Sentences with phrase «ways by the congregation»

Not exact matches

Not to be outdone, my current pastor (who is white, by the way, but pastors a very diverse congregation) recently did a cooking demo onstage and had a few of the thousand people in the sanctuary come up to get their piece of the hero sandwich he'd constructed.

The curriculum of the seminary should be determined by and reflect the liturgical life of the church, for the most promising way to reclaim the integrity of theological language as the working language for a congregation is for seminaries to make liturgy the focus of their lives.

The next sidestep was to propose that congregations be understood as sets of social practices (where «practice» was defined in a somewhat technical way) governed by the worship of God.

Remember that the congregation is idiomatic; it constitutes itself by a very distinctive language whose indicative aspect identifies a world in some ways allied with metaphors widely employed in the culture but in other ways peculiar to that group alone.

One of the most helpful ways a congregation can engage in pastoral care is by studying issues that might create moral dilemmas before they are brought to the church in the form of real, live, human beings.

That is why the effort to understand God Christianly, which must in the nature of the case proceed indirectly, might best proceed indirectly by way of study of the Christian thing in and as Christian congregations.

To the collective gasps of their congregations, pastors are misrepresenting the study's findings by making claims like, «most Americans are universalists» or «a majority of evangelical Christians no longer believe Jesus is the only way to eternal life» or «most Christians think all paths lead to God.»

The three questions can serve as horizons within which to conduct rigorous inquiry into any of the array of subject matters implied by the nature of congregations, disciplined by any relevant scholarly method, in such a way that attention is focused on the theological significance of what is studied:

Have social, cultural, and intellectual conditions changed in ways that introduce issues not addressed at all by these congregations current forms of speech and action?

I feel put in a special category by the image that many people in my congregation and community try to put on me (and it's hard not to feel it even if I don't see myself in this way).

That a congregation is constituted by publicly enacting a more universally practiced worship that generates a distinctive social form implies study of that public form: What are the social, cultural, and political locations of congregations of Christians and how do those locations shape congregations» social form today (synchronic inquiry); what have been the characteristic social, cultural, and political locations of congregations historically and how have those locations shaped congregations» social forms (diachronic study); in what ways do congregations engage in the public arena as one type of institutionalized center of power among others?

(One way to encourage candidates for ministry, by the way, is to make the congregation's own pastor's job seem rewarding and honored.)

It is ground owned by a congregation that, in the past, has acted in ways that made the racial tension worse; they are now seeking to change that dynamic.

It also reflects the diversity of our congregation: although we are inspired by those who have gone before, there is no pattern to the nature of testimony, no sense that there is an expectation of a right way to do it, just a recognition that each story is part of the fabric.

I could never see myself being hired by some nice, traditional congregation to be their rector or something — no way.

According to Christian tradition, the apostle Thomas stopped by Baghdad on his way to India and gathered the first Christian congregation there.

What the proposal does argue is this: Study of various subject matters in a theological school will be the indirect way to truer understanding of God only insofar as the subject matters are taken precisely as interconnected elements of the Christian thing, and that can be done concretely by studying them in light of questions about their place and role in the actual communal life of actual and deeply diverse Christian congregations.

I'm going to tell you a little about myself by way of introduction and how I happened to get into the work that I do - of working primarily with congregations and occasionally with other religious organizations around issues of human differences.

What there is is finding other ways of exercising that call: interim pastor, parish associate, stated supply, teaching church school, worshiping always, serving on presbytery committees, being volunteers in mission, and by being a participant as an «honorary layperson» in the ongoing life of a congregation — all these and more are ways by which we respond to the enduring calling by God through the church.

I'm going to tell you a little about myself by way of introduction and how I happened to get into the work that I do — of working primarily with congregations and occasionally with other religious organizations around issues of human differences.

It is entirely possible that a stated intention to be racially inclusive is nullified and contradicted by the way members of a congregation interact when they gather.

And this is affirmed in full awareness that there is a strong tradition of preaching which consistently refuses to embrace any position that implies that the Word of God is contingent, modified in any way by the situation of the congregation, or that it moves in any direction other than downward.17

The quality of love experienced in a family or a congregation can be limited by the way members think about the meaning of Christian faith.

To ignore story, or to treat it lightly, is to miss a major way by which a congregation may come to terms with its identity and calling.

But even congregations with no intention of applying for such funds are affected by the outcome, since this new way of framing the issue contributes to a public expectation that social - service delivery is the primary mission of churches.

Furthermore, when ministers get discouraged and seem to be accomplishing nothing, again and again their hearts are warmed by the fidelity of those laymen — perhaps only one or two in a congregation — who can always be depended on, who see at least partially what the minister is driving at, who in an unpretentious way are genuine Christian saints.

