Author of several works including Christianity at the Religious Roundtable (2002) and Theology in the Context of World Christianity (2007), Tennent is former professor of world missions at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He now serves as president at Asbury Theological Seminary. The current book celebrates the centennial of the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, reconvened in June of this year.

Invitation to World Missions, if not quite a magnum opus, surely serves to draw together Tennent’s thinking across a host of theological and practical issues. Over the twentieth century, the author contends, mission theory and on-the-field engagement have parted ways. This work seeks “to bridge the gap between a practical-oriented missions textbook and a more reflective missiology” (p. 9). Tennent grounds the entire work in a theology of missio dei and divides the bulk of the work under a Trinitarian rubric. He sets forth a biblical theology that avoids proof-texts while developing the metanarrative of God’s working into all creation.

In Part 1, Tennent begins with a superb panorama of “Megatrends That Are Shaping Twenty-first Century Missions”—an overview that beckons reading by all Christian workers. The following two chapters propose a missional theology that is distinctly Trinitarian. Whereas mission refers to “God’s redemptive, historical initiative on behalf of His creation,” the plural term missions entails “all the specific and varied ways in which the church crosses cultural boundaries to reflect the life of the triune God” (p. 59). As in classical theology, the phrase missio dei defines the Father as the initiator, the Son as the embodiment, and the Spirit as energizer. In this sense the church stands within the missio dei and only secondarily as an entity which itself sends.

The remaining thirteen chapters divide under three major headings: “God the Father: Providential Source and Goal of the Missio Dei”; “God the Son: The Redemptive Embodiment of the Missio Dei”; and “God the Holy Spirit: The Empowering Presence of the Missio Dei.” Under these major headings, Tennent packs quite a lot of missiology, albeit sometimes only tangentially related to the members of the Godhead. Under “God the Father” is included not only God as Planner of mission, but also the “Sent Church,” “A Trinitarian, ‘New Creation’ Theology of Culture,” and “An Evangelical Theology of Religions.” Under God the Son, the work includes three full chapters on the history of missions and another three chapters on cross-cultural communication as incarnation. The last major section discusses the Holy Spirit’s work in Luke-Acts (a blueprint for today), the Third Wave of modern Pentecostalism, and “Missionaries as Agents of Suffering and Heralds of the New Creation.” The book concludes with “The Church as the Reflection of the Trinity in the World.”

Invitation to World Missions more than invites; it entices. It exceptionally overviews not only issues in current missiology but within a biblical structure of missio dei. If occasionally the Trinitarian structure seems a ploy to unload a full course in missiology, nevertheless, Tennent does it well. Little is left wanting as he seeks to work through everything from Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture to soteriological pluralism, church-mission (modality-sodality) relations, and C-5 insider movements within Muslim and Hindu settings. Enlivened with the author’s Indian and worldwide experience, the work is properly a textbook, balanced and well researched while not tediously documented. Twenty-two pages of bibliography and twenty-seven pages of indexes augment its usefulness.

Nevertheless, no primer can do all one wishes. Although the book’s subtitle is A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century, the doctrine of the Trinity is neither clearly defined nor particularly explored, including its apologetic force before other world religions. Many major Trinitarian works are absent as are books by L. Boff, O. Ogbannaya, and J. Y. Lee that specifically contextualize Trinitarian models. Whereas Tennent admits that his purpose is not broad Trinitarian reflection, his focus on missions itself here invites further reflection.

Second, a familiar theme of Tennent’s missio dei is the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God, the “New Creation,” as the church lives amidst the “now” and “not yet.” But just what constitutes this New Creation remains ambiguous. No one has all the answers. Yet we are left asking what the church in its mission should seek and expect now versus what awaits Christ’s return.

Minor suggestions may refine a second edition. Several typological errors are evident, especially in chapter 1 (cf. pp. 30, 34, 41, 49). Moreover, the work tends to be overly didactic, with “first”-, “second”-, and “third”-listings multiplied in every chapter. Finally, from my vantage, Tennent underappreciates the vibrant missionary force rising up throughout Latin America.

In spite of these gentle salvos, my copy of Invitation to World Missions is covered with exclamations of delight and sentences to be quoted. This is Tennent at his best: packed and lucid. He succinctly works through nearly every major missiological issue on the table today and does so very well. The book’s critiques and nuanced proposals are invaluable—beacons for guidance into the decades to come.