Leading Voices from across Christian Traditions Discuss the Mission of the ChurchWhat is the mission of the church? Every seminarian and church leader must wrestle with that question. No matter what designation a church uses to describe itself, it must also think critically about why it exists and what it should be doing. In this book, five leading voices representing a range of Christian traditions engage in an enlightening conversation as they present and compare...

For the last three decades, the growing field of missional theology has helped equip Christian communities to adapt to the challenge of Christian witness in a post-Christendom world. For many who lead these ministries, one scholar in particular has offered a powerful and compelling vision of what it means to walk worthily in an increasingly secular context--Darrell Guder. From Guder's role as editor of Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, to his impact...

Distillation of crucial issues for the church by one of the leading voices in missional theologySince the publication of the groundbreaking volume Missional Church in 1998, there has been wide-ranging engagement with the theme of the missional church. One of the leading voices in the missional church conversation, Darrell Guder here lays out basic theological issues that must be addressed for the church to serve God faithfully as Christ's witnessing people.G...

O que diferencia um livro marcante de "mais um livro" são a perspectiva do autor, a sua autoridade no assunto e o senso de responsabilidade ao abordar o tema. Nesses quesitos, Darrell L. Guder se destaca por ter vindo de uma tradição teológica conservadora em uma cultura pop bastante agitada, como a californiana, e ter imergido em uma cultura como a da Alemanha Oriental, no período da Guerra Fria. Nessa época, ele realizou estudos doutorais, serviu à igreja local e fez trabalhos com a Alia...

A new brand of apostolic ministry for today's worldThe Permanent Revolution is a work of theological re-imagination and re-construction that draws from biblical studies, theology, organizational theory, leadership studies, and key social sciences. The book elaborates on the apostolic role rooted in the five-fold ministry from Ephesians 4 (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teacher), and its significance for the missional movement. It explores ...

In 1934 Christian churches in Germany faced strong pressure to conform their belief and practice to the pillars of Nazi thinking -- respect for the authority of the Fuhrer and fervent devotion to the history and culture of the German race. Defying this ideological agenda, leaders in the German Evangelical Church responded by adopting the Barmen Declaration. This bold statement of dissent, grounded in the authority of Scripture, has since become a powerful model for the contemporary confess...

What could be better than brunch on a Sunday morning? For most people in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, the answer of gathering to worship the Triune God and be sent as witnesses would not be top of mind. And yet, across the Pacific Northwest the authors discovered deeply rooted missional communities worshipping God and serving their neighborhoods, offering evidence of unexpected Cascadian treasure in clay jars. Join the authors on a treasure hunt throughout the region as they identify ...

In recognition of Karl Barth’s stature as a theologian and public figure in the life of Europe and the West, Swiss publisher Theologischer Verlag Zurich (TVZ) published Conversations, a collection of correspondence, articles, interviews, and other short-form writings by Barth. Collected in three volumes, Conversationsreveals the depth and breadth of Barth’s theological thought as well as his humor and humanity. Now, for the first time in English, the third and final volum...

Is God changing the face of the church in North America today? The secularization thesis makes it appear that churches are inevitably declining in membership and influence. Too often, however, this assumption of decline is based on only watching the denominations that were "church plants of Western Christendom" in North America. Christianity: An Asian Religion in Vancouver focuses on the context of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and notes through a mixed-methods study including inter...

Karl Barth is widely regarded as the most important theologian of the twentieth century, and his observations about the church and its place in a modern world continue to engage religious scholars nearly fifty years after his death. This English translation of the Swiss-published Conversations is a three-volume collection featuring correspondence, articles, interviews, and other short-form writings by Barth from 1959–1962. Among them are dialogues with representatives of the Evangelical Co...

"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,...

Somewhere in the mists of time, between history and hagiography, stands the great evangelist and missionary St. Patrick. Raised a "cultural Christian," Patrick's encounter with God during captivity in Ireland transformed his life and the history of a people. Freedom from slavery, and a return home to Britain, produced the divine summons--Vox Hibernia--to return to Ireland and the place of captivity in order to witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christian witness in twenty-first-century...