Understanding Christian Mission: Participation in Suffering and Glory

A Christianity Today Book Award Winner and named an Outstanding Mission Book by the International Bulletin of Mission Research, Scott Sunquist's Understanding Christian Mission offers students, scholars, pastors, and mission leaders a comprehensive introduction to contemporary Christian mission that draws together the biblical, historical, and theological rubrics that govern missiology. By tracing the mission of the church throughout history, Sunquist, a respected scholar and teacher of world Christianity, recovers missiological thinking from the early church for the twenty-first century, as well as addresses the global church and forwards a constructive theology and practice for missionary work today.

Sunquist introduces readers to the field while arguing that "Mission, like liturgy, pastoral care, or preaching, is rooted in right thinking about the task, but it must also involve a practice." He views spirituality as the foundation for all mission involvement, for mission practice springs from spiritual formation. He highlights the Holy Spirit in the work of mission and emphasizes its Trinitarian nature. Sunquist explores mission from a primarily theological—rather than sociological—perspective, showing that the whole of Christian theology depends on and feeds into mission. Throughout the book, he presents Christian mission as our participation in the suffering and glory of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the nations.

For pastors, scholars, seminarians, and mission leaders Understanding Christian Mission is an indispensable theological inquiry rooted in an understanding of God that is informed by most other areas of theological studies—biblical studies, hermeneutics, history, practical theology, ecclesiology, and ethics.