Priestly Presence: A Church for the World’s Sake

The Western church is in a state of decline, chaos, and confusion, while the wider world remains divided on how to heal its broken societies. Too many Christian approaches to engaging that wider world put believers at odds with one another and compromise their witness. We need a fresh approach that pinpoints the problems, fosters church unity, and strengthens Christian witness.

Priestly Presence frames church-world relations in terms of the fourfold office of Christ: prophet, priest, king, and servant. This framework enables a new approach that integrates the strengths of existing efforts while overcoming their liabilities. It centers its reflections on the priestly witness.

Scripture identifies God’s people as a priestly community. We should relate to unbelievers as Israel’s priests did to wider Israel. Too often we reduce the priestly image to that of a narrow caste of temple servants, yet the majority of Israel’s priestly line served broader functions. Developing a priestly model rooted in this wider view provides the church with a compelling vision for carrying out its priestly vocation to the world.

Priestly Presence explores five dimensions of holistic priestly service. These include priestly residence, hospitality, stewardship, witness, and praise. Nugent explores the meaning of each dimension for church-world relations and fleshes out several practical implications for local congregations. In so doing, he provides a compelling approach to church-world relations that today’s fractured church desperately needs.