Called to Witness: Doing Missional Theology

por Darrell L. Guder

Editorial:

Eerdmans

, 2015

Overview

Since the publication of the groundbreaking volume Missional Church in 1998, there has been wide-ranging engagement with the theme of the missional church. One of the leading voices in the missional church conversation, Darrell Guder, lays out basic theological issues that must be addressed for the church to serve God faithfully as Christ’s witnessing people.

Guder argues that there are major consequences for every classical theological locus if the fundamental claims of the missional church discussion are acknowledged. In Called to Witness, he delves into these consequences, saying that we need to keep doing missional theology until it is possible to leave off the “missional scaffolding” because, after all, mission defines the very essence and calling of the church.

Key Features

• Lays out basic theological issues for the church to address
• Argues that there are major consequences for every classical theological locus
• Examines mission as the essence of the church

Contents

• From Mission and Theology to Missional Theology
• The Missio Dei: A Mission Theology for after Christendom
• The Christological Formation of Missional Practice
• The Church as Missional Community
• The Nicene Marks in a Post-Christendom Church
• The Missional Authority of Scripture
• The Scriptural Foundation of the Missional Community
• The “Worthy Walk” of the Missional Community after Christendom
• Missional Leadership for the Formation of the Community’s “Worthy Walk”
• Missio Dei: Integrating Theological Formation for Apostolic Vocation
• Missional Ecumenism: The Vision and the Challenge

Praise for the Print Edition

Among the voices in the contemporary missional church movement, Darrell Guder is the grand master of the ‘missional theology’ undergirding the conversation. . . . This volume gathers up the essays by which he has prodded, provoked, nudged, and stirred the theological academy toward rooting itself in the fundamental, course-altering recognition of the mission of God and the missional nature of the church. A must-read for all who care about enriching the missional identity and practice of the church.

—George R. Hunsberger, professor of missiology, Western Theological Seminary

Darrell Guder’s Called to Witness displays the qualities that have distinguished his writings over the past two decades. He consistently addresses themes essential to the renewal of the post-Christendom church and does so with clarity, conviction, and first-rate scholarship. . . . Guder combines honest appraisal with confidence that the body of Christ can be renewed as it embraces God’s mission.

—Wilbert R. Shenk, senior professor of mission history and contemporary culture, Fuller Graduate School of Intercultural Studies

About Darrell L. Guder

Darrell L. Guder is Henry Winters Luce Professor Emeritus of Missional and Ecumenical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also the author of Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America.