A new valuable book for anyone who wants to share the gospel as clearly and invitingly as possible in our secular society was recently published: Searching for Things Above - Being Missionary in a Secular Age.
Searching for Things Above is an inviting book about loving the world and sharing the gospel in secular times. The collection full of reflective articles and practical stories on the theme of salvation, is based on research by the CHE and edited by Sake Stoppels, Jan Martijn Abrahamse and Jan Marten Praamsma.
What does salvation mean, specifically in our time and in the Dutch increasingly secular context? Is it only and mainly about soul salvation? Or also about doing good for your fellow man? Where is the recognition, the tension, and what is the quest for today? This book offers new perspectives on how the gospel can be shared in a clear and inviting way.
Salvation gym
Missionary counsellor Petra de Jong-Heins contributed to the symposium around this book. She compared it to "an exercise in salvation gymnastics". In our language, that is the old word for physiotherapy. So in the Dutch language, there was much more of a stretch on the word salvation, than how we have often come to apply it in the Chrisian tradition. Not only did it become a somewhat stuffy word, but also somewhat rigid. Then it could just be narrowed to the salvation of the soul, while the Gospel concerns salvation of both soul and body. It also leads to strong inside-out thinking in the church. But, and this recurs several times in this book, Christian salvation should also not degenerate into a flattened 'happiness' in the here and now. This book describes the search, the care and the muscle pain around the word salvation and challenges us to engage in salutary missionary practices and experiential learning.
Ordering
Searching for the things above is published by KokBoekencentrum. The book costs €24.99 and is available from bookshops.
