Eat What Is Set Before You

What does it look like for a congregation to give and receive hospitality by cultivating life-giving partnerships with people of peace and goodwill? In Eat What is Set Before You, Scott Hagley offers a vivid picture of the habits and postures necessary for congregations to join God's mission in the neighborhood. Drawing from congregational research and his own experience as a pastor and consultant, Hagley describes three different crisis moments that congregations must navigate practically and understand theologically as they learn to dwell with and within their neighborhood. In so doing, he unearths the tensions, temptations, and possibilities missional churches face in the current North American context.---Endorsements: "If your church sets out to become a life-giving presence in the neighborhood, you're in for a wild ride! It all seems simple enough, until you start doing it. That's why you need this book. It is going to give you astonishing insight into what you have been going through as a church. It is going to give you a rich practical theology for understanding how to improvise for what's coming next. And it is taken from a deeply personal and particular account of Scott Hagley's experience of participating in a neighborhood church, which makes it resonate deeply and concretely with your real experience. This is one of the most helpful guidebooks I have encountered in the past twenty years of parish ministry."- Paul SparksCo-Author of the award-winning book The New Parish: How Neighborhood Churches Are Transforming Mission, Discipleship, and Community and Co-founding Director of the Parish Collective."Finally-a book that develops a usable congregational missiology! The author presents a biblically and theologically framed, yet profoundly practical missiology for any and every congregation to take seriously its participation in God's mission within its own local context..."- Dr. Craig Van GelderEmeritus Professor of Congregational Mission, Luther Seminary ..". This is an outstanding book, which I will use in my church, my networks and the classroom. It is full of stories and a depth of wisdom about how we may encourage people in our congregations to live out the gospel in our current contexts."- Dr. Cameron RoxburghVP of Missional Initiatives for NAB, National Director of Forge Canada, and Senior Pastor of Southside Community Church..". Hagley does theology in, with, under, against, and for a local church within a deep reading of contemporary culture. Good reading for teachers of theology and local lay and clergy leaders of the practice of missional church. Bravo!"- Patrick R. SeifertProfessor Emeritus of Systematic TheologyLuther Theological SeminaryPresident and Director of ResearchChurch Innovations Institute