Mission is not an activity of the church. Mission defines it.Over time, many churches drift toward institutional stability and away from their mission calling in a rapidly changing world.
Ecclesiology and Mission confronts this tension. Mission defines the church; the church embodies the gospel. Christians need to live out biblical concepts that will create diverse, reproducing church expressions worldwide.
In this book, scholars and frontline practitioners stress the need to reintegrate mission with church life. Case studies from Azerbaijan, India, Thailand, and Canada show how mission thrives through relationships, family networks, hospitality, and adaptive faith, even under persecution. The authors in this volume highlight a trend toward simpler, networked, relational churches that can flexibly navigate modern complexities. They provide insights into how to think about church and mission, and how churches can do mission today.
Ecclesiology and Mission equips readers to reimagine the church as a dynamic, multiplying community--faithful to Scripture and adaptable to diverse cultural contexts--so that mission once again becomes the heartbeat of the church.
Evelyn Hibbert leads the global region of the Evangelical Missiological Society and is the editorial director of
Evangelical Missions Quarterly. She also helps lead the Angelina Noble Centre, an online research community for women in cross-cultural ministry. She has experience in church planting among Turkish-speaking Muslims in Europe and continues to be involved with this maturing movement. With her late husband, Richard, she coauthored four practical books for missionaries:
Leading Multicultural Teams, Training Missionaries, Walking Together on the Jesus Road, and
Multiplying Leaders.
Kenneth Nehrbass (PhD, Biola University) serves as the president of Evangelical Missiological Society. His missionary work took him to Vanuatu, where he translated the New Testament into the Southwest Tanna language. He is the director of assessment and assistant professor of social work at California Baptist University. He is the author of
Advanced Missiology and
God's Image and Global Cultures.
Abeneazer G. Urga (PhD, Columbia International University) serves as the department head for the MA in biblical studies, lectures in biblical studies at the Evangelical Theological College in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and is an adjunct professor at Columbia International University and Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology. He is a member of Equip International and SIL Ethiopia/International, and an associate member of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas. He is the author of Intercession of Jesus in Hebrews and has coedited several volumes, including
Reading James Missiologically, Reading Revelation Missiologically, and
Reading Hebrews and 1 Peter from Majority World Perspectives. 
