Many books, initiatives and strategies in Britain over recent decades have had ‘mission’ in the title. The historic mainstream churches have been thinking, contesting and critiquing what mission is in the face of radical changes in church attendance and discipleship. This book, refreshingly, brings to the fore voices that are often not heard in those debates.
In Britain, ‘the world has made its own home in our midst’ (p.xvii) and the churches now reflect that. Each contributor offers a view, from a marginal place, with which to look again at mission. An Orthodox contributor reveals how Christianity first came through missionaries from the Eastern Mediterranean, and others make plain how, in a postcolonial era, Christians from all over the world come with their own Christian culture and practices. What could a child-centred view, or a more positive perspective on an ‘ageing church’ reveal? How might the church in Britain truly become a church of the poor? What do those from the global South who have ‘moved into the neighbourhood’ offer as we wonder what it means to witness to Jesus in Britain today? How can our mission learn from ways of knowing beyond Western rationalism?
Every reader will warm to, or be challenged by, some chapters more than others, but anyone who wants a glimpse of the breadth of Christian life in Britain today will find it here. There is an honesty about lived realities and about the challenges faced; from tiny, rural congregations fearing their end, to Nigerian churches wondering why ‘reverse mission’ hasn’t really worked, to those who (post Empire) wonder whether its even possible to use the word mission. And there is a glimpse of the potential of a truly ecumenical conversation that might help all in British churches navigate the culture we all, in different ways, inhabit.
A final nine pages, in which the editors reflect on the wonderful collection they gathered, could have been much longer, for the chapters, each and together, pose vital questions. The challenge to indigenous British Christians to cross barriers and be guests (and not only hosts) of churches now in Britain is well made. Reading this book might encourage that and much more. To be ecumenical today means finding unity post Empire and in the midst of multi-cultural Britain. The world church is the church and it is here.
Rev Dr Ben Aldous is CTE’s Principal Officer for Mission and Evangelism. Dr Victoria Turner is a CTE Trustee.
Rev Dr Susan Durber is a United Reformed Church minister and the World Council of Churches President from Europe.