Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Journal of Ministry and Theology
Volume: JMAT 20:1 (Spring 2016)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

Planting Missional Churches. 2nd edition. Ed Stetzer and Daniel Im Nashville, B & H Academic, 2016 416 pages. $26.70

This newly released second edition comes out ten years after Stetzer’s first edition of this classic text. Since then many things have changed in the landscape of church planting and multiplication. In this updated revised edition one will find much-needed new chapters on multi-site church planting, residencies, multi-ethnic ministry, church multiplication, theological education/training, spiritual warfare, the mission of God, and the differences between denominational and network church planting. Ed has added Daniel Im, his associate at newchurches.com as the co-author, and together they have changed over 50% of the content. The stories, content, and models are different in each chapter. In addition to completely reorganizing the book, they’ve integrated the research LifeWay conducted in the just released State of Church Planting study, a research partnership of over a dozen denominations on church planting in the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

Because the authors write to inform, clarify, encourage, and persuade evangelicals to embrace church planting, this book should be read by pastors as well as planters. They cite both scriptural (Paul’s church planting) and historical evidence for the validity of continuous and aggressive church-planting. Sending and potential partner churches and leaders would greatly profit from this treatise.

Conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists should not be dissuaded from reading this book because of the addition of “missional” to church planting in the title. This buzz word is used differently by various authors. In some circles “missional” means “incarnational” and the focus is on a church being part of the culture that they’re seeking to reach. “Missional” can also mean “mission-minded”, or “doing” missions, especially internationally. Finally “missional” can mean actively ministering right where you are in your own Jerusalem. In Planting Missional Churches, Stetzer primarily uses the incarnational and local aspect of being missional. Ed explains, “Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, joining Jesus on mission,

and learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining biblically sound” (p. 22). In other words, missional churches today are those “on mission” with Jesus at all times and in every aspect of their ministry, seeking to bring the Gospel to the lost in their community. A church becomes truly missional only when it remains faithful to the “faith once delivered to the saints” (You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
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