Formational Children's Ministry (ēmersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith)

Formational Children's Ministry (ēmersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith) PDF

Author: Ivy Beckwith

Publisher: Baker Books

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 144120735X

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Much ministry to children looks more like mere entertainment than authentic spiritual formation. But what if children's ministries were rooted in a mind set whereby we taught children, with our words and actions, how the story of God, the story of church history, the story of the local community, and the story of the child intersect and speak to one another? What if children's ministry was less about downloading information into kids' heads and more about leading them into these powerful, compelling stories? Beckwith aims to help ministers and parents create a ministry that captures children's imaginations not just to keep them occupied, but to live as citizens of the kingdom of God. In addition to providing theological reasons for formational children's ministry, the book offers examples of how Ivy and other practitioners are implementing a formational model.

Free for All (ēmersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith)

Free for All (ēmersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith) PDF

Author: Tim Conder

Publisher: Baker Books

Published: 2009-08-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9781441204523

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Is our study of the Bible as pure as we think it is? In Free for All, Tim Conder and Daniel Rhodes show how the way we read the Bible is held captive by the dominant culture in which we find ourselves. They aim to expose the cultural authorities that influence our understanding of the Bible and provide a way for communities to encounter the text as communities. This journey into community interpretation of the Bible not only honors the text and liberates its voice, but also catalyzes transformative practices of proclamation, hospitality, ethics, mission, and imagination. Church leaders, pastors, small group leaders, and those interested in the emerging church conversation will find Free for All an energizing resource to infuse their study of God's Word with new life.

Church in the Present Tense (ēmersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith)

Church in the Present Tense (ēmersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith) PDF

Author: Scot McKnight

Publisher: Brazos Press

Published: 2011-02-01

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1441214496

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Much has been written by practitioners advocating the emerging church phenomenon, but confusion about the nature and beliefs of those who identify with the emerging church still exists. Now that the movement has aged a bit, the time has come for a more rigorous, scholarly analysis. Here four influential authors, each an expert in his field, discuss important cultural, theological, philosophical, and biblical underpinnings and implications of the emerging church movement. Their sympathetic yet critical assessment helps readers better understand the roots of the movement and the impact that it has had and is having on wider traditions.

Guidelines for Leading Your Congregation 2013-2016 - Children’s Ministries

Guidelines for Leading Your Congregation 2013-2016 - Children’s Ministries PDF

Author: Melanie C. Gordon

Publisher: Abingdon Press

Published: 2012-11

Total Pages: 44

ISBN-13: 1426736436

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You have answered the call to serve as a minister to children. Calls come in a variety of ways, yet here you are. Whether your ministry touches three children in a small congregation, three hundred children in a large congregation, or the children who live in the community where you serve, you have been invited to gather dedicated adults and scripturally sound resources to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. This booklet concentrates of the basics of ministry that help children grow in faith. It is the beginning point for organizing for ministry and is designed.

Does God Have a Big Toe?

Does God Have a Big Toe? PDF

Author: Marc Gellman

Publisher: HarperTrophy

Published: 1993-10-30

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 9780064404532

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Before there was anything, there was God, and a few angels, and a huge swirling glob of rocks and water with no place to go. The angels asked God, "Why don't you clean up this mess?" This collection of short, funny stories is one man's interpretation of how God did just that -- with some very unlikely help. There was Adam, who decided to number the animals instead of giving them names -- until he lost count. There was Max, a matchmaking angel disguised as a camel. And who could forget the kindly dolphins of the Red Sea or the builders of the spectacularly chaotic Tower of Babel, whose foundation rests in one small girl's question: "Mommy, does God have a big toe?" Reflecting Mr. Gellman's lifelong love for his subject, this witty collection of midrashim provides a wonderful way to learn about and to share the stories of the Bible. Distinguished artist Oscar de Mejo brings the right blend of reverence and humor with his magnificent oil paintings. Notable Books of 1989 (NYT) Best Illustrated Children's Books of 1989 (NYT) Children's Books of 1989 (Library of Congress)

Handbook of Megachurches

Handbook of Megachurches PDF

Author: Stephen J. Hunt

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-11-26

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 9004412921

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The megachurch is an exceptional recent religious trend, certainly within Christian spheres. Spreading from the USA, megachurches now reached reach different global contexts. The edited volume Handbook of Megachurches offers a comprehensive account of the subject from various academic perspectives.

