Cities: Missions' New Frontier

By Timothy M. Monsma and Roger S. Greenway

Book Overview

Roger S. Greenway, professor of world missiology at Calvin Theological Seminary, has authored or edited twelve books on missions. Timothy M. Monsma is director of Cities for Christ Worldwide.. As cities continue to expand, Christ calls the church to bring the gospel to these centers of population, culture, and political power.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801022304
• ISBN13: 9780801022302
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Baker Academic & Brazos Press
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great urban textbook

In the nineteenth century the church made a great commitment to overseas missions opening new works in many countries that had never heard the gospel. The new challenge in the twenty-first century is to reach the cities which are growing rapidly and the cities of the world are larger than they have ever been before. This book, "Cities: Missions' New Frontier," endeavors to guide the reader to reaching the cities of the world for Christ. Most of the book is written by Roger Greenway with six of the twenty chapters being written by Timothy Monsma. The authors come with different experiences giving the reader an idea of ministry in the United States as well as in the rest of the world, especially the southern half of the world with it's large and rapidly growing cities. The beginning of the book give the biblical framework for ministry in the city. Greenway invites the reader to imagine what it would be like had sin not entered the world, then he focuses on the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21. This helps the reader focus on what the ideal is and exposes the problems in the city. Greenway explores the New Testament church in Antioch and how this urban church was a pattern of a great church and shaped the life of the early church and even today through the writings of the Apostle Paul. The great call upon the church is to find biblical solutions for urban needs. There is some great teaching regarding ethnic changes in the city and how neighborhoods go through change. The authors arrange several chapters to cover a number of different topics relevant to urban ministry. There is teaching on how to do research in an urban context to find the best ways to minister in a community. There are other chapters that cover issues in the urban context such as poverty, the homeless, those working in the red-light district, raising a family while ministering in an urban setting and the pros and cons of a ministry owning their own building. This book comes out of the rich ministry experience of the authors. The reader is informed as well as inspired to minister in this needy mission field.