In unsteady political, societal and ecclesial times, what might a missional ecclesiology offer? Drawn from a consultation instigated by the Church of England’s Faith and Order Commission, this book seeks to offer a generative conversation involving theologians and practitioners across three key themes – the church’s worship as a gathered community, its witness as a scattered community, and its walk as a pilgrim community. So often the church speaks as if there was a binary division between ‘being’ and ‘doing’, yet the contributors to this book collectively demonstrate that the situation is more complex. Taken together, the chapters in this volume offer an important resource for all who want to deepen and widen their understanding of the church’s academic engagement with contemporary ecclesiology. With contributors including: Johnny Baker, Angus Ritchie and Cathy Ross.

This collection of essays, stories and reflections brings together two Christian imperatives which all too rarely encounter one another: ‘Being missional’ and ‘Having an ecclesiology’. The conversation that results is stimulating, provoking, and full of the Spirit of God. It has much to offer to pioneers, planters and fresh expressers, to pastors, liturgists and parish savers, and even to bishops. -- Michael Ipgrave
If our missionary imagination is formed in an echo chamber, we shouldn’t be surprised at tired, predictable or divisive results. This timely volume is the opposite: not an echo chamber but an open conversation around shared tables. Reading it I found my thinking expanded, my assumptions challenged and my faith lifted. Taken as a whole, the essays illustrate a generous breadth of ways to be a missional church, but also the fundamental unity of the Spirit’s work in it all. This, plus a host of inspiring and authentic stories, make it a worked example of the mixed ecology at its creative best. -- Mark Powley

Paul Bradbury is a pioneer minister, freelance researcher and writer, and a visiting tutor with the Church Mission Society and Ripon College Cuddesdon. Isabelle Hamley is Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge. Andy Smith is a team rector and serves on the Church of England Ministry Experience Scheme national steering group.