Missional Leadership

Missional Leadership PDF

Author: Nelus Niemandt

Publisher: AOSIS

Published: 2019-12-12

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1928523056

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The purpose and aim of this book is to develop an appropriate leadership model for missional churches. This implies a positioning of this book within the broader theology of mission and a consensus on the theology of the Missio Dei, originating at the 1952 conference of the International Missionary Council in Willingen, Germany. In this approach to the theology of mission, mission is understood as the work of the Trinitarian God, and the church is privileged to participate in God’s mission. It is against this background that the growing consensus on missional ecclesiology challenges leadership models developed for a different time and a different kind of church (with less or no emphasis on the missional character of the church). The aim is to reflect theologically on the role of leadership in the missional church. What kind of ideas about power, authority and leadership are appropriate for a missional church? New missional challenges demand new ideas about missional leadership. Church organisation and leadership reflects a theological position – there is a strong relation between ecclesiology and church organisation. The nature of the church provides the framework to understand the character of the church. What the church is determines what the church does. The church organises what it does and agrees on rules that regulate ministries and organisation. Issues such as the way the church organises and governs what it does, and thus church leadership, need to be answered against this background and understanding. Church polity and organisation, as well as leadership, must reflect the identity, calling, life and order of the church. This book, therefore, addresses life in the Trinity, participation in the Missio Dei and contours of the missional church as the point of entry to develop leadership insights. It contributes towards the development of an appropriate model of leadership for missional churches, because although recent developments in the theology of mission comprehensively addressed the area of missional ecclesiology, there is a gap in the development of a leadership model based on the concept of authority in the missional church.

A Review of Deviant Nonprofit Groups

A Review of Deviant Nonprofit Groups PDF

Author: David Horton Smith

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-10-07

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 900440015X

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This book studies the deviant form of Nonprofit Groups (NPGs), mainly volunteer-based associations, but occasionally paid-staff-based nonprofit agencies. A Deviant Nonprofit Group (DNG) is defined as “a Nonprofit group that deviates significantly from certain moral norms of the society” (Smith, Stebbins, & Dover, 2006, p. 68). The aim is to develop and present an empirically grounded theory with eighty-three hypotheses about many of the key analytical features or operational and structural characteristics of DNGs. Such DNGs were usually voluntary associations with memberships and usually run by volunteers, not nonprofit agencies without memberships and usually run by paid staff (Smith, 2017a).The total theory may be termed a Grounded General Theory of DNG Operation-Structure. The book is based on an extensive review and qualitative content analysis of about 260 published research documents representing twenty-five common-language (vernacular) purposive-goal types of DNGs (vs. analytical-theoretical types, which do not exist in detail). Moral norms are the broad, emotionally charged, customary directives concerning what is right and wrong, by which members of a community or society implement their institutionalized solutions to problems significantly affecting their valued way of life (Stebbins, 1996, pp. 2–3).All the grounded hypotheses reported here were supported by empirical evidence for at least one (often two) of the two or three specific DNGs studied for all DNG types in source documents. Indeed, all reported hypotheses were supported by most of the twenty-five DNG types studied, giving significant qualitative validity to the author’s Grounded General Theory of DNG Operation-Structure. Such support suggests these hypotheses are valid at least sometimes for most DNG types and deserve further investigation. Collectively, the hypotheses of the present theory can be seen as a new theoretical paradigm for studying NPGs that helps bring analytical order to a previously chaotic realm of nonprofit sector deviant (rule-breaking) phenomena.

Baptist Theology

Baptist Theology PDF

Author: James Leo Garrett

Publisher: Mercer University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 776

ISBN-13: 9780881461299

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This title offers a comprehensive analysis of Baptist theology. Embracing in one common trajectory the major Baptist confessions of faith, the major Baptist theologians, and the principal Baptist theological movements and controversies, this book spans four centuries of Baptist doctrinal history. Acknowledging first the pre-1609 roots (patristic, medieval, and Reformational) of Baptist theology, it examines the Arminian versus Calvinist issues that were first expressed by the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists; that dominated English and American Baptist theology during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from Helwys and Smyth and from Bunyan and Kiffin to Gill, Fuller, Backus, and Boyce; and, that were quickened by the 'awakenings' and the missionary movement. Concurrently there were the Baptist defense of the Baptist distinctives vis-a-vis the pedobaptist world and the unfolding of a strong Baptist confessional tradition. Then during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the liberal versus evangelical issues became dominant with Hovey, Strong, Rauschenbusch, and Henry in the North and Mullins, Conner, Hobbs, and Criswell in the South even as a distinctive Baptist Landmarkism developed, the discipline of biblical theology was practiced and a structured ecumenism was pursued. Missiology both impacted Baptist theology and took it to all the continents, where it became increasingly indigenous. Conscious that Baptists belong to the free churches and to the believers' churches, a new generation of Baptist theologians at the advent of the twenty-first century appears somewhat more Calvinist than Arminian and decidedly more evangelical than liberal.

New Keywords

New Keywords PDF

Author: Tony Bennett

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-05-29

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 1118725417

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Over 25 years ago, Raymond Williams’ Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society set the standard for how we understand and use the language of culture and society. Now, three luminaries in the field of cultural studies have assembled a volume that builds on and updates Williams’ classic, reflecting the transformation in culture and society since its publication. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society is a state-of-the-art reference for students, teachers and culture vultures everywhere. Assembles a stellar team of internationally renowned and interdisciplinary social thinkers and theorists Showcases 142 signed entries – from art, commodity, and fundamentalism to youth, utopia, the virtual, and the West – that capture the practices, institutions, and debates of contemporary society Builds on and updates Raymond Williams’s classic Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, by reflecting the transformation in culture and society over the last 25 years Includes a bibliographic resource to guide research and cross-referencing The book is supported by a website: www.blackwellpublishing.com/newkeywords.