Overview

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.

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9780830836802

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Reviews

Bessenecker has provided the Body of Christ with a penetrating analysis of our current status, coupled with a keen understanding of how we have arrived at this place. --Joel Rainey, Evangelical Missions Quarterly, October 2015 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 In Overturning Tables [Bessenecker] shows 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 even as the world sees the gospel in its fullest sense. --Light Magazine Canada, November 2014 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 The book provides a refreshing view of how new structures and new workers from the margins must create a new season of interdependent missions as Christians 'shed our egos, embrace our limitations' and divorce commerce from the only offer that matters--the good news. --Kathy Robinson, Baptist Standard, June 8, 2015 This is a well-written, provocative book. It needs to be carefully read by North American leaders of Christian churches and organizations. --Grace Tazelaar, Journal of Christian Nursing, Vol. 32, No. 3

Bessenecker has provided the Body of Christ with a penetrating analysis of our current status, coupled with a keen understanding of how we have arrived at this place. --Joel Rainey, Evangelical Missions Quarterly, October 2015 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 Besseneckers 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 In Overturning Tables [Bessenecker] shows 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 even as the world sees the gospel in its fullest sense. --Light Magazine Canada, November 2014 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 The book provides a refreshing view of how new structures and new workers from the margins must create a new season of interdependent missions as Christians 'shed our egos, embrace our limitations' and divorce commerce from the only offer that matters--the good news. --Kathy Robinson, Baptist Standard, June 8, 2015 This is a well-written, provocative book. It needs to be carefully read by North American leaders of Christian churches and organizations. --Grace Tazelaar, Journal of Christian Nursing, Vol. 32, No. 3

This author is one of the few in the world whose knowledge, actual experience and first-person passion merge in such a rare way that the result is an uncomfortable but strangely freeing glimpse of the path we have been on, the consequences of that path and a way ahead. Those who care about mission among the marginalized will appreciate the refreshing and disturbing blend of the historical, theological and pragmatic critique, and its Jesus-like perspective. --Randy White, executive director, FPU Center for Community Transformation

Author Information

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.

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