Local Ministry: Story, Process and Meaning

In the first chapter of this timely and incisive collection of essays on being Church now, Robin Greenwood writes: 'The contemporary world's story is one of violence and exclusion at a time when the Christian Church in the West . . . is experiencing humiliating challenges . . . In the face of most people's bored disengagement with organized religion, we experience both the complacency of preserving outworn routines in the local church and institutional panic that the old order is slipping away.' How is this situation to be addressed? One answer is through the healthy and creative growth of Local Ministry that focuses on deliberately interrelational and inclusive practices of gospel community in a mission-shaped Church, for in every age and place the Church has to be refounded. The short reflections in this book give snapshots of imaginative developments in some parts of the Anglican Communion (the British Isles, New Zealand and the United States) and explore ideas about the future identity of the local church. With a view to encouraging the strengthening and deepening of the Church's response to the Great Commission, Robin Greenwood and Caroline Pascoe have produced a valuable addition to current thought on the Local Ministry movement.