{"title":"My Pilgrimage to the Missional in South Africa","authors":"C. Burger","doi":"10.54195/ef11889","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11889","url":null,"abstract":"The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa at its 2013 General Synod made a bold resolution—to be a missional church. This resolution was not only an acknowledgement of past failures, but also a commitment to deep and lasting reform. In this article one of the pastors (and leaders) of the church tells this story from a personal, biographical perspective. It is a story of learning and growth and conversion. In this story we see how historical occurrences, personal experiences, reading the Bible and theology, meetings and conversations with friends and strangers and friendships, old and new, can help people change their minds. We also see how being missional is not only bound up with our understanding of scripture and theology, but also with the context in which we live and work. It becomes very clear that it is impossible to isolate the missional work of the church from the political, social and economic realities in which we live. We also see that being missional should not be romanticized as an ideal situation. Most of the time being missional is conducted in the messy chaos we call life.","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133899675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tira, Sadiri Joy and Juliet Lee Uytanlet (eds.), 2020. A Hybrid World Diaspora: Hybridity and Missio Dei","authors":"Andrew Recepcion","doi":"10.54195/ef11892","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11892","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"84 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133326798","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Out with the Old, in with the New?","authors":"Sheila Akomiah-Conteh","doi":"10.54195/ef11886","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11886","url":null,"abstract":"The prospects of the church in Britain have been defined by an enduring narrative of regression for many decades, but something new is happening. The presence and influence of old and established institutions are waning, but many new groups are emerging to keep the heritage of the church alive. This quantitative and qualitative study presents the new changes which have occurred in the Christian landscape of the city of Glasgow in Scotland in recent years, which are often hidden from other forms of research such as national church surveys. It reports the formation of 110 new churches in Glasgow between 2000–2016, and the key characteristics and impact of these groups on Christianity in the city. The presence and effect of new churches in Glasgow indicate seismic changes and presents new challenges in the spiritual landscape of this post-Christian city, not least around the homogeneity of the majority of them.","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127616799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Missio Dei Embodied in Local Community Ministry in Scotland","authors":"Steve Taylor","doi":"10.54195/ef12043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef12043","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines missio Dei in a local community context, interpreting the Blue Horizon Youth Charity, Aberdeen, Scotland, in light of a missiology of listening, diagnosing, and discerning. John 5:9 is read in conversation with Terese Okure to clarify an abiding in mission. Luke 10:1–11 is read in conversation with Alan Roxburgh to develop a contextual particularity in the naming of God’s activity in the world. A local missional ecclesiology is developed with the missio Dei understood as practices of neighborhood listening, diagnosing local narratives, and discerning God and the gospel. The result is a theology of local community ministry as action-reflection on what the Father is doing by paying attention to vulnerable voices, particularly of youth in the community and so partnering with non-church actors in ways inclusive and gospel affirming. Missiology is returned to the local church as the missio Dei is embodied in the practices of local community mission.","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124848572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When the World Is Changing","authors":"Dustin D. Benac","doi":"10.54195/ef12045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef12045","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130664819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Prisoner of His Own Creative Imagination","authors":"T. D. Mashau","doi":"10.54195/ef12041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef12041","url":null,"abstract":"David Bosch’s ecclesiology remains one of the most influential in missiological circles globally. This article sought to interrogate Bosch’s creative imagination, with particular reference to his missional ecclesiology and in particular his view on the church as an alternative community from a decolonial perspective. What prompted this study is the ambiguity and at times, contradictory posture or even what seems to be a betrayal of Bosch’s thought in comparison with his praxis. This article discovered that Bosch was not just a prisoner of his creative imagination, but also a prisoner of his faith, his views on truth, unity of the church, transformation, violence and reconciliation and of hope.","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125110242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Contextual Analysis of Onnuri Church’s “Love Sonata”","authors":"J. N. Ennings","doi":"10.54195/ef12042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef12042","url":null,"abstract":"Since its beginning in 2007 through 2019, Onnuri Church’s Love Sonata musical outreach extravaganza has been held thirty times in cities all across Japan (and four elsewhere in Asia). Capitalizing on the wildly popular 2002 “Winter Sonata” Korean TV drama (“Fuyu Sonata” in Japan), Pastor Ha Yong-Jo instigated a “cultural evangelism gathering” involving Christian Korean musicians performing and himself preaching an evangelistic message. Hundreds of Onnuri Church volunteers have paid their own way to go and pray, make gift boxes, greet newcomers, and otherwise support each Love Sonata event. As a Korean outreach to Japan, Love Sonata provides an illuminating case study of cross-cultural missions in challenging circumstances. Korea and Japan are close in many ways, yet in other ways they are very far apart. Studying various aspects of the interpersonal interactions involved in the Love Sonata enterprise sheds instructive light on how mission service is embedded in actual history, often involving significant cultural barriers. Supported by qualitative research from interviews with both Japanese and Korean participants, plus drawing on the author’s thirteen-year Japan-based experience and five-year Korea-based experience, this study offers a multifaceted analysis of Love Sonata in order not to evaluate or make recommendations but to understand its overall contextual characteristics.","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131933509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Campbell, Douglas A. 2020. Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God’s Love","authors":"M. Reppenhagen","doi":"10.54195/ef12047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef12047","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126275856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Our Agricultural Krísis","authors":"M. Anslow","doi":"10.54195/ef12040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef12040","url":null,"abstract":"In Australia, and indeed across the world, we are experiencing the effects of a broken food system, such that we face the possibility of a serious agricultural crisis. Current hopes for a resolution to this impending crisis are generally pinned to technology, despite the various problems associated with the use of agricultural technologies over recent decades. Such a situation demands a Christian missional response—an agriculturally-conscious missiology. This paper argues that farming and food production constitutes an aspect of Christian mission. The NT notion of krísis (judgment) is an as opportunity for repentance, applied to suggest that our agricultural crisis is a missional opportunity for the Church since it has spiritual, practical, and traditional resources necessary for a new agricultural paradigm. In light of these resources, the paper makes some provisional suggestions, directed at “consumers,” related to three missiological categories: relationship, contextualization, and participation. Each contributes to a way of thinking that Ellen Davis has called “agrarianism.”","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125487345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"James, Christopher B. 2018. Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil: Theology and Practice","authors":"Kristine M. Stache","doi":"10.54195/ef12046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef12046","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"301 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122517895","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}