David Bosch's components & Churches of Christ

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Having spoken of David Bosch's 6 components in 2 previous posts (Nov 23 & 24), I thought it would be interesting to examine Churches of Christ through the lens of Bosch. I'll try to do that today and tomorrow and perhaps beyond.

What were Bosch's 6 components? You can go back & read this or this, but let me summarize. David Bosch, the late South African theologian and missiological researcher & teacher, spent much of his career investigating and writing about the components of mission for our era. His hefty work Transforming Mission was a seminal tome in missions. Bosch was at the forefront in identifying our Western world as seriously in need of re-missionizing (not a word, I know). Mission work is not just something we do "far away" in remote places. Mission is about expanding the Kingdom reign of God. And the Western world needs PLENTY of that!

Out of his massive research, he proposed 6 elements of a potentially effective mission to the Western world. All Christians should want the church to be effective in expanding the Kingdom of God. But churches have been in decline in the US, Canada and Europe for decades. I think we need to be reading great thinkers like Bosch who have helped sketch out the future path for us.

Tomorrow, I want to look at his 6 elements & see how we in Churches of Christ tend to stack up against them.

Comments

Cobus said…
Great to see you blogging on this. I'm working on a paper in which I'll be evaluating key emerging theologians using Bosch's call for contextualization in Western culture.
December 7, 2009 at 7:36 PM
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