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(view table of contents)

What is mission and what are the distinctives of the church in mission? As we look at the twenty-first century church continuing the mission for which it was commissioned by its Lord, a conference designed to pick up and learn from the vision for mission of the 16th century Anabaptist movement was held at the International Baptist Theological Seminary, Prague, Czech Republic. Participants from the current free church tradition studied many models for contextualized mission and the strategies and implementations which were tested in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the goal of discovering what has been done so they could ponder what could be learned from the past. The recent history and presence of Anabaptists, to which tradition many evangelicals claim to belong, was carefully studied. Cases were presented in order to find answers for how the church of this post modern world can and should continue to participate in the mission of God.

Shenk addresses the question: What is the Church's Future in a time of cultural crisis and transition?

Wilbert Shenk presents five important papers on how Christian historical and mission studies need to be changed in the light of the emergence of World Christianity and the demise of the West as its spiritual and political center. Shenk introduces the entire question in a brilliant essay that portrays the demographic, cultural, and theological shifts in tectonics. His introduction is followed by five chapters and concludes with a reflection by four historians on the contents of this pathbreaking book.

A gold mine of information about American evangelical missions over the last century - their motives, methods, message, and mistakes.