Bøger i Urban Ministry in the 21st Cen serien

Learn how to grow transformation in your city. More than half the people on the planet live in cities. It's not just our future that's urban--our present is. What does the Bible say about cities? How should the church go about reaching those billions of city-dwellers? Where do our cities fit into the Kingdom of God? The church needs a comprehensive, gospel-centered response to these questions as we seek to obey God's call to "seek the welfare of the city" (Jer. 29:7). In Sowing Seeds of Change, Michael Crane weaves together theology and praxis, creating a framework for understanding your city, a means of crafting a vision of what it could be, and a way forward towards transforming it. Sowing Seeds of Change proposes an approach to the city that is both holistic and Christ-centered, offering churches a balanced, compassionate, well-researched model for ministry in diverse urban contexts. Whether you're a pastor, missionary, seminarian, or urban church member, you'll be challenged, edified, and equipped by Sowing Seeds of Change.

In a time of mass urban migration, the great irony of our age is that the closer we have come together the further we have moved apart. Within this globalizing world the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider, creating seemingly unbridgeable chasms between people who inhabit the same city. It is against this backdrop that Colin Smith explores what it might mean to create a different kind of narrative where these gaps become redemptive spaces, open to new possibilities. Mind the Gap weaves a rich tapestry of stories from Nairobi along with London and Cape Town. These imaginatively combine with reflections from Luke's gospel to chart possibilities for hope in the heart of the divided city.

Church leaders throughout North America are discovering the world has moved next door. In a globalized world, cities are mosaics of peoples and cultures where change is the only constant. Mosaic is a "crash course" on engaging culture. It serves as a resource for Christian leaders who have recognized that a cross-cultural mission field is now present in their own backyard and who desire to grow in their ability to incarnate the gospel among their culturally different neighbors.

The material offered in this book, refined over four decades of ministry and further thought, is the result of seeking to find an authoritative answer to this question. The book is largely interaction with and reflection upon the Word. It relates some highly surprising and significant insights into the biblical nature of the church and of God's kingdom plan. Ephesians gives us a model for the church perhaps the clearest, most profound and concise picture of the church in all Scripture. Yet this is not an idealized picture floating somewhere in space or "in the heavenlies" which never really touches down to earth to our nitty-gritty lives. Rather, here is a picture of what the church most profoundly is, and what it can be in actual space and time.