Since my book The Great Giveaway was published a year and a half ago I've been surprised by its reception. The book has been well received among missional church thinkers. The book has received a less enthusiastic yet still friendly response from emergent folk. The book is strongly influenced by Hauerwas, Yoder, the post liberal Yale theologians and Milbank and Radical Orthodoxy. It is safe to say that emergent thinkers have ambivalent feelings regarding some of these theologians and so I take no offense if I don't always quite fit in with all my emergent friends. Nonetheless, I still try, because I believe that the emerging conversation is absolutely crucial for the future of the church in the West. (which is why I co-founded one of the very first emergent cohorts).

The book has been used in at least ten seminaries that I know of as primary course material. Canada has been very receptive to my book for which I thank them (I grew up in Canada). The Resonate group and the host of church planters bloggers from Canada have been very supportive. I think the particular mixture of Hauerwasian theology, postmodern philosophy, and evangelical history resonates (to use a pun) with Canada. This could be because Canadians feel the postmodern and post Christian contexts first hand more so than the U.S. (and the fact that I grew up in Canada doesn't hurt).

Having said all of this, the response of the missional church crowd, its thinkers and people all around N. America/world to the book, has also been gratifying. When I first began writing, the Gospel and Our Culture network was young and mainline. The second wave of missional church was just beginning. I was finding many common things with Brian McLaren back then as well. I had co-led an intentional community of sorts in the city and felt a lot in common with all of the thinkers just mentioned. But then came Frost and Hirsch's book and a host of other authors and the movement jelled. Leaders such as Alan Roxburgh, Mark Priddy, Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch and many others emerged all over N.A.. And now there is no doubt, despite the complaints of "missional" becoming another label, that God is moving in this for the mission of Christ into N. America. To whatever extent, I am honored to be included in this conversation. That is why I appreciate so much Alan Roxburgh's and Mark Priddy's encouragement and the Allelon site featuring the book on their front page. And now comes Alan Hirsch's review of the book with much enthusiasm. To all of these friends, thanks for including me in your conversations.

Regarding Alan Hirsch's fine review, he gives The Great Giveaway a wonderful recommendation. He also offers two constructive thoughts that upon looking back upon the book the last year, I think he's right. Allow me to address both of them.

1.) Alan says, "Dave aligns himself explicitly and wholly in the postmodern camp. I am no personally longer sure whether the lines between modern and postmodern culture are really that clear, and I think that a missional church deals with culture no matter what culture that might be." This is not the first time this criticism comes my way. Jonathon Wilson said the same thing in the Christianity Today review. When I first heard this criticism in the early days of the book, I was surprised. For I have always said that I viewed the postmodern critique of modernity as the opportunity for evangelicalism to take a look at our own allegiances and weaknesses, not the opportunity to contextualize the gospel once again to another intellectual era. The postmodern critique enables us to see how married we evangelicals are to modernity and to thereby see the pratfalls via the critique offered by the Frenchmen and Anglo postmoderns. Although I do think there is an opportunity to engage postmodern culture in unique and careful ways not shaped by modernity, my main goal in The Great Giveaway was to urge the church to be the church again in all its embodied missional form. As I look back, I realize I needed to make my cultural analysis more precise along these lines. I did blur the lines a few too many times between calling for a cultural engagement of postmodernity and using the postmodern critique as a tool to uncover modern assumptions of evangelicalism. Thanks to Alan Hirsch and others for the insight.

2.)Alan also says, "The only reserves I have about the book are that the idea of ministry described in it is more decidedly pastoral (one-dimensionally traditional if you like) than I am personally comfy with. I prefer (as you might know) a more full orbed typology of leadership-APEST (Eph.4)." Here again, I think I tried in the book to make it clear I was for a multiple bi-vocational missionally engaged leadership in chapter three of the book, especially pages 92-94. But I admit that I do have a suspicion of rogue ordinations or entrepreneurial reverends, pastors who are ordained into leadership because of their entrepreneurial abilities. I see value in seminary training where the history of our faith, the interpretation of Scriptures, the testing of character, is all passed down and tested. For if we can no longer hold onto the kinds of authority indebted to modernity, we must return to the passing on of an embodied Story. McIntyre calls this a tradition. And this requires some sense of being part of history, what God has been doing in the world before we got here and where He is going after we are not here any longer. This to me is important to being missional. None of this however negates a multiple ministry leadership, sharing these five crucial giftings. Anyone who has read this blog here, here , or Out of Ur here would doubt my sincerity. At our church we have 3 pastors going on more. We have ordained 2, had 2 already ordained, sent out 2, and have 4 in the process of ordination with more to come. We share pastorate in mutual submission and have been bi-vocational from the start. If I had to write the book today I would emphasize these things more than I did when I wrote The Great Giveaway. I agree that one reading The Great Giveaway could walk away thinking I am more friendly to the traditional pastor role. And so again I am appreciative of Alan Hirsch's insightful words.

So all I can say here is many thanks to Alan Hirsch and all of the missional thinkers, laborers, and conversation partners. You all have challenged me, and grown me in Christ. I'm actually working on a new book and this growth has made writing even more difficult. Ugh …