Becoming a Missionary Church: Lesslie Newbigin and Contemporary Church Movements

by Goheen, Timothy M. Sheridan

2023 Word Guild Award of Merit (Academic)

This book offers a historical assessment and balanced critique of contemporary church movements, especially in light of missional ecclesiology. An expert on Lesslie Newbigin and an expert on contemporary church models show how Newbigin's ideas have been developed and contextualized in three popular contemporary church missional, emergent, and center church. In addition, the authors explain that some of Newbigin's insights have been neglected and need to be retrieved for the present day. This book calls for the recovery of the missionary nature of the church and commends church practices applicable to any congregation.

Genres: Theology

288 pages, Paperback

Published July 19, 2022

Reviews

[Chris Hatch]

This is an important read for those of us who are involved in church planting, missions, teaching seminary, etc. Goheen and Sheridan offer important insight into the current ecclesiastical trends, including the first friendly yet hard-hitting critique of Keller and the "center church" movement.

[Isaac Hardy]

Contains a fantastic theological foundation for building missionary minded churches, but can at times be a bit repetitive.

[Taylor Bradbury]

Like the other works I’ve read of Goheen (Drama of Scripture and A Light to the Nations), Becoming a Missionary Church is helpful, insightful, encouraging, and biblical. I like his emphasis on mission as identity. I like his emphasis on the gospel of the kingdom and his emphasis on keeping the gospel within the framework of the biblical story. I was deeply helped by this book. In full transparency, I am still processing his critiques of Keller/City to City. Not sure where I stand on all of that. Overall, Becoming a Missionary Church was solid.

3.75/5

[Jacob DeBoer]

An excellent read not only for the theologian interested in exploring the nuanced similarities and differences between the missionary ecclesiology of Lesslie Newbigin, and that of the movements largely inspired by him, but also an incredibly insightful set of material for the practitioner looking to ground their own lived ecclesiology in a robustly scriptural understanding of mission.