ABSTRACT
Some of the predictions about the future are apocalyptic. The motivation for Reform and Renewal seems to come from a realisation that the church is at a critical point in its history. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, in their covering blog post In Each Generation, suggest that every generation have a responsibility for the reform and renewal of the church and that these task groups are their response in this generation. In essence an interdisciplinary approach to theology is an attempt to hold together the realities of systematic theological discourse with the lived realities of human life and ministerial/ pastoral experience. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book seeks to affirm the validity of the analysis by looking briefly at the experience of churches and other voluntary organisations within the culture of both private and public sector bureaucracies.
