As church leaders it can be difficult to read the books we need to read. We are often overwhelmed with emergency reading—reading in areas of the church where we are deficient (e.g. children’s ministry, church discipline, missional church, counseling, best practices). We scour blogs and books for practical insight, inevitably digesting half-baked ideas and practices.

If we aren’t careful, we can get indigestion by consuming this stuff. Our diet devolves. We get bogged down in best practices instead of diving deeply into the Bible and our culture. What we need is good theology and missiology. For sure, there’s a place for winsome dialog about church planting best practices, church methods, and philosophy of ministry. My Tools for Missional Church is an attempt to contribute to these practical resources.

Reading Integratively

The danger, however, is reading practically apart from grounding our practice in theology. Snapping up the latest best practices, whether they are missional communities or multi-site video venues, should never be done haphazardly. As elders we are to watch our life and doctrine closely to make sure that theology and practice are closely intertwined, both for ourselves and for our flock (1 Tim 4:16). We should read and lead integratively.

I find that my church passion, insight and practice are helped by reading deeply—taking in good information and reflecting on its application. Cultivating good reading is a disciplined process that is learned over time. Fortunately, I’ve had a great missiological mentor to help me along the way, Dr. Timothy Tennent. Tennent now serves as the President of Asbury Seminary and studied under Dr. Andrew Walls, “the most important person you don’t know”.

Dr. Tennent is both a theologian and a practicioner—tithing a third of his life to church planting and theological education in India. He advocates a missiology done in “space and time,” meaning theology should be done in dialog with church history through deliberate contextualization. This has a way of keeping our best practices honest, squaring them with theological history and our cultural context.

As theologian-missionaries, we should all strive to cultivate and practice a theology that is missiologically oriented and a missiology that is theologically grounded. Not all missiologists follow this difficult, interdisciplinary path. Sometimes the integration of theology and missiology is up to us, the practitioners. We possess the high calling of shepherding the church in truth, wisdom, and love. And a little help can go a long way.

Reading Intentionally

To offer a little help, I’d like to recommend some good missiology. Missiology is the great integrating theological discipline, bringing biblical exegesis, systematic, biblical, and practical theology together for the sake of gospel advancement.

In no particular order, here are some missiologists I have found particularly helpful. Some are more theologically reflective than others. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is an honest one (I’ve read multiple books by most of these authors). You certainly won’t agree with everything they teach, but that’s why you should read them. Sometimes they will change your mind for the good. Other times they will strengthen your understanding. Here’s a key work by each author:

• Andrew Walls – The Missionary Movement in Christian History
• Paul Hiebert – Anthropological Insight on Missiological Issues
• Chris Wright – The Mission of God           
• Ralph Winter – The Perspectives on the World Christian Movement
• Chuck Kraft – Culture, Communication, & Christianity
• Lamin Sanneh – Whose Religion is Christianity?
• David Bosch – Transforming Mission
• Tim Tennent - Theology in the Context of World Christianity
• Leslie Newbigin – Foolishness to the Greeks

No doubt I’ve left some good ones out, especially the newer missiologists like Ed Stetzer, Darrel Guder, Alan Hirsch, and so on. However, the newer missiologists have read these older missiologists. Just check their footnotes and follow them to deeper reading. An advantage of the above list is that these men are seminal missional thinkers, who in addition to breaking new ground, do so integratively.

Strive to do theology in “space and time” by reading integratively. Avoid reading indigestion by reading to make your practice theological and your theology practical.