Essence of the Church , livre ebook

© 2000 by Craig Van Gelder
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-5855-8501-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All Scripture quotations are taken from Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy eds., The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version. NRSV . Copyright © 1991 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Used by permission of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
What lay leaders are saying about this book

“As a layman serving in leadership roles of local churches, I have felt the need for a biblical foundation upon which the Holy Spirit could build a local ministry unique to time and place yet set upon the solid foundation of Scripture. Van Gelder provides this biblical basis.”
Charles M. Bollar Jr., AIA, president and architect, Bollar and Associates Architects, P.C .
“A valuable contribution to discussions about the church in North America’s changing cultural context. Offers challenging new insights for integrating an understanding of the biblical nature of the church with the practice of ministry. Essential reading.”
Meri MacLeod, staff director, Workplace Influence, Colorado Springs, Colo .
What pastors are saying

“A primer for rethinking the nature of the church in North America. This is better than seminary, better than journals, better than ten big books a year. Put in the hands of lay leaders, this book will create a revolution of new thinking, understanding, and learning in the church in North America.”
Rev. David Risseeuw, Six Mile Run Reformed Church, Reformed Church in America
“An important next step in the recovery of the church in North America. A helpful theological and biblical way for us to think about the implications of becoming missional.”
Rev. Alan Roxburgh, West Vancouver Baptist Church, Baptist Church of Canada
“Stands out for its willingness to draw on serious exegetical and historical study to understand the playing field of church life today. Transcends trite stereotypes and establishes a biblical missiological direction. It will be a standard reference work in this area for years to come.”
Rev. Wayne Brouwer, Harderwyk Christian Reformed Church, Holland, Mich .
“Most pastors I know are stressed because they are taught that they need to be successful. They say, ‘If only I had the key to help my church grow or perhaps the right organizational grid or . . .’ Van Gelder cuts through this false, secular notion and helps church leaders formulate the right questions.”
Rev. John McLaverty, Spring Garden Church, Baptist, North York, Ontario
“A challenge to contemporary North American functional and organizational approaches to the church. A clear call from a biblical and missiological perspective to right imbalances within the contemporary Western church.”
Rev. Dr. Mary Lou Codman-Wilson, associate pastor, St. Andrew United Methodist Church, Carol Stream, Ill .
“We need to again gain clarity on both the nature of the church and the nature of her mission. Van Gelder brings such clarity through his multidisciplinary study and effectively argues that a missiological ecclesiology can bring light instead of heat in reflecting on the nature, ministry, and organization of the church.”
Rev. Jul Medenblik, New Life Church, Christian Reformed Church, New Lenox, Ill .
“The people of God have too long been frozen out of their rightful calling as the most exhilarating project God has conceived in our day and age. Practitioners of ministry will be well served by this reasoned and well-crafted primer on the central calling of our faith.”
Rev. Doug Ward, Kanata Baptist Church, Kanata, Ontario
“Offers church leaders hope by showing how the church of Jesus Christ has always been and will continue to be built through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. As a church planter, it left me hungering to see how the Spirit will organize our newly emerging congregation into a visible missional community.”
Rev. Ken Nydam, New Life Community Church, Grand Junction, Colo .
What denominational staff are saying

“Stimulating and practical reading for the pastor, lay person, or church executive who wants to think deeply about the biblical, theological, and cultural call for God’s people to fulfill Christ’s mission on earth.”
Rev. Stan Wood, new church development, Colombia Theological Seminary
“An important statement on the missional nature of the church within the context of North America. Challenges the how-to books that skip the discussion of what the church is and go directly to what the church should do and how it should organize.”
Rev. Lois Barrett, executive secretary, Commission on Home Ministries, General Conference Mennonite Church
“Most church leaders acknowledge that the church needs to change. This book helps us build the foundation for a sound missiological ecclesiology so we may become re-engaged in God’s mission among us.”
Rev. James H. Furr, senior church consultant, Union Baptist Association, Houston, Tex., Southern Baptist Convention
“Calls us to respond to the North American context in which the church finds itself as fully in a ‘missionary situation.’ Helps us discern the missiological interrelationships of the church’s nature, ministry, and organization as it fulfills God’s call to mission in a post-Christian world.”
Rev. Eugene Heideman, former secretary for program, Reformed Church in America
“This fine introduction to thinking about the church helps us understand how biblical, historical, and contextual forces shape the church’s self-understanding. A danger to the status quo and foundational for reshaping the church.”
Rev. Dirk Hart, minister of evangelism, Christian Reformed Church in North America
“An excellent history of ecclesiology. Van Gelder helps us see the changing assumptions of church organization through the years. An important reflection on the missional nature of the church. Every missiologist should read it.”
Rev. Robert J. Scudieri, area secretary for North America, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod
What professors of theology are saying

“One of the few works I have encountered that offers a sustained reflection on the church’s essential and constitutive missionary nature. A genuine breakthrough in ecclesiology.”
Dr. Steve Bevans, professor of doctrinal theology, Catholic Theological Union
“Wrestles in a fresh way with the ancient problem of the Christian church: that it is both spiritual and social, both the work of the Holy Spirit and a human organization working in society. All who care about the way the promise of God for the world expresses itself in human community and human witness will be helped by his study.”
Dr. Charles C. West, professor of Christian ethics emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary, Prebyterian Church (U.S.A.)
What professors of mission are saying

“Eureka!! a book which officiates the long-awaited wedding of ecclesiology and missiology. Behold, a missiological ecclesiology! What Van Gelder has joined together, let no theologian put asunder!”
Dr. Justice C. Anderson, former professor of missions, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
“A constructive and stimulating contribution to the growing conversation about the missionary vocation of the church in North America. Introduces perspectives into the conversation that will assist in the movement of the church towards its missional vocation.”
Dr. Darrell L. Guder, professor of evangelism and church growth, Columbia Theological Seminary, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
What mission organization leaders are saying

“When facing difficult decisions, pastors and lay leaders need help from many places at once, such as the Bible, theology, management, missiology, and sociology. Van Gelder brings together insights from these fields and presents them in ways that are both readable and practical.”
Rev. James M. Phillips, former assistant director, Overseas Mission Study Center
“At a time when church leaders are more inclined to seek after the latest ministry trend than to discern the Spirit’s leading, Van Gelder is a direction setter. Affirming the essential missionary nature of the church, this book will keep the church on course in the twenty-first century.”
Don Posterski, World Vision Canada
who has continued to be a loving wife and faithful friend through twenty-seven years together, and who has always encouraged me to put my thoughts into writing
Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Endorsements
Dedication
Foreword by Richard J. Mouw
Preface

1. Rediscovering the Church in the Twenty-First Century
2. A Missional Understanding of the Church
3. Historical Views of the Church
4. The Church and the Redemptive Reign of God
5. The Nature of the Church
6. The Ministry of the Church
7. The Organizational Life of the Church

Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Back Cover
Foreword

North America is a mission field where effective ministry requires skills in cross-cultural communication. Anyone who doubts this needs only spend a little time watching MTV or listening to call-in radio programs or reading People magazine.
Some say that the missionary context is a new one for the Christian community in North America. There was a time, they insist, when our culture was more Christian. But things have changed. Pluralism and new paganism have come to dominate the scene. So today we need to think more missiologically than we did in the past.
Others argue that we are finally becoming awa