Imagining Mission With John V Taylor

The impact that John V. Taylor had on our contemporary understanding of mission is vast – his determination that mission should mean engagement across cultural boundaries has deep resonance today. In 'Imagining Mission with John V. Taylor', leading missional thinkers Jonny Baker and Cathy Ross invite us into a vision of church, mission and society which takes John Taylor’s ideas seriously, seeking to imagine what Taylor’s insights might mean for these three areas in our contemporary context. The result is a clarion call to the church to take bigger risks and dream bigger dreams.

Ecclesial Futures publishes original research and theological reflection on the development and transformation of local Christian communities and the systems that support them as they join in the mission of God in the world. We understand local Christian communities broadly to include traditional “parish” churches and independent local churches, religious communities and congregations, new church plants, so-called “fresh expressions” of church, “emergent” churches, and “new monastic” communities. We are an international and ecumenical journal with an interdisciplinary understanding of our approach to theological research and reflection; the core disciplines being theology, missiology, and ecclesiology. Other social science and theological disciplines may be helpful in supporting the holistic nature of any research, e.g., anthropology and ethnography, sociology, statistical research, biblical studies, leadership studies, and adult learning. The journal fills an important reflective space between the academy and on-the-ground practice within the field of mission studies, ecclesiology, and the so-called “missional church.” This opportunity for engagement has emerged in the last twenty or so years from a turn to the local (and the local church) and, in the western world at least, from the demise of Christendom and a rapidly changing world—which also affects the church globally. The audience for the journal is truly global wherever the local church and the systems that support them exists. We expect to generate interest from readers in church judicatory bodies, theological seminaries, university theology departments, and in local churches from all God’s people and the leaders amongst them.

January 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the Fresh Expressions movement which spread internationally and denominationally from its origins in the Church of England. Graham Cray was its first National Leader. Countless new forms of church have emerged through Fresh Expressions, the Church Army, New Wine, and various pioneer network. On Mission with Jesus offers a theological understanding of the missional nature of the church, which will undergird and inform local practice and assist ministerial and pioneer training. Its central argument is that the Church’s inherited understanding of itself imprisons the imagination of local congregations and in ten chapters, Graham Cray seeks to establish a new self-understanding for local congregations: 1. Updating Default Settings 2. Sharing in the Mission of God 3. Making Disciples 4. Following the Spirit 5. Shaping the Church 6. Anticipating the Future 7. Joining the family Business 8. Being a Pilgrim People 9. Recognising Jesus in the Church 10. Becoming a Jesus on Mission-Shaped Church

Written by a widely-travelled bishop, theologian and poet, these 16 evangelical, catholic and ecumenical articles, published over 34 years, provide illumination with imagination, interweaving art, poetry and archives with theology, history and spirituality.

This is the first comprehensive book on Anglican and Pentecostal ecumenical relations. It introduces both movements with a particular focus on their approaches to ecumenism, before exploring sacraments, ministry, ecclesiology, pneumatology, and mission with respect to both traditions. As well as providing more theological and historical discussion, the book also offers personal accounts of local, national, and international ecumenical engagement by both Anglicans and Pentecostals. It is written predominantly—although not exclusively—from a British perspective. Even so, as the first major published dialogue between these two global Christian traditions, the book will be of value to all interested in Anglicanism, Pentecostalism, and ecumenism.

Perhaps, after all, the decolonising agenda isn’t extra baggage the church needs to carry on top of everything else. Perhaps, instead, it is the very heart of what the church should be about – disrupting, uncomfortable, and bringing about a kind of ‘holy anarchy’. In Holy Anarchy, Graham Adams points to a realm in which all dynamics of domination, not least in the church, are subverted. It cuts across the loyalties and boundaries of religion and fosters the greatest possible solidarity amongst the different. Urgent and timely, the book weaves together themes around Empire, liberation and decolonial practice with an exploration of the nature and scope of church community, interreligious engagement, mission, and worship.

'Mixed ecology' is a term use to describe how traditional parishes co-exist with fresh expressions, church plants and pioneer ministries. Ed Olsworth-Peter explores what an integrated mixed ecology of Church looks like in a post pandemic world. As society begins to come to terms with the cultural and financial impacts of the last couple of years, the way we meet as church and how we reach out to those within our communities needs to be reconsidered. The Church of England's new vision and strategy includes three priorities one of which is that 'mixed ecology is the norm'. Much has been written about the mixed economy/ecology of Church over the last 15 years across a range of traditions and denominations, but what hasn't been explored as such is the connectivity and dependency between different local expressions of church, and the value of 'co-growing' alongside one another for their mutual health and missional development. More than ever there is a need for the church to be 'one body' - unified yet distinctive, aware of the gift of its breadth in a 'global' ecosystem that together recognises and resources different expressions of church. This book will help church leaders and worshipping communities to understand their place within the mixed ecology, the value of growing their own local ecosystem, and how to develop a physically gathered, digital and hybrid ecology of Church. Offering cultural, ecclesiological and missional insights, coupled with practical application, it draws on the voices of respected theologians, authors and church leaders in the UK and USA.