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Ruddick, Anna.

Reimagining Mission from Urban 
Places—Missional Pastoral Care.
London: SCM Press, 2020.

ISBN: 9780334058656

Reviewed by Felix Eiffler
University of Greifswald, Germany  
felix.eiffler@uni-greifswald.de

The book Reimagining Mission from Urban Places is an outline 
of Anna Ruddick’s doctoral thesis, in which she depicts the results 
of her qualitative ethnographic research as a practical theologian: 
She interviewed team members of the Eden Network and com-
munity members who live alongside each other in marginalized 
urban areas1 in the UK. The question that motivated her research 
is, “What does it take to change a life?” (189). The main result is 
a blend of missional aspects and pastoral care, called “missional 
pastoral care” (chapter 3), which is shaped by seven elements: “be-
ing among people who are different, living locally, being available, 
taking practical action, long-term commitment, consistency, and 
love” (1).

1. For marginalized urban areas in Germany, see Eiffler, Felix. Kirche für 
die Stadt. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020, 179–202.



Felix Eiffler—Reimagining Mission from Urban Places

127

Anna Ruddick criticizes the excessive use of the term “trans-
formation” without clarifying what it really means and what the 
potential pitfalls are. In her opinion, the term is mostly used in a 
too-narrow sense that does not take into account the time that is 
needed for change (e.g. conversion as a process2). To describe how 
people change (chapter 2) she refers to the “meaning system” that 
every human being has. Change occurs “through the re-evaluation 
and re-making of their personal meaning system” (27). To de-
scribe the process for life change, she introduces the method of 
“hermeneutical play,” which combines a challenge to perspective 
with an affirmation of personhood.

This research points out to the discrepancy between expec-
tations about mission and the daily reality that the interviewed 
team members experience so that “many struggle to accept their 
mission for what it is” (5). They find it difficult to reconcile “real-
ity with their expectations” (13). She states that “Reality is good 
enough” (chapter 1) and that mission is more than often “messy, 
slow, and complicated” (chapter 4).

Ruddick questions the dominant evangelical missional nar-
rative as unfitting for the challenges of urban ministry (chapter 
6). Rather than abandoning it, she tries to rethink and enrich 
the evangelical missional narrative by a missio Dei theology (and 
linked to it the theology of imago Dei), the expectation of the 
incoming kingdom of God and a search for a foretaste of God’s 
shalom (chapter 5). This adjustment is a result of the experiences 
the interviewees made in their urban context. They discovered that 
God was already at work at those marginalized places through the 
people living there, even though they don’t consider themselves 
Christians. This experience changed the perspective on mission 
for many interviewed team members, who mostly have an evan-
gelical background. In the course of their mission in marginal-
ized urban areas, their working (or operant) theology changed, 

2. This matches with a Greifswald study made in 2010 about the conver-
sion of adults to the Christian faith. See Zimmermann, Johannes, and Anna-
Konstanze Schröder. Wie finden Erwachsene zum Glauben? Einführung und 
Ergebnisse der Greifswalder Studie. 2nd ed. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 
Verlag, 2011.



E c c l e s i a l  F u t u r e s :  Vo l u m e  2 ,  I s s u e  2

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“allowing cultural and theological assumptions to color their at-
titudes” (169).

Anna Ruddick summarizes, “Mission doesn’t work the way 
we think it does. In reality, it works through making and remaking 
meaning, happening in shared life. It is not something we do to 
others for God but something God is doing in the world, including 
us” (7).

The book is a well-made combination of empirical data and 
thorough theological reflection. From a Lutheran perspective I 
would emphasize some aspects a bit differently (e.g. the relation-
ship between Bible and tradition) and appreciate a more critical 
approach to charismatic evangelicalism, but overall the work is 
persuasive. Her conclusions and suggestions for the practice of 
mission (chapter 7) are as useful as they are inspiring. It would 
be promising to combine Anna Ruddick’s approach with the four 
dimensions of contextualization (transcultural, countercultural, 
contextual, culturally reciprocal) described by the German theo-
logian Christian Grethlein.3

A critical point could be whether Anna Ruddick may be bi-
ased in her research, due to her membership in the Eden Network. 
Regardless, this does not reduce the quality of her insights.

3. Grethlein, Christian. Kirchentheorie: Kommunikation des Evangeliums 
im Kontext. De Gruyter: Berlin/Boston, 2018, 41–45.