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Imagining the Small Church

Author: Steve Willis

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2012-11-06

Total Pages: 116

ISBN-13: 1566995558

Imagining the Small Church: Celebrating a Simpler Path bears witness to what God is doing in small churches. Steve Willis tells stories from the small churches he has pastored in rural, town, and urban settings and dares to imagine that their way of being has something to teach all churches in this time of change in the American Christian Church. Willis tells us in the introduction, 'This book boasts no ten or fifteen steps to a successful small church. Instead, I hope to encourage you to give up on steps altogether and even to give up on success, at least how success is usually measured. I also hope to help the reader imagine the small church differently; to see with new eyes the joys and pleasures of living small and sustainably.' The joys and sorrows Willis helps us see through the compelling stories of faith in the small church puts flesh and bones on the possibilities that lie ahead for congregations in the future as well as the here and now. From the foreword by Tony Pappas: 'In Imagining the Small Church, pastor, writer, and lover of small things Steve Willis takes us on a narrative and imaginative journey. Some readers will have a sense that what Willis is describing simply names what they have already known in their hearts about their small churches. For them the journey will cover some familiar ground, explore some territory from a fresh angle, but deposit them nearly home again, hopefully with just a bit more awareness and appreciation. For others, though, Willis will take them on a long journey to a far and foreign place. They probably won't bother to finish reading it, and they will miss his invitation to find pastoring a small church extremely rewarding and meaningful. They will find this a strange book weird, off-center, and impractical; unlivable in the twenty-first century and undesirable in any event. This is because Willis is taking on the ethos, the values of our age, and claiming that it needn't be so. We can live on a different basis. We can live on the basis of gospel values.' There will be a variety of paths as the Church seeks new ways of being in this time. Willis knows this. In Imagining the Small Church he presents us with one that embraces a life of faith on the periphery and challenges church leaders to do the same.

The Christian Imagination

Author: Willie James Jennings

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2010-05-25

Total Pages: 582

ISBN-13: 0300163088

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Why has Christianity, a religion premised upon neighborly love, failed in its attempts to heal social divisions? In this ambitious and wide-ranging work, Willie James Jennings delves deep into the late medieval soil in which the modern Christian imagination grew, to reveal how Christianity's highly refined process of socialization has inadvertently created and maintained segregated societies. A probing study of the cultural fragmentation-social, spatial, and racial-that took root in the Western mind, this book shows how Christianity has consistently forged Christian nations rather than encouraging genuine communion between disparate groups and individuals. Weaving together the stories of Zurara, the royal chronicler of Prince Henry, the Jesuit theologian Jose de Acosta, the famed Anglican Bishop John William Colenso, and the former slave writer Olaudah Equiano, Jennings narrates a tale of loss, forgetfulness, and missed opportunities for the transformation of Christian communities. Touching on issues of slavery, geography, Native American history, Jewish-Christian relations, literacy, and translation, he brilliantly exposes how the loss of land and the supersessionist ideas behind the Christian missionary movement are both deeply implicated in the invention of race. Using his bold, creative, and courageous critique to imagine a truly cosmopolitan citizenship that transcends geopolitical, nationalist, ethnic, and racial boundaries, Jennings charts, with great vision, new ways of imagining ourselves, our communities, and the landscapes we inhabit.

Imagining the Kingdom

Author: James K. A. Smith

Publisher: Baker Academic

Published: 2013-02-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780801035784

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2013 Word Guild Award (Academic) How does worship work? How exactly does liturgical formation shape us? What are the dynamics of such transformation? In the second of James K. A. Smith's three-volume theology of culture, the author expands and deepens the analysis of cultural liturgies and Christian worship he developed in his well-received Desiring the Kingdom. He helps us understand and appreciate the bodily basis of habit formation and how liturgical formation--both "secular" and Christian--affects our fundamental orientation to the world. Worship "works" by leveraging our bodies to transform our imagination, and it does this through stories we understand on a register that is closer to body than mind. This has critical implications for how we think about Christian formation. Professors and students will welcome this work as will pastors, worship leaders, and Christian educators. The book includes analyses of popular films, novels, and other cultural phenomena, such as The King's Speech, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, and Facebook.

Imagining Judeo-Christian America

Author: K. Healan Gaston

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-11-15

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 022666399X

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“Judeo-Christian” is a remarkably easy term to look right through. Judaism and Christianity obviously share tenets, texts, and beliefs that have strongly influenced American democracy. In this ambitious book, however, K. Healan Gaston challenges the myth of a monolithic Judeo-Christian America. She demonstrates that the idea is not only a recent and deliberate construct, but also a potentially dangerous one. From the time of its widespread adoption in the 1930s, the ostensible inclusiveness of Judeo-Christian terminology concealed efforts to promote particular conceptions of religion, secularism, and politics. Gaston also shows that this new language, originally rooted in arguments over the nature of democracy that intensified in the early Cold War years, later became a marker in the culture wars that continue today. She argues that the debate on what constituted Judeo-Christian—and American—identity has shaped the country’s religious and political culture much more extensively than previously recognized.

