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    Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape the Church for Mission
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    Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape the Church for Mission
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    Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape the Church for Mission
    Ebook342 pages4 hours

    Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape the Church for Mission

    By David E. Fitch

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    • Missio Alliance Essential Reading List of 2016

    In our quest to renew the church, Christians have walked through seeker-friendly, emergent, missional, and other movements to develop new expressions of the body of Christ. Now in the post-Christian world in North America we're asking the question again: is there a way to be the church that engages the world, not by judgment nor accommodation but by becoming the good news in our culture? In Faithful Presence, noted pastor and scholar David Fitch offers a new vision for the witness of the church in the world. He argues that we have lost the intent and practice of the sacramental ways of the historic church, and he recovers seven disciplines that have been with us since the birth of the church. Through numerous examples and stories, he demonstrates how these revolutionary disciplines can help the church take shape in and among our neighborhoods, transform our way of life in the world, and advance the kingdom. This book will help you re-envision church, what you do in the name of church, and the way you lead a church. It recovers a future for the church that takes us beyond Christendom. Embrace the call to reimagine the church as the living embodiment of Christ, dwelling in and reflecting God's faithful presence to a world that desperately needs more of it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIndependent Publishers Group
    Release dateDec 1, 2016
    ISBN9780830899418
    Author

    David E. Fitch

    David E. Fitch (PhD, Northwestern University) is the B. R. Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary. He is also the founding pastor of Life on the Vine Christian Community, a missional church in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. He is the author of The Great Giveaway and The End of Evangelicalism? and is the coauthor of Prodigal Christianity. Fitch coaches a network of church plants in the Christian and Missionary Alliance and he writes, speaks, and lectures on issues the local church must face in mission including cultural engagement, leadership and theology. He has also written numerous articles in periodicals such as Christianity Today, The Other Journal, Missiology as well as various academic journals.

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    Reviews for Faithful Presence

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      A ecclesiastical reflection on the author's experience in ministry exhorting more holistic service and faithfulness to Christ in a space between missional and incarnational: faithful presence in the Kingdom.The author sets forth seven disciplines for faithful presence (the Lord's table, reconciliation, proclaiming the Gospel, being with the "least of these", being with children, the fivefold gifting, and Kingdom prayer), and describes them in terms of presence within the "closed circle" of the dedicated members of a local congregation, the "half dotted circle" of the local church members, regular visitors, and people who express interest in faith, and also the "open circle," the greater community at large. The author does well at demonstrating the importance of all three aspects of ministry and presence so that the work may thrive: to focus only on the closed circle is to turn to maintenance mode, but focusing only on the open circle is to lead to exhaustion and abandonment of the Gospel to become a social service organization. The "half dotted circle" becomes a very important place in that regard.Many good things about each subject, and some points of disagreement, as always. The section on the "least of these" is very powerful, and does well to overturn the paternalistic and systemic model of benevolence on its head, emphasizing instead community and sharing and joint participation in ways that empower all involved. Kingdom prayer, especially as contrasted with constant striving, is all important. The fivefold gifting is an interesting way of taking the first century situation and bringing it to the twenty-first without necessarily becoming charismatic, although in so doing there is some disconnect from the original use of some of the terms. Being with children is rather convicting; evangelism models are very fit for 21st century life, since they focus on presence and relationship, the embodiment of the message as opposed to rhetorical flourish. Don't sleep on the appendices either, especially 3 (warning about the extremes of missiology and incarnation) and 4 (looking at the "least of these" as all the poor, but seeing Christ's presence in their midst as the work the Christians did by bringing the Kingdom to bear on their condition). Highly recommended.**original galley received as part of early review program