Review: "Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global" by Andy Johnson

The following is a review I wrote published in the January 2018 edition of Banner of Truth magazine. 

Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global

Andy Johnson

Crossway, 2017

hbk., 126 pp, £12.99/$14.99

ISBN 978-1-4335-5570-1

In this addition to the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series, Andy Johnson, an associate pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC, has written a clear, concise, and quite helpful approach to global missions. 

Resting on the sufficiency and relevancy of Scripture, the book’s premise is that we can safely find our missions agenda and methods in the Bible. After arguing that missions is primarily spiritual, inherently God-glorifying, and essentially local church based, Johnson begins to apply biblical principle to basic practice. His expertise as a pastor tasked with giving special attention to the international missions efforts of his church really shows here, without becoming too technical or impractical for the average church member. At the heart of Missions is the biblical, trust-worthy pattern of local churches sending and supporting missionaries and doing so well, with generosity and discernment, to the end that the gospel is proclaimed through long-term, healthy missionary partnerships. 

Missions will speak to both stingy and silly churches of our day - and should encourage all others in between these extremes. Johnson gives needed medicine for those who view any good cause as “mission”, and offers very helpful advice on evaluating missionary efforts, reforming short term missions, and reaching the nations by other means. This little volume is not revolutionary, but it is reformational. I heartily commend it.