In the last issue the journal proposed that we 'change the conversation' from its preoccupation with church into a readiness to participate with God's activity within neighbourhoods. In the current issue we wrestle with some implications of this journey. There is an invitation to seek the common good of neighbourhood communities: 'Seek the welfare of the city to which I am sending you' (Jeremiah 29:7). We will explore what seeking the common good might mean, why it is so important in terms of Christian life and how it intersects with such things as mission and evangelism.

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The Journal of Missional Practice was born out of a common interest in the work of Lesslie Newbigin, the attempt of the Gospel and Our Culture programme to produce a wider debate about mission in the West, and the subsequent development of what has become known as ‘the missional conversation’. To help the Journal frame those concerns the principle participants have been joined each year by some additional friends and colleagues who together form an editorial Think Tank that offers both a critical and a constructive edge…

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The first experience of ministry, for one of our editors, was a small inner city church in Birmingham, England. That congregation had at one time been vitally involved in the local life of the community, bringing hope, nurturing leaders, offering much needed resources. It was a relationship which generated a dynamic and living conversation between church and community. The dramatic changes of the post war period had ended that vital community conversation and what was left...

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Lesslie Newbigin’s sharp critique of western culture, offered in a relatively brief but incisively penetrating publication, The Other Side of 1984, came as a shock to many who read it for the first time in the middle of the 1980’s....

Over the last few days, I have been re-reading Lesslie Newbigin’s book, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. The book has prompted a memory of Newbigin’s lectures decades ago, when I heard these huge themes opened up...

The church does not have a social ethic; the church is a social ethic. Stanley Hauerwas[1] “Missional Church” is like “Female Woman”.Christopher Wright[2] How might we better understand and participate in God’s mission in western culture? That is the question...

Photos by Jenny Bulcraig This second issue of the Journal of Missional Practice focuses in an area, which is close to the journal’s heart. It takes as its springboard the first of the four convictions of The Missional Network: The...