Looking Back, Leaning Forward
Wrestling with a Church’s Story
Edited by Jon Coutts & Heather Renée Morgan
Afterword by David Fitch
Paperback and Kindle editions now available
Copies available to purchase in person at Ambrose University Book Store.
Through a collection of essays and responses, Looking Back, Leaning Forward explores the context of a Canadian church by wrestling with the past story in light of the current realities.
On one hand, this book is for a denomination. It is structured in two parts; first, it revisits issues related to the “fourfold gospel” and then it offers a look at crucial conversations in this specific context. At another level, this book is for more than just a denomination. It is for those in (or on the margins of) other churches across Canada, and even for eavesdroppers beyond. The gospel is universal in scope, but this universality is not mediated by abstract principles. It is mediated by a living Lord Jesus Christ who engages with us in context.
Afterword by David E. Fitch
Contributions by Ray Aldred, Christina Conroy, Christopher Smith, Cynthia Tam, Jon Coutts, Heather Morgan, Alexandra Meek, Wendy Lowe, Mardi Dolfo-Smith, Frances Kim, Joanne Beach, Ric Strangway, and Colleen Jantzen.
“Canada, an increasingly secularized country in the West, is a field of mission. The writers of this book are extending the fourfold gospel of the Christian and Missionary Alliance into the changing contexts of Canada – and by so doing they help us all discern how we might do similar work. I believe God has been at work in the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada – the church of my heritage – for over a century. We do not simply leave all of that behind. We bring it forward into dialogue with the many challenges that the current cultures present. We take these distinctives that have shaped our lives and we extend them: We listen to the challenges of our cultures, and in an act of dialogue we seek to faithfully extend, deepen, and translate these beliefs in a way that expands them into the places we find ourselves.”
DAVID FITCH, author of Faithful Presence, B. R. Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary.
“When these academic essays offer insight, they do so with one foot in the church and one foot in the theological academy. Many of the authors are multivocational, serving in active ministry, and if not in paid congregational ministry, they are engaged leaders who love their local church.”
AMY BRATTON, Director of Operations & Publishing, New Leaf Network
“As a missional movement, the Alliance has always tried to engage whatever culture it found itself in, and with some success. It is possible to continue to do so? Jon Coutts and other writers challenge Alliance leaders to once again mine the depths of the Alliance theological heritage and think through what being a church means in today's world.”
FRANKLIN PYLES, Former President of the Alliance in Canada, 2000-2012
“I am deeply grateful for the way these conversations guide us to think deeply in community - as the Alliance Canada and as Canadian Christian leaders. We need more spaces that open up dialogue outside of our formal institutional devices as we wrestle out our faith together with respect, love, thoughtfulness and grace, and this collection of essays is one way to start.”
REBEKAH HAGAN AHENDA, Associate Pastor Victoria Alliance Church
“Looking Back, Leaning Forward demonstrates the importance of denominations in a way that is not exclusive of those outside the Alliance church while remaining faithful to an Alliance ecclesiology. This book models how to facilitate denominational conversation in a way both speaks to and draws from the global church body.”
DR. DANIEL REMPEL, Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies, Providence University College
