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Author: Scott Thumma
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0787994677
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
Drawing on extensive, broad-based, and well-designed research, as well as stories and anecdotes, Beyond Megachurch Myths dispels popluar myths about megachurches while highlighting the diversity within the megachurch phenomenon. Defining a megachurch as a Protestant church that averages at least 2000 total attendees in their weekend services, Scott Thumma and Dave Travis reveal what these churches are and are not, why they are thriving, what their members say about their experiences, and why they have many valuable lessons to teach smaller churches.
Author: Scott Thumma
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0787994677
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Get Book
Book Description
Drawing on extensive, broad-based, and well-designed research, as well as stories and anecdotes, Beyond Megachurch Myths dispels popluar myths about megachurches while highlighting the diversity within the megachurch phenomenon. Defining a megachurch as a Protestant church that averages at least 2000 total attendees in their weekend services, Scott Thumma and Dave Travis reveal what these churches are and are not, why they are thriving, what their members say about their experiences, and why they have many valuable lessons to teach smaller churches.
Author: Jill Stevenson
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472118730
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
In Sensational Devotion, Jill Stevenson examines a range of evangelical performances, including contemporary Passion plays, biblical theme parks, Holy Land re-creations, creationist museums, and megachurches, to understand how they serve their evangelical audiences while shaping larger cultural and national dialogues. Such performative media support specific theologies and core beliefs by creating sensual, live experiences for believers, but the accessible, familiar forms they take and the pop culture motifs they employ also attract nonbelievers willing to “try out” these genres, even if only for curiosity’s sake. This familiarity not only helps these performances achieve their goals, but it also enables them to contribute to public dialogue about the role of religious faith in America. Stevenson shows how these genres are significant and influential cultural products that utilize sophisticated tactics in order to reach large audiences comprised of firm believers, extreme skeptics, and those in between. Using historical research coupled with personal visits to these various venues, the author not only critically examines these spaces and events within their specific religious, cultural, and national contexts, but also places them within a longer devotional tradition in order to suggest how they cultivate religious belief by generating vivid, sensual, affectively oriented, and individualized experiences.
Author: Bryan D. Spinks
Publisher: Church Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 0898696771
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
Religion today is in competition with the leisure and entertainment industries. Gen Y, the postmodern generation, is open to spirituality; but most of todays young adults have not been born into faith communities where they feel any lasting allegiance. Studies suggest that for the young, belief in God is an optional matter, a virtual consumer choice. As a result, different trends in worship and worship styles are offered by different churches to suit lifestyles, attitudes, and personal taste.
Author: Mark J. Cartledge
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004402659
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 405
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Book Description
This book explores the nature and significance of social engagement by megachurches using Anglican and African diaspora Pentecostal case studies. It describes the range of social engagement activities, offering explanations in term of theological motivations and the influence of globalisation.
Author: Jinbong Kim
Publisher: William Carey Publishing
ISBN: 0878086897
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 387
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Book Description
Megachurches are of relatively recent vintage. Their numerical strength invests them with social and financial power. To whom, if anyone, however, are megachurches accountable? What role do they play as innovators in missions? How have their enormous influence and financial strength been harnessed? What lessons can be learned? What course corrections ought to be made? Over the course of a week, the third meeting of the Korean Global Mission Leadership Forum (KGMLF), held in Korea in 2015, addressed these and related questions. Combining the insights of a rich mix of Korean and international megachurch leaders and scholars, Megachurch Accountability in Missions: Korean and Global Case Studies offers analysis, critique, and positive recommendations for future megachurch engagement in mission.
Author: Terence Chong
Publisher: Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.
ISBN: 981478690X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218
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Book Description
Charismatic pastors, fast-paced worship sessions, inspirational but shallow theology, and large congregations - these are just some of the associated traits of Pentecostal megachurches. But what lies beneath the veneer of glitz? What are their congregations like? How did they grow so quickly? How have they managed to negotiate local and transnational challenges? This book seeks to understand the growth and popularity of independent Pentecostal megachurches in Southeast Asia. Using an ethnographic approach, the chapters examine Pentecostal megachurches in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Each chapter dwells on the development of the megachurch set against the specific background of the country's politics and history.
