Beth Snodderly and A. Scott Moreau, eds., Evangelical and Frontier Mission: Perspectives on the Global Progress of the Gospel (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2011), 312 pages, ISBN 9781870345989.

To the Pentecostal/charismatic readers of The Pneuma Review this work’s title may not seem all that relevant. However, here are some reasons why this collection of twenty articles grouped in six topics is an important work for any evangelical/pentecostal person interested in the spread of the Gospel throughout the world. In particular, the book puts the focus on the progress of mission organizations in evangelizing the frontier “unreached” people-groups that can be found in every nation, including ones in the West.

First, the work is comprehensive in surveying the past one hundred years of Protestant missions. The first essay by A. Scott Moreau focuses on this historical survey of evangelical missionary efforts. The impetus for such a review came from the World Council of Churches 2010 Edinburgh conference as well as the evangelical Lausanne conferences of 1974, 1989, and the recent the 2010 Cape Town and 2010 Tokyo gatherings.

Second, while not the major focus, this volume does not neglect Pentecostal missions. Assemblies of God (AG) missionary to Thailand, Alan R. Anderson contributed a balanced critique of his own mission agency that has seen tremendous growth in Africa, Latin America, and Korea. Today there are over twenty fraternal Assemblies of God organizations with which American AG missionaries work. Such success can also stir up conflicted aims and purposes between the parent mission agency and these national churches. Also, success in parts of the world create questions as to why other areas have not seen similar growth in Christian converts and churches (e.g. South Asia and the Islamic world). Anderson suggests that a “theology of the hard work” is needed. Another renewal-influenced contributor is pastor-theologian Gregory A. Boyd whose article is on spiritual warfare, a theme that resonates with Pentecostals worldwide.

A third helpful aspect of this book is the representative profile of contributors both in terms of roles (academics, pastors, missionaries, and mission directors) and perspectives (gender, geography, and ideas). Some like Ralph D. Winter and Renè Padilla are well known while others such as Yalin Xin are not. Both Winter and Padilla argue for a wider purpose of the gospel of the kingdom that includes a holistic approach to Christianity. Xin contributed a biographical essay on Deborah Xu who has been instrumental in the Chinese house church movement.

Lastly, the net result in reading this work will be to expand one’s understanding of key concepts at the center of mission work today. Most notably is the “missional church” model that should apply to all Christian churches and mission agencies. This emphasis is often summarized in the maxim, “From everywhere to everywhere.” Unimaginable to those who gathered at Edinburg in 1910, the secular societies of Western culture by 2010 have become as missions-needy as those many in the Majority World. Missions is no longer defined by political geography but by cultural ethnicity. Padilla’s article states this emphasis in four statements and serves as a final word and challenge: (1) all churches send and all churches receive, (2) the whole world is a mission field, and every human need is an opportunity for missionary service, (3) every Christian is called to follow Jesus Christ and to be committed to God’s mission in the world, and (4) mission is life both on the individual and communal levels.

Reviewed by Malcolm R. Brubaker

Gary Tyra, The Holy Spirit in Mission: Prophetic Speech and Action in Christian Witness (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 206 pages, ISBN 9780830839490.

Tyra, an experienced Assemblies of God pastor and Christian college teacher, has written a biblically based, academically conversant, and culturally informed appeal for Western evangelicals to seek for and exercise a Spirit-empowered Christianity. While not breaking new ground the book is an accessible synthesis of leading scholars with a view of how individual believers, local churches, and denominational leaders can implement such a revitalized and robust New Testament faith. The footnotes of The Holy Spirit and Mission reveal the author’s familiarity with current scholarly discussion. Missional church movement writers such as Darrell Gruder, Alan J. Roxburgh, and Alan Hirsch have exposed the weakness of Western Christianity due to an increasing secular culture. Leading renewal theologians such as Clark Pinnock, Gordon Fee, Amos Yong, Frank Macchia, and Robert Menzies have argued that Luke-Acts is more than a historical record but a “missional pneumatology” that should be a template for us today.

We will briefly review the content of this work. In the opening two chapters Tyra sets out the biblical foundation for a Spirit-empowered Christianity. The Old Testament is not ignored as he mines the Scripture for the actions and words of Spirit-empowered saints: Moses and the 70 elders in Numbers 11, Gideon and Samson in the book of Judges, and Saul’s prophesying in 1 Samuel 10:10 are some of examples associating the Holy Spirit with either speaking or acts of miraculous power. The New Testament evidence is centered on Luke-Acts which Tyra defends as giving a prescriptive and theological model for believers to emulate today. Thus the ministry of Christ and the stories of Stephen, Peter, Philip, and Paul provide windows into how the Spirit works in doing the will of God.

In his third chapter Tyra suggests that the explosive growth of pentecostal-styled Christianity in the “majority world” is due to the reliance of believers there on the powerful demonstration of the Spirit’s work. Other factors are mentioned but Tyra argues that the key to this numerical increase is the missional faithfulness of such Christians to speak and act under the spontaneous direction of the Spirit. It is what he calls a “theological realism” of being Bible-based, eschatologically driven, and obedient to the “call” of the Spirit to engage in personal and corporate evangelism. Anecdotal stories from Pentecostal missionaries such as Loren Cunningham’s Youth With A Mission and the Church of God provide illustrations of this thesis.

Chapter four returns to missional church literature to boldly underscore the book’s main idea that a new way of “doing church” in the West is imperative. Relying heavily upon Roxburgh and Boren’s Introducing the Missional Church, Tyra envisions the contemporary church focusing on community, service, and proclamation to represent God’s kingdom to the world. In the last chapter, Tyra returns to the biblical story of Ananias as a spiritually-obedient servant of God. The latter provides a model of missional faithfulness for local church leaders, denominational officials, and also academic faculty.