Meaningful Gospel Engagement: Conference News
August 6, 2025
Our Missional Hub is launching a multi-part project to explore what meaningful gospel engagement looks like in today’s North American context. An interdisciplinary team of contributors is proposing fresh, theologically grounded, and contextually relevant missional approaches in order to influence gospel engagement within local churches and parachurch organizations, foster collaboration, and open new pathways for learning and partnership.
Primary Discipline(s): Missiology, Ecclesiology, Theology, Sociology, Missions, Evangelism
Base Community: Missional Hub
Leader: Cas Monaco
Staff Liaison: Michael Wagenman
Primary Author(s): Cas Monaco; members of the hub
Collaborators: Craig Van Gelder
Acknowledgements: Craig Van Gelder
Partner Organisations: Cru: FamilyLife; Cru’s Power2Change in Canada; A publisher has been approached.
Funding: None
Problem: What does meaningful gospel engagement look like in today’s North American context?
Process: The combination of our articles is a missiological endeavor that includes theological, cultural, sociological facets, includes quantitative and qualitative research, proposes new perspectives and approaches, and includes interaction with the Scripture. In some cases the research informs leadership development & business practices.
Aims and Outcomes: We hope to impact gospel engagement in the local/parachurch orgs where we work, to foster collaboration, to influence gospel engagement in relevant ways for our NA context, to open up opportunities for learning and collaborating more broadly.
The goal is to foster growth and a love for scholarship in the missional hub, including promoting graduate work among its members; to foster fresh collaboration in church/parachurch organizations; and to inspire a rich missiological theology that is anchored in the true story of the whole world.
Production Goals: The intention is to produce:
Next Meeting: Conference in Toronto, Ontario, October 7–9.
Projected Completion: tba
Quick Notes: Exploring publication of collected essays; exploring avenues by which to contribute to this discussion in North American churches.
The Missional Hub has announced the date and venue of its forthcoming conference in Totonto, Ontario. There is very limited space, but we are excited to have attendees from our hub, from KLC, and from local mission.
If you have something to contribute to the following questions, email your thoughts to tota@kirbylaingcentre.co.uk.
When the team has a need for help or an area in which collaboration could be beneficial, their requests will be listed here.
Your contributions are greatly appreciated and are integral to our vision of collaborative, interdisciplinary research. We endeavor to acknowledge all the efforts of our collaborators and to give due credit, but note that we can’t guarantee that any contribution will be used in the final product.
Do you have access to any essential journal articles on evangelicalism, evangelical hermeneutics/theology, the approach to politics/ethics, deconstruction etc. that you could send? I have plenty to read (!) but it would be good to know if there are any recent, must-read pieces on these topics. I do not have ATLA access at present.
While none of us is ever able to speak reliably for whole communities of believers, this research is interested in how evangelicalism is perceived outside of the picture in US media. What does it mean to be an evangelical outside of US conservatism? In other parts of the world? To what degree is your corner of evangelicalism affected by the politicization of US evangelicalism?
At this stage, anecdotal opinions are welcome, but I wouldn’t want anyone to generate fresh research on these topics; it is too early to know to what degree I will be using them. However, if you have existing publications or your own research that you are willing to share, it would be appreciated (and your research would be credited).
This does not intend to drag us all into controversy, but I know that many of us have experienced deeply negative aspects of evangelical theology or practice that either have caused us to leave or to consider leaving evangelicalism (or even Christianity itself).
Most of us rightly choose not to air these grievances publicly because we don’t wish to do reputational damage to the wider kingdom of God. This book likewise is not aimed at causing more harm. However, in the interests of taking seriously that the church may teach or do things that provoke crises of faith, I would like to publish anecdotes that illustrate problems with the modern movement.
If you have a story to tell, it should ideally be something that (a) is at least partly attributable to a feature of evangelicalism (rather than, say, the evil actions of a lone wolf among the sheep); (b) you are willing to have published; and (c) will not expose us to legal action.
When the team produces research components and additional resources that may be of public interest, these will be made available here.
