Mapping the Missional Conversation by Craig Van Gelder

Craig Van Gelder's book Mapping the Missional Conversation provides a map of the missional church conversation in light of foundational ideas set forth in The Missional Church edited by Darrell Guder. It is most helpful in offering various categories of voices in print and on the web in the missional church conversation. While I found the categories heuristic, the rubrics of discovering, utilizing, engaging, and extending were not helpful. Perhaps more descriptive titles would be: adopting missional language, deepening the missional conversation, engaging in missional praxis, and broadening the missional conversation. For someone wanting to understand the wider missional church movement, however, this book provides a map of the robust, nuanced, and theologically imaginative missional conversation.