Being the People of God

Author Paul Bradbury, Isabelle Hamley and Andy Smith (Eds)
Publisher ASCM Press £40
Format pbk
ISBN 9780334066422

An interesting collection of academic essays divided into three parts: Being Worship; Being Witness; Being Pilgrim. The reader is invited to engage with this collection in a spirit of conversation. So, what can be drawn from these conversations? First, missional ecclesiology begins with a focus on God, His activity and our attentiveness to that activity. Secondly, he emphasises that the foundation of all mission is that God is a sending God. Third, understanding that the church is called into being by God and then sent by Him to participate in this sending. Finally, understanding how the church participates in mission by living out, as the conclusion puts it …the identity coming to us from the future and which eschatological future has already begun. If the CofE fully embraced and understood its identity as the children of God present and future, how might it share this missionally with a post-Christian nation that does not have a future vision or even a present identity for itself?

Reviewed by ANDREW CARR

Missional Ecclesiology