I have an enormous amount of material to read in the course of my work—and I try to read it all. But when I came to the manuscript that author Kayle de Waal gave me, that became his new book Mission Shift, I couldn’t put it down. This book shares the vision that we have for the church in the South Pacific—to make more and better disciples. It also gives reasons for and practical suggestions in how we will live out our calling to be the last great disciple-making movement.
In many places in our region, our church has been there for more than 100 years. After so long, it is easy for the church to be in a rut, just going through the motions, just doing church and not thinking about the purpose of God’s church—to be the home for all the new disciples coming into His kingdom.
What Kayle does in Mission Shift—and this is what I got excited about—is talk about both where the existing church is, and how we could become that disciple-making movement. This book is about shifting our churches to a renewed mission, and bringing meaning and effectiveness to everything we do.
Mission Shift is one of the books that I would like every pastor and elder in every church across the South Pacific to read. I think lay and pastoral leadership, need to think about why we are doing church. And I believe this will be a significant book in helping us shift to really being focused on discipleship and mission.
Mission Shift is available from Adventist Book Centres. Visit <kayledewaal.com> for more information.