Essence of the Church, by Craig Van Gelder, is another piece to the growing library about the "missional church". It has found its way to multiple syllabi on Seminary and Bible School campuses and as the shift in ecclesiology trickles down from academia to the pulpit, the lay reader will start to pick up the book.
Overall it is an easy read, touching on the basics of a "missional church". The book includes very little theological lingo, making it a breeze to read and an introductory book for anybody interested in studying missional church. Like most introductions however, the book lacks punch and gives little to drive the reader to action. Rather than really posing a new ecclesiology, Van Gelder summarizes the Church's general ecclesiological history and alerts the reader that a change must be made. This alert, however is not an alarm, but a tickle.
I appreciate Van Gelder's approach, yet the tickling of the ear gives the reader little to go off of. I suspect that as missional church ecclesiology continues, the book will be a decent resource, however it must be coupled with another in order to move any congregation to become a missional church. Its accessibility to the undergrad theology student will be very helpful for an intro to theology course, hopefully whetting the appetite for the future academic to move farther in the study of ecclesiology.
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