The missio Dei concept has shifted missiological thinking from an anthropocentric view of mission to the understanding that the church and persons are participants in the missio Dei. A Wesleyan perspective of grace and the means of grace inform the development of a theology of participation in the missio Dei that overcomes the repetitive articulations of mission as simply being human action or divine action. Through the means of grace, Christian disciples participate in the missio Dei as those transformed by God's love and those through whom that love embraces and transforms the world. Missio Dei and the Means of Grace: A Theology of Participation offers a profoundly simple approach and understanding to twenty-first-century missiology that is applicable for all persons, all ages, and all ecclesial expressions of the Christian church, as participation in the missio Dei through the means of grace is understood to be a holistic way of life where spiritual formation is understood as inseparable from justice ministries.

Following a paradigm shift in his own personal understanding of mission, Vladimir Ubeivolc proposes the adoption of mission principles based on missio Dei to meet the social and spiritual needs of people in Moldova. Biblically grounded and insightful, the lessons to be learned from this book apply far beyond Eastern Europe. Dr Ubeivolc uses his knowledge from six years of research, twenty years of pastoral ministry and a lifetime of experience to summarize the landscape of the Moldovan Evangelical and Orthodox churches and their historical approaches to mission. His evaluation emphasizes the need for a biblical foundation to mission for Eastern European Evangelical churches. This book’s message is a timely, scholarly reminder of the need to pursue holistic mission if the church of Jesus Christ is to be an authentic and effective vessel to bring transformation to people’s lives and society.

We are witnessing an unprecedented technological revolution. Every sphere of life from communications, work, economy, leisure, our homes, and health care is being digitised. These far-reaching changes demand careful consideration and discernment by churches participating in God’s redemptive work around the world. Digitalization of society is radically changing both the methods and conditions of missions. For the first time, this book explores the implications of digitality for Missio Dei in thought and practice. Bringing together theologians, missiologists, computer scientists and practitioners, the book considers a diverse range of topics from evangelism to pastoral care, cyber pilgrimages to biases in algorithms, public theology to homiletics and inculturation to contextualization. Chapters include: Worship, Community and Missio Dei in a Digital Age - Maggie Dawn Finding Jesus Online: Digital Evangelism and the Future of Christian Mission - Steve Hollinghurst 'Digital Inculturation - Katherine G. Schmidt Mission: An adventure of the (digital) imagination - Jonny Baker Interactive technologies, Missio Dei and grassroots activism - Erkki Sutinen Strategic and Pastoral Reflections on Digital Media and Contemporary Spirituality - John Drane Public Faith, Shame, and China’s Social Credit System - Alexander Chow

In this book, Sarosh Koshy strives to go beyond the mission model of Christianity that emerged alongside and within the colonial enterprise and ethos since the sixteenth century. Rather than denounce the inheritance of the mission movement that transformed both the church and world in innumerable ways, it is a simultaneous expression of appreciation for this precious heritage, and an attempt to do justice by it through a yearning quest for relevant paradigms of Christian engagement.Indeed, there is an intense tension within this book, and in fact a twin tension at that. The tension is between those seeking to keep the current mission paradigm alive out of habit or as a self-serving device, thus corrupting and withering away a bequeathal that essentially set free the voluntary/independent spirit of Christian individuals and their intentional collectives from both the ecclesiastical and political authorities. On the other side are those who enlist mission both as a subsequent activity and as a basis to pursue innocuous, and at times apparently heroic options that would seemingly satisfy a supposed missional mandatory. This work enlists postcolonial and poststructuralist resources pedagogically, to teach of mission, missiology, World Christianity, and intercultural theology.

The recent rediscovery of the doctrine of the Trinity has left great impact on the thought and life of the Christian Church. With this reinstatement, the Trinity, which was left out for long as an esoteric mystery, has captured the imagination of theologians and elicited remarkable trinitarian formulations from across theological traditions. This contemporary development has forced the church to review its dogma, spirituality, and Christian practices through the lens of this central doctrine of the Christian faith. One of the important and essential upshots of the doctrine has been the reclamation of a theocentric and trinitarian understanding of mission as the missio Dei. In view of the modern renewal of the Trinity and the global expansion of Christianity, this book explores insights and perspectives from the trinitarian thoughts of St. Augustine and the Indian theologian Brahmabandhab Upadhyay that can inform missio Dei theology relevant for the Indian context.

The priesthood of all believers is a pillar undergirding Protestant ecclesiology. Yet the doctrine has often been used to serve diverse agendas. This book examines the doctrine's canonical, catholic, and contextual dimensions. It first identifies the priesthood of all believers as a canonical doctrine based upon the royal priesthood of Christ and closely related to the believer's eschatological temple-service and offering of spiritual sacrifices (chapters 1-3). It secondly describes its catholic development by examining three paradigmatic shifts, shifts especially associated with Christendom (chapters 4-6) and a suppression of the doctrine's missional component. Finally, the book argues that a Christian doctrine of the priesthood of all believers should be developed with a Christocentric-Trinitarian understanding of the missio Dei. This suggests there are especially appropriate ways for the royal priesthood to relate to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. A canonically and catholically informed priesthood of all believers leads contextually to particular ecclesial practices. These seven practices are 1) Baptism as public ordination to the royal priesthood; 2) Prayer; 3) Lectio Divina; 4) Ministry; 5) Church Discipline; 6) Proclamation; and 7) the Lord's Supper as the renewal of the royal priesthood.