Author: Justin G. Wilford
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814770932
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
In an era where church attendance has reached an all-time low, recent polling has shown that Americans are becoming less formally religious and more promiscuous in their religious commitments. Within both mainline and evangelical Christianity in America, it is common to hear of secularizing pressures and increasing competition from nonreligious sources. Yet there is a kind of religious institution that has enjoyed great popularity over the past thirty years: the evangelical megachurch. Evangelical megachurches not only continue to grow in number, but also in cultural, political, and economic influence. To appreciate their appeal is to understand not only how they are innovating, but more crucially, where their innovation is taking place. In this groundbreaking and interdisciplinary study, Justin G. Wilford argues that the success of the megachurch is hinged upon its use of space: its location on the post-suburban fringe of large cities, its fragmented, dispersed structure, and its focus on individualized spaces of intimacy such as small group meetings in homes, which help to interpret suburban life as religiously meaningful and create a sense of belonging. Based on original fieldwork at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, one of the largest and most influential megachurches in America,Sacred Subdivisionsexplains how evangelical megachurches thrive by transforming mundane secular spaces into arenas of religious significance.
Author: Kate Bowler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190876735
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350
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Book Description
'Blessed' offers a comprehensive history of the rise of the American prosperity gospel. What began as diverse metaphysical, pentecostal, and self-help conceptions about the power of the mind became one of the most influential popular religious movements of the last century. The book follows how the movement took shape after World War II in pentecostal healing revivals and exploded onto the national scene through televangelists with big hair and bigger promises. It survived the scandals of the late 1980s and remade its image as a therapeutic and effective theology of modern living. Now thriving in the 21st century megachurch movement, the prosperity gospel reigns as a full-fledged cultural phenomenon.
Author: David Clary
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1633887839
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
American evangelicals have always been innovators. They reimagined what a church could be, whether it was a humble tent in a rural field or a high-tech urban megachurch. They embraced new forms of media to spread their message to the masses. They thrived in a fiercely competitive religious marketplace. In Soul Winners, journalist David Clary argues that this entrepreneurial spirit has indelibly shaped evangelical ministries and their worldview. For generations, evangelical leaders have partnered with tycoons to pay for their churches, crusades, and campuses. In turn, evangelicals adopted the pro-business, anti-government values of their conservative benefactors. White evangelicals evolved into the Republican Party’s most loyal voting bloc. The close relationship between business and evangelicals has produced the growth-oriented megachurches that dot the nation’s landscape. Pastors such as Rick Warren used market research and management theory to create their “seeker-sensitive” churches. Televangelists and “prosperity gospel” preachers, most notably Joel Osteen, tell their audiences that faith will be rewarded in this world as well as in the kingdom to come. Clary’s narrative approach brings to life colorful characters such as the ballplayer-turned-preacher Billy Sunday, who condemned the “godless social service nonsense” of liberal churches, and Billy Graham, who brought evangelicalism into the highest precincts of business and politics. Soul Winners offers a fresh, balanced perspective on evangelicals and the consequences of their enduring influence on American life.
Author: David E. Orberson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532676506
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 121
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Book Description
Over sixty years ago, Thomas Merton--monk, mystic, and writer--proclaimed that we are living in a post-Christian world. That is, the influence of the institutional church is in decline and the popular version of Christianity presented to society has in many ways become a caricature of itself. Since that time, the religious landscape has continued to change. Today the number of people who identify as "None," someone with no particular religious affiliation, outnumbers the combined total of all Mainline Protestants. In addition, many popular Christian responses to our secular world are divisive and focused on fighting the culture war instead of finding ways to live the gospel. All of these religious changes are occurring in a broader post-truth culture in which facts matter less and less, and our society is increasingly divided. This book delves into these issues and introduces the life and writings of Thomas Merton, showing how he can guide Christians working to build God's kingdom in the world today.
