Is the language of mission clearly evident across the broad reaches of time? Or has the modern missionary enterprise distorted our view of the past? Michael Stroope investigates how the modern church has come to understand, speak of, and engage in the global expansion of Christianity, offering a hopeful way forward in this pressing conversation.

The urgent task of our day is to reimagine the church's witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet, a mere attempt to rehabilitate or revise the modern mission tradition will not do. Mission as a rhetorical and conceptual framework is the problem. The ethos and spirit of modernity with its ideas of progress, individualism, commodification, and conquest are hardwired into mission, and thus, this modern mental model undermines faithful witness and service. Now is the time to transcend the modern mission tradition - to become pilgrim witnesses.

"Mission" has become, for many North American Christians, an ambiguous and often uncomfortable term. To many it brings to mind a past in which western culture was identified with the gospel in missionary practice and programs. Distressed with this history and uncertain about how to overcome it, many prefer to ignore the New Testament mandate that the church must be in mission if it is to be the church. Others swing the other way, declaring that everything the church does is mission, depriving the idea of mission of its power to define those specific actions of God which proclaim the gospel and build God's kingdom. "The church exists by missions, just as fire exists by burning." With these words of Emil Brunner, the author reminds us that to be the church is to be in mission. After describing the various "captivities of mission" which plague North American Christianity, the author argues for a robust and engaged practice of mission, beginning in congregations and extending to the broader community.

The urgent task of our day is to reimagine the church's witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet, a mere attempt to rehabilitate or revise the modern mission tradition will not do. Mission as a rhetorical and conceptual framework is the problem. The ethos and spirit of modernity with its ideas of progress, individualism, commodification, and conquest are hardwired into mission, and thus, this modern mental model undermines faithful witness and service. Now is the time to transcend the modern mission tradition - to become pilgrim witnesses.

Newly updated and expanded by Christopher J. H. Wright, John Stott's classic book presents an enduring and holistic view of Christian mission that must encompass both evangelism and social action. Through a thorough biblical exploration, Stott provides a biblically based approach to mission that addresses both spiritual and physical needs.

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