Book Review

Journeying Out: A New Approach to Christian Mission
By Ann Morisy ( London: Morehouse, 2004).

At a time when the Church struggles to engage in evangelism and mission, often with a desire to ‘succeed’ and ‘increase numbers’, Ann Morisy’s book is well timed. It is also a refreshingly clear and concise reading of western culture and post modern engagement. What is so new and dynamic about Morisy’s book is that she doesn’t use the current trendy language of culture and post modernity. This is a book with simplistic depth for all orders in the Church and the laity who wants to engage with the struggles and realities of the Church and society with any seriousness. Reading her most insightful perceptions of changing neighbourhood communities and globalisation, alongside her engagement with philosophy and theology, this book should bring local and national Church to press the pause button to stop being in a position of superiority through simply meeting needs. It is a challenge not to rationalise and constrain the social capital of care for our neighbour. She cautions the Church against formularising the provision of care into, what Max Weber described as ‘the iron cage of bureaucracy’, which limits the ‘cascade of grace’ that generates commitment in the voluntary sector and neighbourhood communities.

Inspired by the great writing of David Bosch, ‘Transforming Mission’, Morisy outlines the Church’s ‘Explicit Domain’ that seeks to be systematic and orthodox. This is often at the expense of exploring the ‘Foundational Domain’, which begins with what she timely calls ‘the possibility of God’ rather than doctrine. By this, she understands individuals and neighbourhoods, to be at the point of exploring mere ‘possibilities of God’. If this is recognised and respected, through ‘Apt Liturgy’, offering a wider accessibility that offers appropriate symbols and deals with the hard emotions characterised by the struggle of human beings, then there will be a powerful apology of the faith that takes seriously the starting point of the ‘Foundational Domain’ she describes.

The Church is challenged in this book with great sensitivity and in a non judgemental form. It reflects on the experience of the poor and encourages the Church to look and work beyond the narrowness of merely meeting needs in local communities and working to achieve hard outcomes and increased numbers. She says, ‘preoccupation with needs can mask a host of graceful, kingdom dynamics that can be set to train when those who are secure, and apparently competent, encounter those who know the demands and limitations of a life marked by struggle’. This book is written in a modern Lukean style for parishes who struggle to engage with the harsh realities of building the Kingdom and preaching the Good News in minutiae ways. Meeting needs should be resisted until the struggles of the poor are more clearly understood. There is a deeper knowledge that can be articulated.

‘Journeying Out’ is commended as a refreshingly challenging book for parish priests who seek to engage fully with their local community, build the church congregation and hinge their work on an integrated approach to mission that is no dualistic or dividing. If the flesh is the hinge of salvation as revealed in Christ, this book will move the missiological and incarnational movement of the Church into a dynamic future. Do read it. I am sure you will find it encouraging and refreshing.

The Revd Canon Paul Shackerley M.A.
The Cathedral Church of SS. Peter and Paul Sheffield
July 2004