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Rating: 
Summary: Not Quite What I Expected
Review: As a member of the post-modern generation, I found this book to be more well suited to those who do not understand post-modern thinking and are looking for mission strategies for today's North American Culture. I also found that the Chapter on the Holy Spirit, although very informative, did not integrate the connection between the Spirit and Missional outreach very well. I think that chapter in itself could make a very interesting book on its own. Finally, I found that the reading level of the book varied between the authors. This could pose a problem for people who may grasp the concepts behind some of the authors writings, but not fully grasp the concepts behind the other authors writings. However, this book is to be commended for showing distinction between Canadian and American culture. Also, the multiple authorship has an advantage in that the book is not as biased(to any denomination) as it might be if only one author were writing it. This book is a good read for those who do not understand today's culture and how to effectively evangelize to it. However, growing up as a post-modern thinker, I did not find it as helpful as I though it would be.
Rating: 
Summary: Will use it as a required text in a course I'll be teaching
Review: Guder does an outstanding job of editing this text.The writers present a quality summary of today's American spiritual culture as well as justification for returning the church back to its apostolic (i.e. sent) roots. The mission of God is so well presented in this book that I'm going to use it as a required text in the evangelism/mission course that I'm teaching this fall at a Christian/Lutheran university.
Rating:
Summary: After the Bible, the best book I've read all year.
Review: I've been plugging this book at clergy gatherings for the last 6 months. This book was a partial answer to a prayer that I've had for years, "God, What are you calling us to become, because it seems clear that we can't continue with the Christendom models." I've read a lot of other books, but none come close to giving the depth of anaysis into the problem of Christendom. The essays in this book present an exiciting mission for the church as it moves to the margins of culture. The book is not an easy read for those who have limited theological training. However, with a copy of Westminsters Dictionary of Theological Terms in hand, thoughtful Christians will gain a host of insight into the North American Church context(AND YES! They do separate anaysis for Canada and the USA context). Rev. Jim Love (United Church of Canada)
Rating:
Summary: After the Bible, the best book I've read all year.
Review: I've been plugging this book at clergy gatherings for the last 6 months. This book was a partial answer to a prayer that I've had for years, "God, What are you calling us to become, because it seems clear that we can't continue with the Christendom models." I've read a lot of other books, but none come close to giving the depth of anaysis into the problem of Christendom. The essays in this book present an exiciting mission for the church as it moves to the margins of culture. The book is not an easy read for those who have limited theological training. However, with a copy of Westminsters Dictionary of Theological Terms in hand, thoughtful Christians will gain a host of insight into the North American Church context(AND YES! They do separate anaysis for Canada and the USA context). Rev. Jim Love (United Church of Canada)
Rating:
Summary: Toward a Missional Ecclsiology
Review: This book offers an excellent treatment of the relationship between Church life and missional practice. Essentially, it argues that the church does not have a mission, but is a missional community itself. This leads to a total revamping of the traditional approaches that churches have taken to "missions." Typically, missions have been seen as something that takes place in areas outside of Western cultures which are not "Christianized." The authors of Missional Church show profoundly well how the church is always in a missionary situation in every culture, and indeed it cannot consider itself "at home" in any culture. To do so is to sucomb to the Constantinian temptation wherein the church, in seeking cultural legitimacy uses the power of the state to achieve it's ends, thus violating the way of power offered in the Cross and Resurrection (cf. Yoder, The Politics of Jesus).
The authors offer some excellent discussion of the relation between Christ and culture(s), showing how these discussions cannot take place in the abstract, the way that Niebhur framed his argument in the famous book, "Christ and Culture." The relationship between Church and Cultures is always a dynamic, not a static one that must be determined contextually, taking into accoun the nuances of the culture in which the church finds itself.
The authors then go on to examine church as representative of the reign of God. This concept of the church as centered in the kingdom of God paves the way for the authors to talk about how the church must offer an alternative to the dominate culture. Thus, the church has an alternative politics, an alternatiive economics and an alternative vocabulary. All of these discussions are excellent and go a long way toward grounding Christian ethics in a thorughougly Christological congtext that is centered on the kingdom of God and embodied in the church as a community.
In sum, this is an excellent volume which significantly seeks to rework and reorient the defunct consumer church in North America. I certainly hope that the important call of this book is heeded by a largely compromised and unfaithful church. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely Practical
Review: This book should be a must read by anyone who wants to have God's desire for the Christian church. It offers a very good understanding of the North American culture and offers a relevant understanding of our culture. The only thing that I wish they would have done, is offer some possible ways to do this and ways that its being done. However, that is not their desire of this book from what I understand. They just simply want to highlight the areas that the modern church is struggling with and what the modern church is called to be and the book does that in superb way. One of the top 5 books that I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book - especially for Anabaptists.
Review: This is an excellent book which speaks with illumination to the changing situation in which congregations in North America are doing mininstry. It is particularly helpful to those in the Anabaptist tradition (Mennonite, Church of the Brethren, Brethren Church, Brethren in Christ, . . .). It will, however, provide valuable new perspectives to people from Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions as well.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book - especially for Anabaptists.
Review: This is an excellent book which speaks with illumination to the changing situation in which congregations in North America are doing mininstry. It is particularly helpful to those in the Anabaptist tradition (Mennonite, Church of the Brethren, Brethren Church, Brethren in Christ, . . .). It will, however, provide valuable new perspectives to people from Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions as well.
Rating: 
Summary: A good introduction to missional theology.
Review: This is one of the better books currently available introducing church leaders, pastors and lay ministers to ecclesiology from a missional perspective. Guder and his fellow writers do a worthy job of synthesizing contemporary perspectives on church in post-Christian North America. Especially engaging is the way that the writers articulate the distinctive claims a Canadian culture (as opposed to an United States culture) will make on a missional church. There are valuable lessons here for pastors seeking to become more adept in cultural discernment. What is lacking in this book are concrete examples of what a missional church "looks like" in ways different than what one finds in Christendom. One hopes that this is an absence that will be addressed in the next four volumes. In short, check out this book as a synthesis of ecclesiology from a post-liberal perspective (a la Hauerwas, Yoder, Brueggemann). Also, a note for pastors: Chapter 7, "Missional Leadership: Equipping God's People for Mission," is worth the price of the book.
Rating:
Summary: A good introduction to missional theology.
Review: This is one of the better books currently available introducing church leaders, pastors and lay ministers to ecclesiology from a missional perspective. Guder and his fellow writers do a worthy job of synthesizing contemporary perspectives on church in post-Christian North America. Especially engaging is the way that the writers articulate the distinctive claims a Canadian culture (as opposed to an United States culture) will make on a missional church. There are valuable lessons here for pastors seeking to become more adept in cultural discernment. What is lacking in this book are concrete examples of what a missional church "looks like" in ways different than what one finds in Christendom. One hopes that this is an absence that will be addressed in the next four volumes. In short, check out this book as a synthesis of ecclesiology from a post-liberal perspective (a la Hauerwas, Yoder, Brueggemann). Also, a note for pastors: Chapter 7, "Missional Leadership: Equipping God's People for Mission," is worth the price of the book.
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