Living His Story Together: Being a community of missionary disciples

Hannah Steele , (London: SPCK, 2024) +175pp, £10.99

In 2020 Hannah Steele wrote Living His Story that expressed evangelism as a way of life for the individual.  In this text she expands and develops that to an understanding of mission and evangelism for the church.  And for that alone its well worth our attention in Irish Methodism as we seek to increasingly focus on sharing the Good News in the communities we inhabit.

The challenge in this text is for us to increasingly recognise ourselves as a ‘community of missionary disciples’ (p7) and each chapter attempts to show how that might work out after an initial chapter that talks though how we understand mission in the contemporary world.  The question of why focus on numerical growth is answered in that numbers ‘represent people and we know that people matter to God.  More Christians hopefully means that there are more of us loving and serving our communities, more people introducing others to Christ’ (p59).  But successful church is not primarily about numbers, so the author notes its about what happens on a Monday as much as a Sunday morning, holistic witness, seeking the common good and being faithful. 

The chapters are full of examples and followed by questions and so like many such books, this works well for a home group to work through.  Indeed, I think this text is pitched at the right level for such a group.  It doesn’t require much previous knowledge and engages with scripture, tradition and experience in very relatable ways – in the best sense its an easy book to read.

So, how do we as God’s people engage in evangelism?  A straightforward 4 point ‘plan’ is suggested namely start with where we are, be creative, develop spaces for people to explore faith and have a discipleship pathway for people to follow.  It’s a bit of strategy, no more but it shows focus and being intentional. 

Finally, we are reminded that we are dependant on the Holy Spirit.  We know this, but this chapter helps to flesh out what this really means and encourages us to step out, trusting in God, with all the uncertainties that brings.  ‘Participating in the missio Dei means that we are empowered by the Spirit, but that does not mean that the missional task will be easy or constantly successful.  The presence of Christ within us is often made visible though weakness and our hope is that the extraordinary God works though our ordinary efforts’ (p159).

For a church and denomination looking to refocus its life to a much greater emphasis on evangelism as a natural outworking of faith, this is a really good book to work through.

Rev Dr Stephen Skuce
Superintendent for Growing Churches