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Editorial

Steve Taylor
Director, AngelWings Ltd, and Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. steve.
taylor@flinders.edu.au

Welcome to this issue of Ecclesial Futures and five articles that 
each in different ways provide original research to guide the work 
and witness of local Christian communities in the world today.

We begin in Korea, with a missiological reflection on the im-
pact of COVID-19. Bokyoung Park shares two stories of profound 
personal loss. She then skilfully uses narrative theology, drawing 
out the “footprints of God” in these stories, in order to develop a 
contemporary missiology of healing through hospitality. To fol-
low Christ in a world suffering from the global pandemic requires 
the Church to recognize itself as wounded. As the body of Christ 
dwells in the pain of humanity, hospitality can be offered to others. 
The result is healing as pain is reframed in the story of Jesus. Jesus 
is the “wounded healer” in which we experience a “hospitality in 
the hope of resurrection.” Hence hospitality has a missional di-
mension. Park issues a prophetic call to the church in Korea and a 
theological challenge to more propositional theologies. Her work 
is poignant and prophetic, a rich demonstration of the power of 
narrative theology and missional wisdom for the Church encoun-
tering the wounded world.



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A central theme of this issue is imagination and a trio of arti-
cles offer imagination in ecclesiology, hermeneutics and missional 
practice. It is imagination that enables us to contemplate alterna-
tive social projects that “nourish the conviction that things can 
be changed” (Kearney 2001, 370–71). For Kearney, nourishment 
comes from the awakening of imagination that is simultaneously 
ethical and poetic. The call of the other is needed to cultivate an 
imagination that is ethical. An inventive making is needed to liber-
ate an imagination that is poetic. Both are evident in the ministry 
of Jesus. A poignant example is the moment when Jesus playfully 
writes on the sand, an imaginative act that liberates an imaginative 
and ethical response to the woman breaking the Law of Moses in 
John 8:1–11.

An imagination that is ethical is evident in Ian Robinson’s 
hermeneutical proposals in relation to the use of business analo-
gies in leadership formation. An imagination that is playful is 
evident in Bradbury’s use of the metaphor of wilding and James 
Fox-Robinson’s approach to writing in researching ways in which 
a monastic lifestyle might embody the Church’s understanding of 
mission in our time.

Paul Bradbury argues that the metaphor of wilding offers 
significant resources for the future of the Church in mission. 
Wilding is a process that offers a new paradigm for land manage-
ment. As nature leads, human agency is re-centered as facilitative 
rather than directive. Bradbury outlines a way that wilding might 
be a generative metaphor for the Church, providing an “ecclesial 
imaginary.” Bradbury develops Jürgen Moltmann’s paradigmatic 
shifts in the ages of the Church in dialogue with Charles Taylor’s 
articulation of the “social imaginary” in secular Western contexts. 
The metaphor of wilding provides a way to develop ministerial life 
and contextual ecclesial forms, as the Church understands her-
self as a co-agent with the Holy Spirit. This involves embracing 
humbler and more collaborative postures in order to participate 
with the already-present-and-active Holy Spirit in the building of 
the kingdom of God. Hence, the Church finds herself participat-
ing in the emergent life generated through the power of the Spirit. 



Steve Taylor—Editorial

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The article invites further research, not only empirical research of 
wilding as it might apply in the lived experience of the Church in 
mission, but also the biblical and theological probing required of 
any contextual ecclesiology.

Hence, it is helpful to place the article by Ian Robinson af-
ter the work by Paul Bradbury, given the way Robinson examines 
the hermeneutical implications involved in the imaginative use of 
analogy and metaphor. Writing from Australia, Robinson coura-
geously enters the field of business. Having experienced the misuse 
of business analogies, Robinson analyses the hermeneutical prin-
ciples in Jesus’ parables. Given ten parables include analogies about 
leadership in business, Robinson examines epistemologies of anal-
ogy in education and inter-disciplinary studies and develops seven 
hermeneutical principles. These principles provide an analogical 
hermeneutic which is then tested against two contemporary busi-
ness analogies. The kingdom of God is like Kodak. The kingdom 
of God is also like Toyota. The article is playfully generative, yet 
cautiously wise. The seven principles can be applied iteratively to 
illuminate leadership insights and enhance the effectiveness and 
fidelity of a congregation and a denomination. Equally, these seven 
principles can prevent the Church from taking analogy too far, too 
little, or too analytically. The result is a wisdom for the Church that 
is practical and imaginative.