«I figured a way out, a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers, but I couldn't get it past the Congress,» Pastor Charles L. Worley can be seen telling his Providence Road Baptist Church congregation in the video, which had more than 250,000 YouTube views by Tuesday.

oh Jeremy: By the way, my «ideal» of a congregation without a vision is not an ideal, but a reality.

We will be speaking of «understanding God,» indeed, of trying to understand God indirectly by way of «understanding other matters within the horizon of questions about particular Christian congregations.»

To everyone's surprise, this rapidly became a global movement as congregations from York to the Lake District had their imaginations reignited by the Spirit and created new ways to worship, make disciples and influence their neighbours.

Christ was born, he preached, to a world as disparate as shepherds and kings, not merely to nuclear families, and the way the church witnessed God's new embrace at Christmas should be by congregation - wide Communion, not private huddles at the altar.

Small groups have been championed by many religious leaders as a way of revitalizing their congregations.

The way a congregation uses power to adapt its resources is shaped by its culture, its characteristic ways of acting, speaking and socializing.

This way of doing college and university ministry will require rethinking not only by campus ministers and their boards,, but by local congregations and judicatories, all of which need to understand that the church on campus is an extension of — not an annoyance to or a competitor with — the local church.

Though derided by some as an «Essex bumpkin» for his countrified ways and lack of university training, Spurgeon's congregation soon numbered in the thousands.

Taking up where the book on Wiltshire Church left off, this chapter suggests ways by which the congregation itself might, comprehending its own story, better understand its nature, circumstances, and mission.

If anything is redemptive it is God's own peculiar ways of being present in history, and congregations are constituted by the practices in which they respond to that redemptive presence.

In the present section, several more specific ways are presented by which the effort to uncover the ethos of a congregation is pressed: (a) listening for narrative elements, (b) participant observation, (c) guided interviews for value patterns, and (d) corporate moral inquiry.

The point here, however, is to draw out implications of the narrower truth that a Christian congregation's social form is also shaped by its social space, which in turn is importantly and distinctively, if not exhaustively, shaped by the way biblical writings are used in the congregation's common life.

In one way or another critical self - reflection by a congregation involves not only attention to whether various features of its practices are faithful to the One to whom they are responses, but also involves attention to whether engaging in some particular practice or, indeed, to this entire set of practices is itself truthful.

Indeed, it is by comparative study of congregations that one can see how different construals of the Christian thing make real differences in the ways persons» lives are shaped and empowered.

The vision of the «good» life, the central values, even the corporate identity expressed by a congregation's host culture in its dominant languages will in various ways stand in tension with the congregation's own understanding of its own communal identity, its own picture of the good life, its own central values as they all are defined «in Jesus» name.»

However, if a congregation is understood to be constituted by a set of practices, and if the central practice is understood to be the worship of God in Jesus» name, and if that worship is understood to be inherently public in these two ways, then the objection seems to lose force.

In making this proposal I am building on a suggestion first advanced by James F. Hopewell.Growing out of years of involvement in a group exploring different ways to study congregations [1] and his own ground - breaking Congregation: Stories and Structures, [2] Hopewell wrote an essay, «A Congregational Paradigm for Theological Education.»

John Chrysostom instructed his congregation on how to win over unbelievers: «Let us astound them by our way of life.

By the time the fireflies have gone, the congregation and the preacher have struggled through the account of poor Uzzah's being struck dead for reaching out his hand to steady the ark when it wobbled on its way to Jerusalem (2 Samuel), or the heartbreaking saga in Judges about Jephthah's daughter, who lost her life because of her father's foolish promise.

But many persons firmly believe that the majority of local congregations, though moribund, are constituted by mission - oriented Baptists; probably the only way to awaken them is to offer them new responsibilities, authorities and powers at the most immediate locus of need.

On a personal level, people need to be informed — but, and NP may not have meant it this way, but I took it that way, there is no room for teaching in the congregation by false prophets or false teachers.

It might be a community of quasi-clergy related to Christian congregations in the way in which clergy are supposed to be related to the congregations they lead, yet distinct because it is constituted by academic interests of special interest to clergy rather than constituted as a church.

This internal process» fueled by the leftward tilt of mainline ecumenism and the vigor of Baptist Landmarkism (the idea that Baptist congregations constitute the only true churches in the world and can trace their lineage through unbroken succession back to Christ himself)» reinforced the desire of Southern Baptists «to do our own work in our way,» as E.Y. Mullins, one of the more moderate Baptist leaders of this period, put it.