Exiles on Mission: How Christians Can Thrive in a Post-Christian World

By Paul S. Williams Brazos, 2020. $25 (e-book $16, hardcover $68). Preview at Amazon.ca and Books. Google.ca

TODAY’S CHRISTIANS find themselves frustrated by disunity and consumerism. As Western culture moves toward loneliness and despair, many Christians are struggling to put words to how the message of Sunday worship connects to Monday work.

Science and technology are growing as answers for wealth and happiness, and Christianity seems outdated to many of our neighbours for whom Islam and environmentalism are increasingly influential.

Christians should respond to this situation by seizing God’s promises, declaring our faith and humbling ourselves in our brokenness with the help and strength of the Holy Spirit. That’s the answer offered in this new book by Paul S. Williams, CEO of the British and Foreign Bible Society, as well as research professor of marketplace theology and leadership at Regent College in Vancouver.

Exiles on Mission is divided into three parts – faith, hope and love – highlighting the Christian virtues which together can help us experience the transforming power of the living God. Faith explores belief and identity in Christ. Hope inspires readers to become ambassadors of Christ and disciple others. Love teaches innovative ways to reach out and empower other believers wherever they are in their culture.

Williams invites his readers to cry out and seek a true relationship with God as they lament and change to become apostles of the gospel. Christians are to join together, communicate clearly their mission, and learn the language of today’s culture to reach others. Readers will be inspired to listen humbly and proclaim effectively the message of the gospel as they open up to receive the truth from the Holy Spirit.