Endorsements

“I found myself reading all the articles and book reviews in the first issue of Ecclesial Futures. I don’t think I ever do that with a journal so that is as good a commendation as I can give! It presents interesting research and reflections on mission and the church, and it crucially relates to what is happening on the ground.”
—Jonny Baker, Director of Mission Education, Church Mission Society, UK

“I purchased a copy and have read the whole thing, learning a great deal and thoroughly appreciating the depth and quality of engagement with the subject material. As a result, there are two papers I’d particularly like to use with my students.”
—Canon Dr. Jill Hopkinson, Tutor in Rural Ministry, Sarum College, Salisbury, UK

“Ecclesial Futures presents an original project that fills an important gap in academic research on the transformations of contemporary Christianity, from a missiological perspective, and with an ecumenical and international dimension.”
—Marie-Hélène Robert, Faculté de Théologie, University of Lyon, FR

“Ecclesial Futures is a bold new venture in ecclesiology and practical theology. The articles offer the best of theology while pressing beyond into the social sciences, especially ethnography, and congregational studies. This is a journal that the Missional Church movement needs, and it will deepen and broaden Christian thinking and practice of a church not concerned with itself but with the flourishing that God is working to bring about.”
—Stephen B. Bevans, SVD, Louis J. Luzbetak Professor of Mission and Culture
Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, IL, US

“I’d been excitedly awaiting the arrival of the first edition of Ecclesial Futures for several weeks. Its arrival did not disappoint. It is a rich gathering of ecclesiological reflection by reflective practitioners and theologians from several continents. The editors are to be congratulated on the entry of this new journal into a field that has frequently failed to integrate practice and theory. Ecclesial Futures achieves that integration with style and substance.”
—Rev. Darrell Jackson, Associate Professor and Director of Research Whitley College, Parkville, AU

“This new journal invites the re-imagining of local churches as oriented towards mission. This is a relatively new self-understanding for the older churches of the West, which have until recently denigrated mission. But there are many newer churches -- in the West and elsewhere -- that do not make the same distinction between church and mission. Here is a forum for churches to learn from one another what it means to participate together in the missio Dei.”
—Kirsteen Kim, Paul E. Pierson Chair in World Christianity and Associate Dean for the Center for Missiological Research, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, US

“Ecclesial Futures raises vital issues concerning the future orientation of local Christian communities as they seek to be faithful witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The journal's focus on how communities are seeking to look outwards and be engaged in their neighbourhoods provides a welcome antidote to the inward focus of much ecclesiology. These are issues which need to be more broadly discussed in all Christian confessions, including the Orthodox churches both within and outside of historically Orthodox environments.”
—Alison Kolosova, co-chair of the Missiology Group of the International Orthodox Theological Association, Tartu, EE