Invading Secular Space

Invading Secular Space PDF Author: Martin Robinson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780825460500
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
A clarion call for the church to harness Christ's passion to invade the secular space around them, transforming isolated saints into a powerful, life-changing body of believers.

Invading Secular Space

Invading Secular Space PDF Author: Martin Robinson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780825460500
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Get Book Here

Book Description
A clarion call for the church to harness Christ's passion to invade the secular space around them, transforming isolated saints into a powerful, life-changing body of believers.

Across the Secular Abyss

Across the Secular Abyss PDF Author: William Sims Bainbridge
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739116784
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Across the Secular Abyss explains the cultural chasm we currently face, with a traditional religion-based society behind us, and an as-yet unknown secular society ahead. For over a century, scholars, social scientists, and policy makers have debated the apparent erosion of religious faith and wondered whether Western Civilization was turning its back on religion. Today, the issue has reached a crisis point. In the U.S., a new battle between faith and science has erupted within educational institutions, as political polarization progressively divides the country along religious lines. After a century-long truce in which religion and science implicitly agreed to leave each other alone, science is again invading the territory of religion, most obviously in cognitive science that is debunking religious notions of the human soul, and in the broad convergence of many branches of science into one that leaves few gaps where supernatural beliefs could survive. Religion, for its part, is resisting a range of emerging technologies that could transform human nature, namely human reproductive cloning and the kinds of transformative technologies advocated by the Transhumanist movement. Although pure Atheism has little to offer people, and Atheists tend to be people lacking in social obligations, entirely new possibilities are offered by emerging technologies such as computer emulation of human personalities.

A Sociology of Mystic Practices

A Sociology of Mystic Practices PDF Author: Dann Wigner
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532636873
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
This book investigates the process of spiritual borrowing between the emergent church (EC) and the Christian mystical tradition. From its inception, the EC has displayed interest in mystic practices, but the exact nature of this interest or how these practices are appropriated and reinterpreted in the EC context has not been researched. My research shows that the emergent church is appropriating Christian mystic practices by investing these practices with their own theological content. The practices themselves are changed to fit in their new context, showing that EC belief shapes EC behavior. My study adds a new case study perspective to the sociological examination of the process of spiritual borrowing, especially through close inspection of how a spiritual practice changes to fit a new theological context. Additionally, my book contributes to the study of the complex relationship between belief and behavior.

Starting Missional Churches

Starting Missional Churches PDF Author: Mark Branson
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830896562
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
All mission is local—the people of God joining the work of God in a particular place. In Starting Missional Churches Mark Lau Branson and Nicholas Warnes introduce us to seven missional churches and identify best practices while examining common challenges regarding their genesis.

Post-Christendom Studies: Volume 4

Post-Christendom Studies: Volume 4 PDF Author: Steven M. Studebaker
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725285444
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
Post-Christendom Studies publishes research on the nature of Christian identity and mission in the contexts of post-Christendom. Post-Christendom refers to places, both now and in the past, where Christianity was once a significant cultural presence, though not necessarily the dominant religion. Sometimes “Christendom” refers to the official link between church and state. The term “post-Christendom” is often associated with the rise of secularization, religious pluralism, and multiculturalism in western countries over the past sixty years. Our use of the term is broader than that however. Egypt for example can be considered a post-Christendom context. It was once a leading center of Christianity. “Christendom” moreover does not necessarily mean official public and dominant religion. For example, under Saddam Hussein, Christianity was probably a minority religion, but, for the most part, Christians were left alone. After America deposed Saddam, Christians began to flee because they became a persecuted minority. In that sense, post-Saddam Iraq is an experience of post-Christendom—it is a shift from a cultural context in which Christians have more or less freedom to exercise their faith to one where they are persecuted and/or marginalized for doing so.

