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Offering timely, relevant analysis of trends and issues, the essays in this collection address questions and concerns that will determine the shape and direction of the denomination in the next century. These essays cover policy issues and current events considerations that Russell Richey says "emerged as a priority" in sponsored conferences of the United Methodism and American Culture Project. Policy issues addressed include music, evangelism, contextual theology, urban losses, electronics & media, lay leadership roles and growth, bishopric election and leadership, the discipline of local churches, church finance, clergy compensation, and others. Contributors include Garlinda Burton, Dennis Campbell, Jackson Carroll, Ken Chalker, Meghan Froehlich, Frederick Herzog, Sarah Kreutziger, Andy Langford, William Lawrence, Priscilla Pope-Levison, Russell Richey, Kenneth Rowe, and Carol Voisin.
Our contemporary culture is communicating ever-increasingly through the visual, through film, and through music. This makes it ever more urgent for theologians to explore the resources of art for enriching our understanding and experience of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Annunciations: Sacred Music for the twenty-First Century, edited by George Corbett, answers this need, evaluating the relationship between the sacred and the composition, performance, and appreciation of music. Through the theme of ‘annunciations’, this volume interrogates how, when, why, through and to whom God communicates in the Old and New Testaments. In doing so, it tackles the intimate relationship between Scriptural reflection and musical practice in the past, its present condition, and what the future might hold. Annunciations comprises three parts. Part I sets out flexible theological and compositional frameworks for a constructive relationship between the sacred and music. Part II presents the reflections of theologians and composers involved in collaborating on new pieces of sacred choral music, alongside the six new scores and links to the recordings. Part III considers the reality of programming and performing sacred works today. This volume provides an indispensable resource for scholars and artists working at the interface between theology and the arts, and for those involved in sacred music. However, it will also be of interest to anyone concerned with the ways in which the Divine communicates through word and artistry to humanity.
From the author of Dying for Change, a book on how to bring change to a local church to meet the challenges of a changing society.
Being Christian in the Twenty-first Century was written to help struggling and doubting Christians develop an understanding of Christianity that avoids literalism, creeds, and doctrines--all factors which seem to be driving people away from the church. The book is well suited for individual or group study, complete with a study guide and sample lesson plans. It responds to the call for theological reform advocated by many contemporary clergy and religious leaders. Being Christian does not restate orthodox positions or drift into fundamentalism or sentimentalism. Instead it draws from a broad base of historical, theological, archaeological, and sociological scholarship to place Scripture within its original context, yet present it within a perspective suitable for the twenty-first-century mind. Being Christian is scholarly, yet readable, interesting, and often provocative. One reviewer put it this way, "the book reminds me of a baseball pitcher with a long wind up and a hard fastball getting better in every inning." By building upon progressive thought available today and throughout history, it offers an important resource for Christians and would-be Christians seeking a more fulfilling and thoughtful faith journey.
A wake-up call to anyone who still thinks church revitalization is simply a matter of doing better the things that used to come so easily. However, for the innovators whose ministries cannot fully be measured or understood by the old paradigms of members and money, Weird Church offers compelling vindication and encouragement that may cause them to stand and cheer
If the church is to thrive in the twenty-first century, it will have to take on a new form as it ministers to the 120 million unchurched people in the United States. Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century is still virtually the only available text on church planting in North America and beyond. In this third edition, readers will find material on the importance of healthy, biblical change in our churches, updated appendixes, insight on our postmodern ministry context, and strategies for reaching new population demographics such as Generations X and Y. Pastors, ministry leaders, and church planters will find the information and advice found in this book invaluable as they carry out their ministries.
Robert Wuthnow contributes to those reflections on religion that are cropping up at the end of the millennium by offering a sobering, realistic, and hopeful assessment of where the church is now, and where the church is heading.
Winner of the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award (1995) “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” So begins this award-winning intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement by one of evangelicalism’s most respected historians. Unsparing in his indictment, Mark Noll asks why the largest single group of religious Americans—who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and political influence—have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship. While nourishing believers in the simple truths of the gospel, why have so many evangelicals failed to sustain a serious intellectual life and abandoned the universities, the arts, and other realms of “high” culture? Over twenty-five years since its original publication, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind has turned out to be prescient and perennially relevant. In a new preface, Noll lays out his ongoing personal frustrations with this situation, and in a new afterword he assesses the state of the scandal—showing how white evangelicals’ embrace of Trumpism, their deepening distrust of science, and their frequent forays into conspiratorial thinking have coexisted with surprisingly robust scholarship from many with strong evangelical connections.
Using the analogy of the human body, Thriving Churches in the Twenty-First Century explores the ten interacting systems that make up a healthy church body such as spiritual energy, corporate intercession, spiritual disciplines, mentoring, and team ministry.
Building on the success of his 1992 collection Foundations of Ministry (over 17,000 sold), Michael Anthony offers Introducing Christian Education to fill the need in the C.E. curriculum for an introductory foundations textbook--one that provides an overview and understanding of the broad range of subjects included in C.E.--for college and seminary use. Thirty-one chapters are offered under the following sections: 1) Foundations of C.E.; 2) Developmental Perspectives of C.E.; 3) Educational Implications of C.E.; 4) Organization, Administration, and Leadership; 5) C.E. Applied to the Family; and 6) Specialized Ministries. Contributors include Robert Pazmiño, Jim Wilhoit, Julie Gorman, Klaus Issler, and Ted Ward. FROM THE FOREWORD BY LESTER C. BLANK JR. Introducing Christian Education will become a major resource text for church leaders and Christian education leaders who are professors of Christian education. It will be a valuable resource in my personal library. The desired outcome will be Psalm 78:72: "He cared for them with a true heart and led them with skillful hands."