Spirituality for the Sent - by Nathan A Finn & Keith S Whitfield (Paperback)

About the Book

While spiritual formation focuses on the inner life of the Christian, the missional church discussion focuses on one's life in the world. Nathan A. Finn and Keith S. Whitfield bring together leading evangelical voices to cast a new vision for a missional spirituality that fosters spiritual maturity while also fueling Christian evangelism, cultural engagement, and the pursuit of justice.

Book Synopsis

While spiritual formation focuses on the inner life of the Christian, the missional church discussion focuses on one's life in the world. Nathan A. Finn and Keith S. Whitfield bring together leading evangelical voices to cast a new vision for a missional spirituality that fosters spiritual maturity while also fueling Christian evangelism, cultural engagement, and the pursuit of justice.

Review Quotes

"Finn and Whitfield's Spirituality for the Sent is a welcome broadening and deepening of the missional church discussion. It represents a generous concept of what constitutes evangelical scholarship, bringing a remarkable diversity of voices and approaches into productive interaction. The ongoing challenge of the missional-theological initiative worldwide has been its translation into the practice of the community and the formation of the individual Christian. This substantive volume is a resource that addresses that challenge and leads the conversation forward. It should foster much discussion, encourage ever more provocative research, and embolden more contributions to the conversation."

"Grounded in conciliar Christology, this book represents a significant advance in the understanding of 'missional' in a way that brings together differentiation-a deep spirituality and ecclesiology-with identification, leading to a wide and well-contextualized transformational mission. I highly recommend it!"

"In Spirituality for the Sent, Nathan Finn and Keith Whitfield have presented us with a framework for a spiritually rich and missionally engaged church. By assembling this formidable group of scholars, they have woven together a fresh vision for the church that values spiritual formation, but not at the expense of the church's mission. Indeed, in their vision, spiritual formation is essential for missional effectiveness and sustainability. This book is generous enough in its scope to encourage contemplatives and activists alike."

"This is an easily readable book that provides a good first step into a very under-discussed and needed topic. It calls for more engagement from the academic community to further develop the ideas and topics that this book has ventured to call out as significant to the development of an Evangelical missional spirituality for the future of the church in North America."

"Within evangelicalism, two dispositions have coexisted without much crossover into each other's paths. Evangelical churches express their faith in active missional engagement, or they express their faith through cultivating personal spiritual lives. The truth is that both of these impulses are irreplaceable. Spiritual formation is key to missional living, and missional living is key to spiritual formation. Indeed, all of God's people are called to all of God's mission, but we cannot reach others to be fully devoted followers of Christ if we are not living under his lordship and for his glory. Spirituality for the Sent frames an important conversation on the interrelatedness of robust spiritual lives and the church fulfilling God's mission."

About the Author

Nathan A. Finn (PhD, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and also serves as the director of the seminary's Center for Spiritual Formation and Evangelical Spirituality.

Keith S. Whitfield (PhD, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is vice president of academic administration at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.