Book's Foreword

The term “emerging” has become so loaded by the hopes and fears of various sectors of the church community that it’s hard to use it without offending some, exciting others, and raising the suspicions of yet others. Fred Peatross offers us a very useful introduction to the seismic shifts that are occurring within the Western church, and by so doing, he helps to dispel the hysteria and anxieties many Christians feel toward anything emergent. 

Fred rightly points out that various forces within the church are aligning and cross-pollinating and developing a new and potentially exciting approach to following Christ in the 21st Century. Whether it be the urban mission sector or the post-evangelicals, whether the radical discipleship movement or the Gospel and Our Culture guys inspired as they were by Lesslie Newbigin and David Bosch1, whether it be the house church movement or the alternative worship crowd or the new monastics or the new evangelicals, it seems that their thinking is being cross-fertilized and their energy for mission is being aligned in a way that augurs well for the future of the Western church. 

With so many different movements coming slowly together, we need thinkers like Fred Peatross to make this complex, new movement understandable and accessible. 

Read this book and then read it again. It will introduce you to the coming brave new world of Christian mission.

—Michael Frost

Morling College, Sydney

author of Exiles and The Shaping of Things to Come