God’s Empowered People

God’s Empowered People PDF Author: Steven M. Fettke
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498276962
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
Professional ministers and their work as church leaders have dominated church and pastoral ministry studies. Lay ministry studies have been neglected. In the local church, lay ministries are often defined solely by their voluntary service in the local church, and even then are regarded as secondary to the work of the professional minister(s) leading the local church. This study proposes that the word "minister" should be applied to all believers and that professional ministers and their ministries should serve the larger group doing ministry: the laity. Lay ministry should not be understood only as that service done in the local church, but should be understood as a call received and obeyed by the laity to "do the work of ministry" in their work places and their neighborhoods, as well as their local churches. Following Amos Yong's theology of disability and the formation of the L'Arche communities found throughout the world, this God's Empowered People will show how the local church can welcome all in Christ's name into a community of the Spirit in which people are loved and respected for who they are. From such a welcoming, loving, and respectful community can come people of varying abilities who discover their special gifts of ministry, then take their gifts into the work world, market place, and neighborhoods to "do the work of ministry" in Christ's name. They will be able to go places and do things no professional minister could go or do, yet still need the professional minister to help prepare them to "do the work of ministry." Thus, professional and lay ministries are not competitive but complementary. In such a community of professional and lay ministries operating cooperatively, all have the opportunity to express wisely their gifts in their arenas of calling and influence.

Following Jesus to Burning Man

Following Jesus to Burning Man PDF Author: Kerry D. McRoberts
Publisher: Hamilton Books
ISBN: 0761853847
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
This book places the author, a Pentecostal/evangelical minister, in a thoroughly pagan context in the Nevada desert where he discovered the presence of God in a way that transformed his understanding of ministry in the twenty-first century context. This book is about our culture's recovery and transformation.

Power and the Powers

Power and the Powers PDF Author: Andrew R. Hardy
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498273572
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
Missio Dei by its very nature requires the church to come to terms with the exercise of power, both internally and externally, as it confronts the world. Tune in to any newscast or glance at the daily newspaper and it immediately becomes clear that the use and abuse of power is a live issue. The more we focus on the twists and turns of current events, the more it appears that uncorrupted exercise of power eludes the human race. All too often we become uneasily aware that there are powers lying behind the power that any of us wields, whether it is in the family, the classroom, on the shop floor, in the boardroom, or in churches. Effective missional leadership involves creative engagement with the powers at work in the world without being debased by them. This book sets out to address the issue of the use and misuse of power from biblical, theological, and practical perspectives. The authors bring their theological, pastoral, missionary, and personal experience to their task in order to inform, challenge, and invite readers into a responsible use of the powers that God has put into the hands of each one of us to achieve his purposes in the world.

So Beautiful

So Beautiful PDF Author: Leonard Sweet
Publisher: David C Cook
ISBN: 1434700879
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
More than 50 years ago scientists made a remarkable discovery, proclaiming, "We have found the secret of life ... and it's so pretty!" The secret was the discovery that life is helixical, two strands wound around a single axis—what most of us know today as the model for DNA. Over the course of his ministry, author Leonard Sweet has discovered that this divine design also informs God's blueprint for the church. In this seminal work, he shares the woven strands that form the church: missional, relational, and incarnational. Sweet declares that this secret is not just pretty, but beautiful. In fact, So Beautiful! Using the poignant life of John Newton as a touchstone, Sweet calls for the re-union of these three essential, complementary strands of the Christian life. Far from a novel idea, Sweet shows how this structure is God's original intent, and shares the simply beautiful design for His church.

What on Earth is the Church For?

What on Earth is the Church For? PDF Author: David Devenish
Publisher: Authentic Media Inc
ISBN: 1780782500
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
A radical approach to church mission and social action that asks, 'If mission is not the central purpose of the church, then what is?' David Devenish believes that the church exists as a means of taking the gospel message to every people group. He believes that the church is very much at the centre of God's purposes, and in this book presents the church, not as a static pastoral community, but as a vibrant, active body totally committed to world mission. David investigates the importance of church planting to reach the nations, looks at Church-based mission and how to make local churches missional in both thinking and practice. Set within a framework of the Kingdom of God, David demonstrates what the kingdom down to earth really implies for Church-based kingdom social action. Finally, he examines the culture and contextualisation of social action along with some of the dangers and difficulties of apostolic mission, before asking the fundamental question, Who will go?