Terry L. Cross - Serving the People of Gods Presence: A Theology of Ministry

The contents of this book propose some radical changes to the way Christians do church in the twenty-first century. Having established the need for a renewal of the theological foundation of the church in a previous volume, I turn now to provide the nuts and bolts of how to put such an ecclesiology into practice.

Given the rather radical nature of the proposal here, I have felt it necessary to extend my ideas to colleagues, students, pastors, and friends. They have offered immense help over the past decade or so. The associate dean of the School of Religion at Lee University, Dr. Rickie Moore, has read and engaged most of the material here, always probing me to think more deeply about the work of the Spirit in the church. A longtime friend, Dr. Larry Bergeron, has also read the manuscript and provided helpful direction, especially insight from his years in pastoral ministry.

Faculty in the School of Religion have responded to various aspects of my proposal, providing practical suggestions along the way. Much of what I have come to propose here is a result of many years of dialogue with these colleagues over the direction that theological education and ministerial training should take in this era of tectonic shifts in culture. Theological education across North America is experiencing challenges to enrollments for full-time ministry studentswhat does this mean for training future church leaders in the present? Further, what does this mean for the future of the church itself and for educational models for how to train ecclesial leaders? These questions have absorbed me in the past decade, and the faculty in our school have added immensely to my understanding of what we face. While none of them may recognize their own ideas in this proposal, each of the twenty-eight women and men has contributed to this theological dialogue. Two chairs work with me daily to make our school function effectively in training more than three hundred ministry students each semester. Dr. Mark Walker, chair of the Department of Christian Ministries (and the next president of Lee University), and Dr. Skip Jenkins, chair of the Department of Theology, have each brought into the dialogue their own expertise in leadership and historical theology respectively. Dr. Paul Conn, our current president at Lee University, is retiring after thirty-four years to become the chancellor. He has offered me unfailing support in so many ways throughout my years of teaching and administrating, for which I am very grateful.

Further, around one thousand students in my systematic theology classes over the past fifteen years have interacted with some version of various chapters. Their input has been immeasurableespecially in relation to the clarity of expressing the proposals here. Emma Posey and Grace Anne Cochrane, two of my student workers, have read versions of these chapters as well, offering very helpful suggestions for the sake of clarity from a students perspective.

Working with the staff at Baker Academic has been sheer joy. From the beginning, Dr. Dave Nelson has nurtured this project, believing that it meets a need among Gods people today. This encouragement has provided the impetus needed to complete these two companion volumes. The project editor, Jennifer Hale, has continued to bring sensitivity to the purpose of this book, as well as an extraordinary level of excellence to the editing process. Quite literally, this project would not be where it is without their enthusiasm and attention to detail.

The companion volume to this book ( The People of Gods Presence: An Introduction to Ecclesiology [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019]) was dedicated to the memory of my grandparents, who taught me so much about serving Gods people and making room for the presence of God among us. This volume is dedicated to my five-year-old grandson, Luke, in the hope that the church of the future will help him understand what it means to make room for Gods presence and other humans so that he, too, may discover the joy of being a priest unto God, ministering to others by bearing Christ to the world.