Spirituality for the Sent (eBook)

Casting a New Vision for the Missional Church

Nathan A. Finn, Keith S. Whitfield (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017 | 1. Auflage
253 Seiten
IVP Academic (Verlag)
978-0-8308-9158-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Since their rise in the midst of the revivals of the eighteenth century, evangelicals have been dedicated to the importance of both spirituality and mission. In recent years, evangelicals have engaged in the missional theology discussion that advocates a more holistic Christian mission grounded in the eternal mission of the triune God. At the same time, evangelicals have also been key participants in the spiritual formation discussion that seeks to recover biblical and classical practices for contemporary spiritual growth. While these two movements have been largely independent of each other, the time is right to join them together into a single conversation for the sake of ongoing evangelical faithfulness. Spirituality for the Sent brings together evangelical scholars from a variety of disciplines and ecclesial traditions to address the relationship between spiritual formation and a missional vision of theology and practice. The contributors share a common vision for a missional spirituality that fosters spiritual maturity while also fueling Christian evangelism, cultural engagement, and the pursuit of justice.This collection features contributions by - Craig G. Bartholomew - Susan Booth - Mae Elise Cannon - Diane Chandler - Anthony L. Chute - Michael W. Goheen - George R. Hunsberger - Christopher W. Morgan - Soong-Chan Rah - Timothy W. Sheridan - Gordon T. Smith - Gary Tyra

Nathan A. Finn (PhD, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is dean of the School of Theology and Missions at Union University, where he also serves as professor of Christian thought and tradition.Finn is the author of History: A Student's Guide and coauthor of The Baptist Story: From English Sect to Global Movement. He serves on the editorial board for the sixteen-volume Complete Works of Andrew Fuller and edited the volume dedicated to Fuller's Strictures on Sandemanianism. He also serves on the editorial board of the Monographs in Baptist History series, and is a general editor of the forthcoming fifteen-volume series Theology for the People of God.Finn is a member of the steering committee for the Baptist Life and Thought Study Group of the Evangelical Theological Society and a member of the continuation committee for the International Conference on Baptist Studies. He also serves as a fellow for the Research Institute of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at Southern Seminary, and the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture at Southeastern Seminary. He is also an adjunct associate professor of historical theology and Baptist studies at Southeastern Seminary. He and his wife Leah have four children. Keith S. Whitfield serves as vice president of academic administration at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and assistant professor of Christian theology. He is the editor of Trinitarian Theology and Loving Your Muslim Neighbors, and serves as the editor of ETS eBook Series for BH. He has also contributed two chapters to Theology and Practice of Mission: God, The Church, and The Nations and co-wrote a chapter for Theology for the Church and a chapter for Missiology: An Introduction to Missions.Prior to joining the faculty at Southeastern, Keith served churches in Indiana, Virginia, and Tennessee, and served as an elder at Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. He and his wife Amy have two children.

Textauszug

Introduction

Nathan A. Finn and
Keith S. Whitfield

WE ARE BIG BELIEVERS IN the power of a good conversation. During the fifteen years we have known each other, dating all the way back to our time as seminary students, we have had countless conversations about theology, ministry, spirituality, mission, marriage, politics, denominational life, parenting, food, music, sports—and the list could go on. Though we have been good friends for a long time, part of what makes so many of our conversations particularly fruitful is that we are not just like each other. Nathan is an introvert, while Keith is an extrovert. Nathan hails from a medium-sized church in a small town, while Keith grew up attending a megachurch in a larger metropolitan area. Nathan attended a small Christian liberal arts college and served in local church ministry as an undergrad, while Keith graduated from a large university and then became involved in ministry during seminary. Prior to becoming full-time professors, Nathan worked as a youth minister and seminary archivist while Keith served as a senior pastor and then church planter. Part of what makes our ongoing conversations about life and ministry so fruitful is that we have different personalities, life experiences, and gifts that we each bring to bear on our common interests.

In our experience, the best conversations are often about topics that need to be put in intentional dialogue with one another. In recent decades, evangelicals in North America have shown a growing interest in missional thought and spiritual formation—but not necessarily at the same time. Unfortunately, though the missional church and spiritual formation movements among evangelicals overlap each other chronologically, they have rarely intersected in meaningful ways. If more intentional intersection was to occur, we believe it would only strengthen both movements as they cross-pollinate one another in ways that would benefit evangelicals and other Christians committed to a missional understanding of the church and the importance of spiritual formation in the Christian life.

We are grateful for a handful of attempts in recent years to put these two movements in dialogue with each other. Missional Spirituality: Embodying God’s Love from the Inside Out by Roger Helland and Leonard Hjalmarson is a helpful book written from an evangelical perspective, but its intended audience is pastors rather than scholars.1 The edited volume Cultivating Sent Communities: Missional Spiritual Formation is a fine academic contribution that deserves a close reading by scholars engaged in both conversations.2 However, the contributors represent a more mainline Protestant perspective rather than overtly evangelical commitments. The spring 2013 issue of the Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care was dedicated to the relationship between mission and spirituality and included a number of thoughtful essays. That the key evangelical scholarly journal associated with the spiritual formation movement would devote an entire issue to this topic speaks to the importance of these two conversations coming together.

