:

Paul Hiebert: The Gospel in Human Contexts: Anthropological Explorations for Contemporary Missions

Product Description:

While the gospel is timeless truth, it enters into ever-changing and widely varied human contexts. In order to meaningfully communicate the gospel to particular humans, those involved in cross-cultural ministry need to understand people and the particular influences–social, cultural, psychological, and ecological–that shape them. Further, we must understand ourselves and the influences that have shaped us, since our own contexts influence how we understand and transmit the gospel message. Therefore, we must master not only the skill of biblical interpretation but also the skill of human interpretation. That task is the topic of this book, the summation of a lifetime of experience and thinking by a world-renowned missiologist and anthropologist, the late Paul Hiebert.

Timothy Tennent: Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century (Invitation to Theological Studies Series)

Product Description:

This unique text is arranged in three parts according to the Trinity’s roles, relationships, and activity. Tennent questions whether missions as currently conceptualized is adequate and he challenges the reader by building the book around key theological foundations such as “missio Dei” and the “new creation” vision for the global church. This volume will call and enable the reader to understand how missions is biblically and theologically basic to Christianity, and how missions is essential to living out an abundant and impassioned life.

Coming soon:

David Hesselgrave + Ed Stetzer: MissionShift: Global Mission Issues in the Third Millennium (July 2010)

Product Description:

Veteran missionary David Hesselgrave and rising missional expert Ed Stetzer edit this engaging set of conversational essays addressing global mission issues in the third millennium. Key contributors are Charles E. Van Engen (“Mission Described and Defined”), the late Paul Hiebert (“The Gospel in Human Contexts: Changing Perspectives on Contextualization”), and the late Ralph Winter (“The Future of Evangelicals in Mission”). Those offering written responses to these essays include: Van Engen, Keith Eitel, Enoch Wan, Darrell Guder, Andreas J. Köstenberger, Hiebert, Michael Pocock, Darrell Whiteman, Norman L. Geisler, Avery Willis, Winter, Scott Moreau, Christopher Little, Michael Barnett, and Mark Terry.

Craig Ott + Stephen Strauss with Timothy Tennent: Encountering Theology of Mission: Biblical Foundations, Historical Developments, and Contemporary Issues (Encountering Mission) (May 2010)

Product Description:

This fresh, comprehensive text fills a need for an up-to-date theology of mission. It offers creative approaches to answering some of the most pressing questions in theology of mission and missionary practice today. The authors, who are leading mission experts, discuss biblical theology of mission, provide historical overviews of the development of various viewpoints, and address theologically current issues in global mission from an evangelical perspective. This readable yet thorough text integrates current views of the kingdom of God and holistic mission with traditional views of evangelism and church planting. It also brings theology of mission into conversation with ecclesiology and eschatology. Topics covered include contextualization, the missionary vocation, church and mission, and theology of religions. Sidebars and case studies enable readers to see how theology of mission touches real-life mission practice.

the future is not a one size fits all church

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Evangelicalism, books, church, history, mission, missional, missional church, post-Christendom, postmodern
• Date: Feb 12,2010

Jonny Baker of the Church Mission Society (a group of evangelistic societies working with the Anglican Communion and Protestant Christians around the world), as well as co-author of Alternative Worship and blogger, recently reflected on the recommendations of the report, Mission Shaped Church edited by Graham Cary, since it was released by the Church of England 6 years ago.

Jonny Baker:

For anyone new to this area, a quick summary. in 2004, the Church of England published a report called Mission Shaped Church which recognized the creativity in mission around the fringes of the church and new emerging expressions of church. this was against the wider backdrop of cultural changes, decline in attendance of churches over around 20 years, and economic pressure but was a very hopeful recognition that something new seemed to be happening. this report has since sold around 27,000 copies and has had an unprecedented impact for a church report…

…the MSC report had a series of recommendations and how these have been carried forward…it’s easy to forget how much has happened in 6 years within a large institution that could easily have done nothing but has broadly embraced the notion that the future is not a one size fits all church but a mixed economy of church. (emphasis mine)

For what it is worth, Mission Shaped Church is a very helpful addition to the missional conversation. It’s a bit off the radar for those of us in the U.S. and many evangelicals will struggle because of its origins in the Church of England — but I would say to you, there is much to be gleaned from it. (One of my favorite “missional” quotes comes from this book: “Start with the Church and the mission will probably get lost. Start with mission and it is likely that the church will be found.” p. 116 — missiology precedes ecclesiology)

Baker goes on to list what he believes are the main achievements of the report since it was first published:

1. A change in environment – mission is on the agenda
2. Practice – there is lots going on and we need this to multiply
3. The church has legislated for a mixed economy
4. Training is developing through a mission lens
5. There is now a recognition of the need for pioneering entrepreneurial leadership

Baker also posts the report’s concluding statement:

A real journey begins when small teams or individuals decide to travel from the security of their familiar church life to be pioneers. Many have begun their journey but many more are needed if the non-churched are to be given the opportunity to follow Christ in their own language and culture today. Reflection on what has been achieved…and the new opportunities and resources now available, will enable us to discern how we can together take forward Christ’s mission to the whole of our society with its rapidly changing social structure and patterns of living. We have made a good beginning.

No matter you place on the globe, we have only just begun on this mission-shaped journey…

Read all of Baker’s reflections here.

the missional gospel: evangelicalism’s most significant shift in late 20th + early 21st centuries

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: Christianity, Evangelicalism, Gospel, Poverty, books, emerging culture, missional, post-Christendom, postmodern, religion, social justice
• Date: Feb 7,2010

Christianity Today recently asked religious leaders such as John Green, senior research adviser for the Pew Forum on Religion + Public Life; Cathy Lynn Grossman, religion reporter for USA TODAY; and Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research this question: What was the most significant change in Christianity over the past decade?

Scot McKnight claims that evangelicalism’s metamorphosis in the late 20th century was also the most significant emphasis in the first decade of the 21st century. He says this shift was:

…a gradual, if largely unacknowledged, repentance from the near gnostic division of the spirit and the body that shaped its gospel in the early part of the 20th Century to a robust embracing of the missional gospel…

According to McKnight, a part of this “missional gospel,” is what most people call:

…”social justice” and, while I prefer to use the word “justice” and define “justice” by the will of God as taught through the Bible and the Church, it is now a part of much of evangelicalism — and not just as an appendix to the spiritual work done at the church.

McKnight sifts through the glut of books on social justice and recommends a new book by Peter Greer and Phil Smith called The Poor Will Be Glad: Joining the Revolution to Lift the World Out of Poverty. (Smith lives in the city where we are planting a church in the urban core in the spring of 2010: Tulsa; check this article from the Tulsa World: Tiny loans make huge difference in lives of poor)

Read McKnight’s entire post here.