In this concise guide, Dr. Knowles Wallace gives practical worship and preaching suggestions for each season of the Christian year as it relates to the Revised Common Lectionary. She describes the unique features and colors of each season as well as its historical overview, theological grounding, and significance for faith formation. The Church Year gives ways to draw upon the gifts of existing congregations while seeking to expand their witness and faith formation.
The author walks the reader through each season, beginning with Advent, followed by Christmas, Epiphany, Ordinary Time in Light of Epiphany, Lent, Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday, Easter through Pentecost, and Ordinary Time as People of the Resurrection, giving sample services with suitable lectionary readings, hymns, prayers, and spatial and visual suggestions for each season in either traditional or contemporary worship styles.
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After Imperialism After Imperialism: Christian Identity in China and the Global Evangelical Movement
This collection of essays is committed to the belief that evangelicalism continues to have the historical assets and intellectual (hermeneutical and theological) tools able to contribute to the global church. Evangelicalism possesses assets with explanatory power to address significant theological and cultural issues arising out of the churches in the Global South. Evangelical approaches to contextualization and biblical studies can produce valuable fruit. Therefore in May 2008 over a dozen evangelical scholars (Chinese and Western) from the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan, came together to address issues of Christian and evangelical identity. The "Inter-Cultural Theological Conversation" was titled "Beyond Our Past: Bible, Cultural Identity, and the Global Evangelical Movement." This collection of papers from the conference demonstrates the value of the careful balancing of judicious appropriation of the social sciences and thorough biblical inquiry. Questions of evangelical identity in China and around the world are addressed from the disciplines of history, biblical studies, and systematic theology/contextualization.
Most people in the West have no intention of ever attending church. Indeed, many only use Christ's name as a swear word. And while some prominent churches are growing, much of this is transfer rather than true growth.
Yet many of our approaches to evangelism still assume a Christian mentality. We expect people to come to us when we put on a good church service.
We need to meet the unchurched where they are, in the context of everyday life, shifting the focus from putting on attractive events to creating attractive communities.
Allow this book, with its focus on Peter's first letter, to change your expectations and your thinking
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Half the Church Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women
Women comprise at least half the world and usually more than half the church. But so often Christian teaching for women either fails to move beyond a discussion of roles or assumes a particular economic situation or stage of life. This shuts a lot of women out from contributing to God's kingdom as they were designed to do. Furthermore, the plight of women in the Majority World demands a Christian response, a holistic embrace of all that God calls women and men to be in his world. The strongest voices speaking into women's lives in the twenty-first century are Islam and Feminism--systems that reside at opposite ends of the spectrum. Does the church's message for women stake out the middle ground or lead the way to something much better? Is that message strong enough to withstand the worst realities women suffer in this broken world? Carolyn Custis James unpacks three transformative themes the Bible presents that invest the lives of every woman and girl with cosmic significance that nothing can destroy. These new images of what can be in Christ come with a blazing call for them to join their brothers in advancing God's gracious kingdom on earth. Carolyn offers readers a positive, kingdom approach to the changes, challenges, and opportunities facing women throughout the world today.
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Hitting the Holy Road Hitting the Holy Road: A Guided Tour of Christian History from the Early Church to the Reformation
This book invites you on a journey through some of the regions and cities which have played a pivotal role in Christian history down through the ages. Along the way it provides you with an overview of the history of the church - warts and all - together with reflections on the lessons we may learn from the past.
Stuart Coulton's lively and accessible survey covers the first fifteen centuries of Christian history, centred on Europe, and includes numerous photographs, timelines and text boxes.
Each chapter is divided into three sections:
•the first gives a short introduction to the historical location, providing a feel for the place today;
•the second discusses the story of the church during the relevant period, seeking not only to describe events but also to suggest some reasons for what happened and the consequences;
•the final section offers some reflections to stimulate thought and discussion.
Coulton's ultimate aim is to encourage us to look critically at ourselves, our churches and our communities, and to reflect carefully on what it means to follow Christ in a complex and at times confusing world.