For our part, each of us is heavily invested in one of these movements and keenly interested in the other. Nathan is a historical theologian whose research interests include Christian spirituality, especially as expressed in the evangelical and Baptist traditions. Keith is a systematic theologian who specializes in missional thought, especially as it relates to theological method. Aside from our respective specializations, we each try to keep up as much as possible with the major discussions taking place in the other’s field. We are also both academic administrators who want to see our professors, students, and staff embody a biblically rich, theologically informed, and contextually appropriate missional spirituality. We find that many of our friends, colleagues, and students feel similarly about the relationship between missional thought and spiritual formation. Thus, we decided in the fall of 2013 that we wanted to invite other evangelical scholars from a variety of theological disciplines and ecclesial traditions to join in our conversation. The book you hold in your hand or are looking at on an electronic screen represents the “first fruits” of what we pray is an ongoing conversation.

This book’s purpose is straightforward and, we think, biblical. As our title indicates, we want evangelicals and other Christians to cultivate what we call a “spirituality for the sent” that helps to foster a new vision for the missional church. We believe that scholars with deep interest and expertise in either the missional church or spiritual formation should take the lead in putting these two movements into dialogue with each other. We are convinced that the topics that are talked about in the faculty lounge at evangelical colleges, universities, and seminaries often eventually filter down into evangelical pulpits, small groups, and ministers’ conferences. If we are to see evangelical churches embracing a robustly missional spirituality—which is our hope—then evangelical scholars have a strategic role to play in framing the conversation.

Each chapter has been written by a contributor or contributors who we believe offer something important to this conversation. Some are biblical scholars, some are systematic theologians, some are historians, and still others have expertise in the disciplines of practical or pastoral theology. Most are professional academics, many have extensive backgrounds in congregational ministry, and some have more experience in the world of parachurch ministry. They come from different institutions, denominational traditions, and theological perspectives, representing what the late historian Timothy Smith aptly termed the “evangelical kaleidoscope” and what theologian John Stackhouse calls “generic evangelicalism.”3 We wanted a book that all interested evangelicals could appreciate, even if no reader agrees with everything found herein.

Because this book’s contributors are drawn from across the evangelical spectrum, we strongly suspect that they would disagree among themselves (and with us!) concerning many of the issues that divide evangelicalism. Nevertheless, other than providing some working definitions of the terms missional and spiritual formation (see chapter one), as editors we have not attempted to constrain the contributors in any way. We encouraged each to write from his or her own convictions and commend his or her views to the wider evangelical world. Though this approach has led both to some differing emphases (some contributors give more emphasis to personal evangelism, some focus more on social justice) and some overlapping subject matter (St. Patrick of Ireland and Mother Teresa are particularly popular role models for missional spirituality), we think the chapters generally represent the similar-yet-diverse movement that is North American evangelicalism.

In the first chapter, “The Missional Church and Spiritual Formation,” the editors briefly narrate the histories of the missional church and spiritual formation movements, respectively. As mentioned above, we also provide some working definitions for both the terms missional and spiritual formation, since both are contested among evangelicals and others interested in these movements. Our goal in the chapters is to provide some necessary prolegomena for readers who are interested in the subject of this book, but who are less familiar with the development of these movements and the debates among scholars and thoughtful practitioners identified with each movement. In chapter two, Craig Bartholomew addresses “Spirituality, Mission, and the Drama of Scripture.” He provides a biblical-theological overview of mission and shows how spirituality is an interconnected theme found across the canon of Scripture. Rightly relating to God and being formed into the image of Christ is an essential component of God’s mission for the church. According to Bartholomew, “Mission will only be effective and honor God insofar as we are living ever more deeply into God” (53).

In the third chapter, missiologist Susan Booth also draws on biblical theology to examine the place of global missions in a missional spirituality. She argues that “missional advance flows from God’s presence in the midst of his people”(54). Authentic spirituality necessarily includes a missional dimension that is global in scope, reflecting God’s heart for the nations. Simply put, “A biblical understanding of missional spirituality must include a global focus” (54). Chapter four focuses on the communal nature of missional spirituality, particularly as it is embodied in local congregations. Chris Morgan and Tony Chute, two scholars with expertise in ecclesiology, push back against the overemphasis on individualism present among so many evangelicals, perhaps especially in the area of spirituality. They draw on the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s epistle to the Philippians to make their case that “biblical spirituality is both missional and congregational” (76) and that authentic spirituality, lived out in community with other believers, fuels authentic mission.

Michael Goheen and Tim Sheridan dedicate the fifth chapter to “Missional Spirituality and Cultural Engagement.” These two missional theologians argue that cultural engagement is a key facet of mission, especially in an increasingly post-Christian North American context. As such, they offer a spirituality of cultural engagement. After critiquing three different paradigms for cultural engagement advocated by contemporary thinkers, Goheen and Sheridan draw on insights from...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.3.2017
• Verlagsort: Lisle
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Moraltheologie / Sozialethik
• Schlagworte: Biblical Theology • Church • congregational life • contextualization • global missions • Incarnation • Liturgy • Missiology • Mission • Missional Church • missional spirituality • Scent • Social Justice • Spiritual Formation • spiritual growth • Spirituality • Worship
• ISBN-10: 0-8308-9158-7 / 0830891587
• ISBN-13: 978-0-8308-9158-0 / 9780830891580