Theology and Practice of Mission: God, the Church, and the Nations

by Bruce Ashford (Editor)

Theology disconnected from mission is not Christian theology at all. The pastors, professors, and missionaries writing Theology and Practice of Mission provide a clear biblical-theological framework for understanding the church's mission to the nations. Toward that goal, the book holds three major God's mission, the church's mission, and the church's mission to the nations. 

Part one explores the canon of Christian Scripture from narrative and systematic angles, explaining how the mission of God-to redeem a people who will be a kingdom of priests to the praise of his glory, bear witness to his gospel, advance his church, and dwell with him forever on a new heaven and earth-is communicated in the Bible's four Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. 

Part two sees the mission of God's people in the light of God's mission, emphasizing not only preaching and church planting but also gospel witness in every dimension of human culture-glorifying God in family, church, work, community, through the arts, sciences, education, business, and the public square. The writers encourage us to live missionally, leaving all of our resources at God's disposal for the sake of his kingdom. 

Finally, part three contends that the North American church must come to terms with its missional calling-just as international missionaries do-and gives a starting point and parameters for conceiving the church's mission to all people groups and cultural contexts. Chapters here include ones on unreached people groups, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Postmoderns.

Genres: Theology, Christian

352 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2011

About the author

Provost / Professor of Theology & Culture at SEBTS. Elder at SummitRDU.

Reviews

[Stan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of chapters written by several authors. They are thorough and well written covering many aspects of mission. The authors prioritize a biblical-theological framework for understanding Christian missions, which is an approach that I thoroughly enjoy.

The foundation upon which the authors build is the missio Dei. Building upon this foundation they discuss the church's mission. Many considerations appear in this book. Did I mention they are thorough? The book does not remain theoretical, as several authors write about their experiences as missionaries to various people groups, demonstrating how their view of missions works in real life. The book concludes with a challenge to the church to carry out biblical missions.

This is an excellent book. As always, I may not agree with everything in it, but the discerning reader will learn much and gain an enriched view of missions. The only complaint is that having so may authors writing so many chapters results in some repetition that would have been minimized if the book had been organized differently. However, the multitude of authors provides depth of experience and variety in perspective that is worth the repetition.

If you are a student of missions or enjoy Biblical Theology, get a copy and enjoy!

[Ryan Linkous · Rating 3 out of 5]

This books subtitle should be, "How to View Mission through the lenses of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration." While the book contains some helpful thoughts to that regard, it eventually becomes monotonous seeing everything filtered through this simplified biblical theological scheme.

This book is helpful, especially in it's practical chapters on Mission to Muslims and Mission to Postmoderns.

2 things I particularly liked about this book:
1. Seeking to understand the mission of the church through an understanding of the Missio Dei.
2. Less aversion to social justice as part of the mission of the church as say in "What is the Mission of the Church" by DeYong and Gilbert.

Chapters I liked:
ch. 2 "The Triune God: The God of Mission" - Whitefield is more consciously trinitarian in his theology of mission
ch. 3 "The Agents of Mission: Humanity"
ch. 8 "The Gospel and Culture" - Ashford seeks to exhort Christians to wisely understand and engage culture.
ch. 12 "Mission and Unreached People Groups" - helpful introduction to the development of the idea of unreached people groups and great selection of challenges to the 10/40 window on p. 184
ch. 16 "Mission ot Muslims" - Curry does an excellent job explaining the difference between Islam and Christianity. Christians need to begin with the metanarrative of Scripture (a place where Creation-fall-redpemption is not simplified and isvery helpful) because it differs greatly with that of Islam and has bearings on how one believes in Christ as the divine Messiah.
ch. 20 "Mission to Post-moderns" - Greear helpfully shows the broader strokes of postmodernism on our culture and gives good reflections on how to engage postmoderns. He seems pretty successful at this in his context at the Summit Church in Durham, N.C., so worth listening to him.
ch. 21 "A Theologically Driven Missionlogy" - Ashford summarizes the main ideas of the book
ch. 22 "A challenge for Our Churches" - Akin and Ashford provide some good thoughts and things to consider for any pastor/missionary/missiologist/church to consider in the involvement with missions in the future

[Rick Dugan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Missiology - a theology of mission - has been neglected in the church to our detriment. This book is a comprehensive view of a theology of mission drawing from both the Old and New Testaments and through a four-fold lens of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Additionally, it applies this theology to practical elements of contemporary mission practice. For example, chapters deal with the implications of biblical theology for evangelism, church planting, unreached people groups, Buddhism, Islam, postmodernism, etc.

God's mission - his purpose - is to make himself known to all creation.

This book is important to help leaders recognize mission as essential to the nature of God and his plan for the world. A "theologically driven mission" is essential for faithfulness and fruitfulness. It also recognizes the glory of God as the greatest motivator for mission. A vision of God drives us to the nations.

Occasionally the authors get stuck in a "Sunday morning, preaching centered" model of church. They're not as creative as they could be in allowing missiology to shape church forms. And though they mention "insider" movements, they appear to be at least a generation removed from those actually engaged in "insider" ministry. The treatment is academic. Thirdly, there is very little attention given to the role of the Holy Spirit in ministry - especially in regard to signs and wonders.

But in spite of these weaknesses, this should be required reading for any pastor or missionary.

[C.J. Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is good, but it is overly repetitive. Almost every author talks about mission in light of the creation-fall-redemption-restoration motif of the Bible's redemptive story. It's at its best when the authors explicitly relate missiological practice to theological disciplines, which is best done in Ashford's chapter toward the end.

[Jeff Boettcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mission is such a buzzword, which has been diluted to having almost no meaning. This book does a pretty good job of recapturing the theological foundation of what mission is. Some chapters are better than others, but the first 2 on God's mission and the Church's mission alone are worth the price.

[David Rathel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great work that combines solid theological teaching and helpful practical advise. I enjoyed reading it and highly recommend it!

[J. J.]

Dense. Whew. Glad to be done with that one.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a collection of essays, the quality varies between chapters and contributors. The book is at its strongest when it brings the Gospel to bear on various religions.