Sixteen years after the death of missionary bishop Lesslie Newbigin, Paul Weston offers a retrospective of his contribution to missionary theology and assesses his continuing relevance for the church’s mission to Western culture. He backs the view that Newbigin’s work...

This article describes the journey of a congregational minister in his or her search for the essence of missional leadership. The journey led to a research project for a PhD at the University of Pretoria under supervision of Prof Nelus...

In the missional conversation, there has been a lot of talk about the need for a new imagination in the church but less attention to how imagination is actually formed and how we might get there. This paper will examine the bodily formation of imagination and will suggest that Jesus was on to something vital when he sent his disciples two by two to be hosted by Samaritans...

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Rapid Response

Carolyn Kelly - A Rapid Response to 'Together at God's Table: How Practicing Hospitality Shapes Our Imagination'

It was early September 1997, and as Britain was mourning the loss of its favourite Princess, I was moving into a far-from-palatial council house on a rather unsavoury street in south Manchester. At 24 years old I was actually one...

She came into the room carefully moving her pram, her very movements betraying her unfamiliarity with this new phase of life and its accoutrements. Her baby was asleep, tiny amidst the blankets, surely the youngest child here, and she the...

In recent years, some scholars have shifted their focus from missional ecclesiology to mission spirituality, by making authentic discipleship the starting point of missional thinking. From this perspective, it is not churches but people that participate in the mission of...

To be a missional people means to live according to the reality of the presence of the kingdom of God that is now at hand. This radical call to missional living requires us to practice intentional spiritual disciplines...

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Rapid Response

Dwight Zscheile – A Rapid Response to ‘Monastic Practices and the Missio Dei’

What practices can sustain missional practice and spiritual vitality among church planters? Taking cues from Ignatius of Loyola this article proposes a rule of life for a church planting order...

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Rapid Response

Mike Gehrling – Rapid Response to Practices for a Missional Church Planting Order by Christopher B. James

This article defines community as ‘a sense of belonging that is the fruit of common commitments and personal investment’ and explores the art and nature of community building for mission within the context of a rapidly fracturing, individualising and urbanising world...

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Rapid Response

Alan Roxburgh – Rapid Response to ‘Are We Post-Community’ by Ash Barker

Ash Barker - Reply to Alan Roxburgh’s Rapid Response

It is one of the clichés of historical writing to say that ‘history is written by the winners’ – meaning that the story always looks different when you know how it ends, or think you know.[1] History doesn’t stop, but...