Digital Logos Edition
The church has been called to participate in God’s mission in the world. But without a robust, biblical sense of the Spirit’s action, how can we be sure we’re fulfilling that call?
Gary Tyra employs a biblical theology of the Holy Spirit to deepen and inform our understanding of life as the church, the people of God. Since the church’s mission to and into the world is both evangelistic and prophetic, the task calls for the working of the Spirit in our preaching, proclamation and service. Tyra brings together both charismatic and evangelical emphases resulting in a theological and practical synthesis that is richer than when either is taken separately.
“being missional is the heartbeat of the Holy Spirit” (Page 30)
“Thus, the fact that both the Father and the Son seem to have been responsible for sending the Spirit into the world does more than connote the idea of mission, it veritably demands it!” (Page 30)
“the need for our sense of mission to be informed by an understanding of God’s purposes for this world” (Page 26)
“being filled with or led by the Holy Spirit is a very important part of the Christian life” (Page 29)
“the reality that our God is a missionary God who has a plan for the world he created” (Page 26)
This study brims over with enthusiasm and conviction, from its biblical survey of the role of the Spirit in mission, to Tyra’s creative argument backed by personal experience in the Pentecostal movement and quotations from many mission scholars and theologians.
—Allan H. Anderson, University of Birmingham, UK
The Holy Spirit in Mission is a fresh call to the church to intentionally participate with the Holy Spirit in what God is doing in the church and in the world. It engages the best of missional scholarship while giving very practical examples of how we can all be involved with the Spirit in God’s mission. I highly recommend it to all church leaders.
—Berten A. Waggoner, national director, Vineyard USA
Outside of the West, the church is exploding in rapid growth and influence, and leading experts tell us that much of it is due to supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit. What has been needed is a biblically and theologically savvy defense of this role of the Spirit in the church’s mission. Tyra’s excellent book more than adequately fills that need. His treatment of the importance of the prophetic is alone worth the price of the book.
—J.P. Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, and coauthor of In Search of a Confident Faith
Gary Tyra (DMin, Fuller Theological Seminary) is professor of biblical and practical theology at Vanguard University of Southern California. Formerly the chair for the department of religion at Vanguard, Tyra also has over 25 years of pastoral experience including his last position as senior pastor at Yorba Linda Community Church in Yorba Linda, California. Tyra is the author of The Holy Spirit in Mission, Christ’s Empowering Presence, A Missional Orthodoxy, Beyond the Bliss, and Defeating Pharisaism, as well as numerous published papers and articles.