Be My Witnesses: The Church's Mission, Message, and Messengers

I'm an ex-Young Life guy, and the author of the book is a huge Young Life fan, so I want to be fair and state my bias. With that said, this is one of the headiest re-envisionings of what the Christian church is supposed to be in the world. Actually, re-envisioning may not be a far term, since the book makes a great case that these things were already envisioned by Jesus. At points, the ideas in the book were so mind-stretching that I was thankful that a mentor who knew Guder was walking me through the text. While it's not required to read this book, I'd strongly recommend reading it with someone else so that you can process and get the most out of it. Great book. Deep thoughts. Changed how I did ministry. Ken Clark Author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Out of Debt

At the time of this writing, Darrell Guder was Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at Whitworth College, Spokene, Washington, and had formerly been Director of the Institute of Younth Ministries Fuller Theological Seminary/Young Life, and Ministry Resources Director of Young Life. He came to these roles after notably extensive experience in both the Reformed and Lutheran contexts, in the United States and in Germany. In this detailed and tightly organized exposition, Guder defines the mission of the church as incarnationally being, doing, and saying its witness to a gospel which is always before it--that is, always greater than and demanding of the church's understanding and life. This he does in twelve chapters distributed among four parts, respectively: Part One - Toward a Theology of the Church's Mission; Part Two - The Church's Mandate: Be My Witnesses; Part Three - Defining the Church's Mission Incarnationally; and Part Four, Becoming the Church of Incarnational Witness. Chapter One situates the church's self-understanding as a continuation of the role of Israel, examining what will be a key theme throughout the book, the tension between a focus on benefits and on mission. In true Reformed fashion, he sees Christ as the apex of salvation, and the church as blessed (benefits) to be a blessing (mission). Chapter Two draws distinctions of continuity and discontinuity, and how the church is simultaneously justified and sinful, requiring that the church be both faithful and humble in its missional service. Warts and all, the church is sent out into the world to bear witness not to itself, but to God's actions in Christ, and to how these actions impact the messengers themselves. Beginning Part Two, looking especially at the Book of Acts, Chapter Three discusses diakonia, koinonia, kerygma, and martys/martyria as key descriptions of the church whose proclamation must be an expression of a gospel which is always more than what she can describe or proclaim. In Chapter Four he reviews the inevitability and reality of corrupted, ineffective church performance and structures exacerbated by institutionalism. The church must therefore adopt a critical-realist approach to its own structures, none of which are sacrosanct, and continue mobilizing itself for being, doing, and saying the gospel. Part Three begins, in chapter five with examining what the gospel is, and how its transcendent greatness obliges us to theological humility in all our definitional attempts. In attempting to define, or better, describe or report on the gospel, the church is called to a dynamic tentativeness, a faithfulness to traditions already given, an openness to God's future surprises, and a humble flexibility as an international and highly diverse communion. Chapter Six reminds us that the church must know and show who it is--a community redeemed for mission. Churches exist to equip God's people for this reality. Chapter Seven teaches