Westward Ho! General Assembly and Evangelism

The most exciting action taken at the General Assembly in Portland, June 18-25, will be among the least widely reported. What will absorb all the oxygen in the newsroom (and around coffee pots in local congregation’s fellowship halls) will be whatever controversial action taken by the Assembly by a 51% to 49% vote. However, in my humble opinion, the most exciting action that will be taken is the celebration and republication of Turn to the Living God: A Call to Evangelism in Jesus Christ’s Way.

Turn to the Living God was first published in 1991 so 2016 commemorates the 25^th anniversary of its publication. It is as relevant today as it has ever been; as true today as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8). As the publishers write in a preface to this anniversary edition:

The church is continuing to learn how to exist in a post-modern and post-Christian society…at the same time, one-third of the world’s population is yet to be exposed to the message of our triune God’s love in Jesus Christ in culturally appropriate ways…We have an outwardly focused mission to proclaim our faith to the ends of the earth.

Turn to the Living God is quintessentially Presbyterian, acknowledging our tendency toward “restraint” when it comes to evangelism yet mining our deep well of Scripture study and confessional heritage in ways that are accessible to readers with and without seminary degrees. What is perhaps more important in terms of our Presbyterian heritage and ethos is that it breaks down the false polarity of justice vs. evangelism to show how, in Jesus Christ, they are a double-helix, our Reformed DNA. As the final section, “The Wholeness of Evangelism,” suggests, Presbyterian evangelism is “the whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world.”

I commend to you Turn to the Living God either for personal or communal study.* There is something for every congregation in our presbytery to like in this study, as well as things that will challenge every congregation. Where will you see yourself or your congregation and say, “Ah! That’s me. That’s us.” Where will you see yourself or your congregation and say, “Hmmm…perhaps I / we have need to grow deeper and wider in the salvation and shalom of Jesus.”

To read Turn to the Living God: A Call to Evangelism in Jesus Christ’s Way just google the title or follow this link: https://www.presbyterianmission.org/wp-content/uploads/Turn-to-the-Living-God-25th-Anniversary-Edition.pdf.

Seeking a Wide and Generous Orthodoxy,

Brad Munroe