Participating in God's Mission: A Theological Missiology for the Church in America

by Craig Van Gelder, Dwight Zscheile

Overview

Explores how the church has engaged—and should engage—the American context

What might faithful and meaningful Christian witness look like within our changing contemporary American context?

After analyzing contemporary challenges and developing a missiological approach for the US church, Craig Van Gelder and Dwight Zscheile reflect on the long, complex, and contested history of Christian mission in America. Five distinct historical periods from the beginning of the colonial era to the dawn of the third millennium are reviewed and critiqued.

They then bring the story forward to the present day, discussing current realities confronting the church, discerning possibilities of where and how the Spirit of God might be at work today, and imagining what participating in the triune God’s mission may look like in an uncertain tomorrow.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467449335
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	01/11/2018
Series:	The Gospel and Our Culture Series (GOCS)
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	877,054
File size:	984 KB

About the Author

Craig Van Gelder is professor emeritus of congregationalmission at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota. His otherbooks include The Missional Church inPerspective and The Ministry of the MissionalChurch.,


Dwight J. Zscheile is associate professor of congregationalmission and leadership at Luther Seminary, St. Paul,Minnesota.,

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xvii

Foreword xix

Acknowledgments xxiii

Introduction 1

Part 1 Defining the Challenge 11

1 Why a Theological Missiology for the United States? 13

2 Developing a Missiological Approach to the Church in the United States 36

Part 2 Understanding the Challenge 61

3 The Colonial Experience, 1600s to 1780s 65

4 The Expanding Frontier, 1790s to 1870s 96

5 The Church in the City, 1880s to Early 1940s 126

6 The Suburban Success, Mid-1940s to Mid-1970s 157

7 Late-Modern Success Strategies, Mid-1970s to Early 2000s 188

Part 3 Engaging the Challenge 223

8 A Missiological Interpretation of the Contemporary Cultural Environment 225

9 Participating in the Triune God's Mission 255

10 Church Organization and Leadership Formation for a New Missionary Age 287

11 Conclusion: Toward a Faithful Future 315

Appendix: Ecumenical and Evangelical Mission Conferences of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries 330

Select Bibliography 333

Index 347

Editorial Reviews

Religious Studies Review
“While [Participating in God's Mission] is aimed specifically at the American context, much here would nonetheless be useful in considering missional engagement throughout the West in general.”

Stephen Bevans, SVD
—Catholic Theological Union, Chicago
“A real milestone for missiology and ecclesiology in the North American context. . . . This is a book for all Christians in all North American churches to read and be challenged by, but it is particularly important for church leaders to pay it close attention.”

Gregory Leffel
— author of Faith Seeking Action: Mission, Social Movements, and the Church in Motion
“How might American churches faithfully participate in God’s mission today? One way is by listening to Craig Van Gelder and Dwight Zscheile! They provide here a rich field guide to that complex faithfulness that marks Christian witness as participation in missio Dei. . . . This brilliant book is tender in its humane focus.”

Darrell Guder
— Princeton Theological Seminary
“The missional exploration of the implications of the end of Western Christendom has been helpfully guided by the growing consensus about the centrality of the theology of the mission of God. This book refines that consensus with its ‘missiological interpretation of the contemporary cultural environment.’ The parsing of the Christendom legacy provided here is a rich resource for further exploration of what it means, biblically and theologically, to be God’s witnessing people in the North Atlantic mission fields. This is a welcome and challenging expansion and deepening of the missional discourse.

From the Publisher