EMQ » Jul – Oct 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 3
The Present and Future of Evangelical Mission: Academy, Agency, Assembly, and Agora Perspectives from Canada
Edited by Narry F. Santos and Xenia Ling-Yee Chan
Evangelical Missiological Society Monograph
Pickwick Publications, 2022
208 pages
US$30.00
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Reviewed by Daniel Topf (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary), missions coach with World Team in Greendale, Wisconsin.
The Present and Future of Evangelical Mission is an edited volume of contributions from the Evangelical Missiological Society (EMS) Canada Regional Meeting in 2020. The contributors come from different backgrounds and perspectives, but each “has offered thoughtful critique as well as a way forward for the church to become who we were created to be, and to become full participants in the mission of God as God intends” (xxv).
Framed by an introduction and conclusion, the volume consists of eleven chapters that are arranged into four main parts titled (1) “Mission in Retrospect and Prospect,” (2) “Past Christian Mission and its Relevance to Present Mission,” (3) “Present Evangelical Mission and its Relevance to Future Mission,” and (4) “Present and Future of Workplace Mission.” Throughout the book, the authors touch on a variety of pertinent issues, including postmodernism, pluralism, secularization, Christianity and empire, international migration, women in ministry, multiculturalism and diversity, Christian unity, reconciliation, and marketplace workers.
One of the important theological concepts presented is that of motus Dei (Latin for the movement of God), which “is akin to the notion of the missio Dei,” highlighting that “God is on the move all over the world and is moving powerfully among people on the move” (11). In view of the motus Dei, believers are invited to follow Christ in a posture of being pilgrims and sojourners on this earth.
Of particular interest are the two chapters that address the agora (the world of business). For instance, Laurie George Busutill and Susan J. Van Weelden are academics (at University College in Hamilton, Ontario), and they convincingly state: “As professors at a Christian university, our mission is to prepare students to enter the workplace with a clear understanding of God’s character and how to mirror those character traits in their daily interactions” (148). In doing so, these professors acknowledge that most believers in Canada live in a largely secular world and that it is crucial for them to live out their faith where they spend most of their time: at work.
The Present and Future of Evangelical Mission is a call to revisit the past so as to “have the courage to engage it in prophetic evaluation,” in order to reinvent, reinterpret, renew, reframe, and recalibrate a new kind of missional engagement” (177). The volume provides missionaries and scholars with a thought-provoking evaluation of contemporary missions from a Canadian perspective, which entails both similarities and differences when comparing it to the situation in the United States and is therefore highly relevant for American readers as well.
For Further Reading
Exiles on Mission: How Christians Can Thrive in a Post-Christian World by Paul S. Williams (Brazos Press, 2020)
Majority World Perspectives on Christian Mission edited by Nico A. Botha and Eugene Baron (UJ Press, 2022)
Mission and Evangelism in a Secularizing World: Academy, Agency, and Assembly Perspectives from Canada edited by Narry F. Santos and Mark Naylor (Pickwick Publications, 2019)
EMQ, Volume 60, Issue 3. Copyright © 2024 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