A third article in this imaginative trio is provided by James 
Fox-Robinson, who researched contemporary monastic spiritual 
practice. Fantasy fiction, in particular the character concept from 
The Pilgrim’s Progress, is used to develop characters directly from 
Fox-Robinson’s research into new monasticism. This enabled 
the lived experience of participants, including their words and 
expressions, to be re-presented in a dramatic script. Fox-Robin-
son’s creative dialogue drew on wider literature and included an 
imaginative conversation with characters from the Franciscan 
tradition. Fox-Robinson’s characters demonstrate how values of 
simplicity, contentment, generosity, and hospitality might be lived 
in everyday life. His research shows that emerging new monastic 
communities are engaged in the task of drawing the wisdom from 



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more traditional monastic and mendicant orders and embody-
ing it into their own contexts and experiences. Monastic spiritual 
practices become a call to each and every one of us. They involve 
not necessarily the joining of a monastic order but the living of an 
alternative lifestyle. This article is thus an imaginative pushing of 
the boundaries of academic writing and an argument for the ways 
in which a monastic lifestyle might embody the Church’s under-
standing of mission in our time.

Such an imaginative approach to research and writing raises 
significant questions about the nature of academic writing. In an 
act of remarkable serendipity, the fifth and final article examines 
the craft of writing. The article is a collaboration by four authors 
across three countries and multiple time zones. The genesis for this 
work of reflexive praxis was the willingness of four members of 
the Ecclesial Futures editorial board to accept an invitation to offer 
short spoken reflections on the craft of writing for the Missional 
Research Workshop 2021. Following this online event, the four 
contributors worked to further develop their thinking on writing, 
including in conversation with Helen Sword’s research into aca-
demic writing. For Sword, writing is behavioral, artisanal, social, 
and emotional. These dimensions are used to argue that writing 
is a missional and emergent task: first, as writing seeks to encour-
age and enhance the participation of ourselves and others in the 
mission of God, and second, as writing is developed “on the job” 
through reflexive practice. The article affirms diversity—“no one 
way of writing”—and yet examines shared feelings including fear, 
stuckness, and reviewer feedback in the process of writing. What 
also emerges is the social nature of writing and the potential for 
collaboration across the entire writing process; whether wise oth-
ers, early readers, editors, and peer reviewers. The article offers a 
vulnerable, and at times tender, meditation on writing as a mis-
sional and emergent task.

In order to ensure academic integrity, the proposed article 
was de-identified and sent to four (rather than the normal two) 
peer reviewers. To ensure further academic integrity, three of the 
reviewers were external to the journal. All four reviewers were 



Steve Taylor—Editorial

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established writers. Each was unanimous in affirming that the 
article was worthy of publication. Pleasingly, they also observed 
things they had learned for their own craft. We are glad to offer 
this article, so filled with practical insights that can “help you find 
and grow in your own unique approach.”

Developments in Ecclesial Futures

A driving commitment for Ecclesial Futures is to encourage au-
thors new to publishing. To make that commitment practical, in 
June 2021, the journal hosted the Missional Research Workshop, 
a writing workshop. The Workshop filled a space left vacant by the 
postponement of the International Association of Mission Studies 
conference and the resultant impact on the vitality of the Christian 
Communities and Mission Study group, which is an important 
partnership for Ecclesial Futures. The Missional Research Work-
shop created an online space for feedback on work in progress. To 
encourage writing, the Ecclesial Futures editorial board members 
were invited to participate, first by sharing their learnings about 
the craft of writing, second by providing constructive feedback to 
research in process. A number of articles for review have resulted 
from the Missional Research Workshop.

Another development during 2021 has been the Ecclesial Fu-
tures MA Prize in Mission. This results from a partnership with 
Churches Together in England (CTE), who seek out good-quality 
research at the MA level from students completing their studies 
at a UK-based college or university around the topics of mission, 
evangelism, and church planting with a particular focus on mis-
sion in the UK context. A panel of CTE judges read all the submit-
ted theses and decided on a winner. Ecclesial Futures extend our 
congratulations to the 2021 winner, Daleen Ten Cate, for her MA 
dissertation, “A Critical Examination of the Theological Basis of a 
Christian Charity Engaged in Community Ministry.” This edition 
of Ecclesial Futures includes a description of her abstract, along 
with information about four other shortlisted finalists. For all our 



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readers, the judges’ comments are a window into exemplary prac-
tice in contemporary research.

Thanks

In closing, my thanks to a range of people. First, my co-editor, Ni-
gel Rooms, who provided prompt advice and wise counsel. Second, 
the publishers at Wipf & Stock, who continue to receive plaudits 
regarding the visual presentation of the journal. Third, the review-
ers who work to provide constructive feedback in ways that aim 
to improve each article. Fourth, Patrick Todjeras, who constantly 
remains eager to receive book reviews. Finally, you, our readers, 
who engage with our journal in such different ways. Please be in 
touch with your comments, thoughts, and questions. And do fol-
low us on Twitter—@EcclesialF.

Bibliography

Kearney, Richard. The Wake of Imagination: Towards a Postmodern Culture. 
London: Routledge, 2001.


