Overturning Tables - by Scott A Bessenecker (Paperback)

About the Book

The history of Protestant mission in the world has unfolded in step with the history of the modern marketplace, defining missions success in marketplace terms. Scott Bessenecker points toward a view of missions freed of false attachments to material paradigms and tailored toward a kingdom vision.

Book Synopsis

Outreach Resource of the Year Recommendation

Best World Missions Book, from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore

We are more than the businesses we have become.

Much of Christian ministry has been shaped to operate not according to the witness of the Scriptures, but according to the values of the free market. We adopt metrics of success that have nothing to do with the state of people's souls or the seeding of the earth with the kingdom of God. We have borrowed our paradigms uncritically from the for-profit corporate sector. The mission of the Church is being held back by the business container into which we have placed the gospel.

Every year Scott Bessenecker travels the world with thousands of college students, ministering to those in need and learning from the global church about what God is doing in the world. In Overturning Tables he shows, through stories and analysis, that the mission of God reaches well beyond the grasp of the free market, and if we are willing to reach as well, we will see God do amazing things, even as the world sees the gospel in its fullest sense.

Review Quotes

"Does the book convincingly expose a true evil here, in this modern-day businesslike approach to missions? Are mission organizations unsuccessful--not winning any souls, in other words--by adopting this approach? By managing stewardship responsibly, by making sure the work is done and funded, by ensuring the mission's sustainability? The book makes its case clearly, and ultimately it's for the individual missions leader to decide."

--Billie Rae Bates, ForeWord Reviews, Winter 2015

"Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for a very challenging ride. Scott Bessenecker´s prophetic words and warnings will challenge and threaten, but they are desperately needed. He confronts errant worldview assumptions and forces the reader to wrestle with the uncritical acceptance of capitalistically driven mission-sending structures. If you are willing to do some ruthless self-criticism, Overturning Tables will leave you feeling more equipped to face the future of global missions."

--Paul Borthwick, senior consultant, Development Associates International, author, Western Christians in Global Mission

"Once again Scott Bessenecker has pressed on one of Western evangelicalism's stress fractures. His precision with thought and word are unparalleled in both his diagnosis of the problem along with imaginative remedies for the solution. Truly a prophet of our times, Scott's vision and clarity come through page after page in Overturning Tables."

--Christopher L. Heuertz, founding partner of Gravity, a Center for Contemplative Activism, and author of Unexpected Gifts: Discovering the Way of Community

"The author challenges the church to find ways to serve Christ with our neighbors across the barriers of capitalist free markets, Western boomer power and materialistic culture. He identifies global trends and directions, as well as providing creative missional solutions to enable the kingdom of God to truly flourish around our world."

--Robert L. Gallagher, Outreach Magazine's Resources of the Year, March/April 2015

"These days everything must bear the weight of productivity, and as Scott Bessenecker points out, that creates a climate of narcissism, materialism and triviality. Overturning Tables does just what it says--it overturns the neatly set table of corporate, white individualism and challenges us to shed egos, acknowledge limitations, embrace cooperation and resolve together to look for authentic signs of the kind of human flourishing Christ came to offer us."

--Michael Frost, author, Incarnate

About the Author

Scott Bessenecker is associate director for missions for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and author of several books, including The New Friars: The Emerging Movement Serving the World's Poor. He blogs at urbana.org and can be followed on Twitter at @Bessenecker.