Imagining the Catholic Church

Author: Ghislain Lafont

Publisher: Liturgical Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780814659465

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"Father Lafont challenges the Church to offer a renewed image and to speak credibly, without abandoning any essentials given by God to the Church and without sacrificing the radicalism of the Gospel message."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Church, Authority, and Foucault

Author: Steven G. Ogden

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-02-03

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1317038207

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The Church, Authority, and Foucault addresses the problem of the Church’s enmeshment with sovereign power, which can lead to marginalization. Breaking new ground, Ogden uses Foucault’s approach to power and knowledge to interpret the church leader’s significance as the guardian of knowledge. This can become privileged knowledge, under the spell of sovereign power, and with the complicity of clergy and laity in search of sovereigns. Inevitably, such a culture leads to a sense of entitlement for leaders and conformity for followers. All in the name of obedience. The Church needs to change in order to fulfil its vocation. Instead of a monarchy, what about Church as an open space of freedom? This book, then, is a theological enterprise which cultivates practices of freedom for the sake of the other. This involves thinking differently by exploring catalysts for change, which include critique, space, imagination, and wisdom. In the process, Ogden uses a range of sources, analysing discourse, gossip, ritual, territory, masculinity, and pastoral power. In all, the work of Michel Foucault sets the tone for a fresh ecclesiological critique that will appeal to theologians and clergy alike.

Imagining Persecution

Author: Jason Bruner

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2021-03-12

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1978816839

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Many American Christians have come to understand their relationship to other Christian denominations and traditions through the lens of religious persecution. This book provides a historical account of these developments, showing the global, theological, and political changes that made it possible for contemporary Christians to claim that there is a global war on Christians. This book, however, does not advocate on behalf of particular repressed Christian communities, nor does it argue for the genuineness (or lack thereof) of certain Christians’ claims of persecution. Instead, this book is the first to examine the idea that there is a “global war on Christians” and its analytical implications. It does so by giving a concise history of the categories (like “martyrs”), evidence (statistics and metrics), and theologies that have come together to produce a global Christian imagination premised upon the notion of shared suffering for one’s faith. The purpose in doing so is not to deny certain instances of suffering or death; rather, it is to reflect upon the consequences for thinking about religious violence and Christianity worldwide using terms such as a “global war on Christians.”

Imagining a New World

Author: Terri Hord Owens

Publisher: Chalice Press

Published: 2020-09-22

Total Pages: 46

ISBN-13: 0827216807

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Pause from the whirlwind of the holidays to imagine God's vision for a new world in Christ's coming. Inspired by the "peaceable kingdom" scripture from Isaiah 11, these daily, five-minute devotions include scripture, reflections, and a prayer. "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them." -Isaiah 11: 6. In this Advent devotional centered on the beloved scripture on the "peaceable Kingdom," reflect on God's vision for a new world and what it means for us today. Daily, five-minute devotions explore the courage to imagine, permission to change, and freedom from fear. A scripture verse and prayer round out each devotion. Written by Terri Hord Owens, the leader of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Imagining a New World offers an inspiring pause during the day to reflect more prayerfully on what the season of Advent inspires in you and your community.

Imagining Church

Author: Gary A. Shockley

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2009-01-12

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 156699554X

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Imagination is one of the great gifts bestowed on us by our Creator, observe authors Gary and Kim Shockley, and it can be the spark that ignites a fire of change in our lives. Drawing on their more than thirty years of pastoral and church consulting experience, the Shockleys illustrate the power of imagination using personal stories born of their own quest to be faithful in ministry. They also show readers that imagining church is a shared experience among God's people. When we imagine the church--forming a mental image of what we believe the church is and ought to be--we are co-creators with the Master Designer, Chief Architect, and Greatest Creator, and can help others imagine church. They remind leaders, "If you can't see it, neither will anyone else." The Shockleys outline how we in the church are now laborers in a new kind of vineyard--one that requires a new way of thinking and acting in our postmodern world. They invite readers to step into the flow of God's activity and, using the gifts God has given us, cooperate in the work of ministry and mission. Rather than suggesting one model or process for church effectiveness ("do it this way and grow"), Imagining Church helps congregational leaders to think more imaginatively about how God is at work in our present ministry contexts. This will help to open ourselves anew to the Spirit of God--the Divine Artist--who is ready to fuel our desire to be the co-creators we are meant to be for the sake of the church.

Imagining Abundance

Author: Kerry Alys Robinson

Publisher: Liturgical Press

Published: 2014-12-15

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13: 0814637914

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Fundraising is ministry—a transformative ministry that challenges all people to realize their own gifts and how they can be used for the benefit of the church. In Imagining Abundance, Kerry Robinson focuses on reasons why each of us are called to be stewards. We act because we’re excited about what it is that we do for the church and where we’re called by God to be, we want others to be just as excited about what that is, and we want people to be partners with us in that ministry.In Imagining Abundance, Kerry Robinson offers an inspirational and practical guide to effective fundraising that is ideal for anyone invested in a faith community. Bishops, provincials, pastors, ministers, executive and development directors and trustees of faith-based organizations will benefit from this healthy approach to the activity of fundraising that situates successful development in the context of ministry and mission.