Download or read book The Call written by Cletus L. Hull III and published by Word Association Publishers. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Join me in an adventure of moving a local church in western Pennsylvania from the traditional 1950’s style to a 21st century missions-minded contemporary congregation. In The Call you’ll find insights into the challenges of leading a church into uncharted waters, through the biblical teaching of effective evangelism and discipleship. Discover how the Bible, vision, creativity, teamwork, and more, relate to today’s postmodern churches. You are invited to share in the surprising love of God found just a few miles northeast of the city of Pittsburgh PA. The Call will encourage your congregation, regardless of your size. The Call encourages us to build a church on the foundation of scripture and address her specific needs. With resolve and perseverance, we can minister successfully to REACH, TOUCH, and BLESS our spheres of influence for Christ!
Download or read book A Just Peace Church written by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classical just war criteria were helpful in a world of soldiers in uniforms with negotiated holidays. But just war no longer proves helpful in a world where small bands of terrorists with modest bundles of cash can do unspeakable terror to unarmed civilians. In this new world, war itself has become dysfunctional. What are the theological, political, and programmatic bases needed to become a peacemaking church? A Just Peace Church seeks to locate a position between pacifism and just war.
Download or read book Witness at the Cross written by Amy-Jill Levine and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2021-12-28 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Place yourself as a witness of the cross and determine what your own testimony will be! Experience Holy Friday from the perspective of those who watched Jesus die: Mary his mother; the Beloved Disciple from the Gospel of John; Mary Magdalene and the other women from Galilee; the two men, usually identified as thieves, crucified with Jesus; the centurion and the soldiers; Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Jews and Romans, friends and strangers, the powerful and the powerless, the hopeful and the despairing. The story of Jesus’s death is not something we just read: we think about it, and we experience it; we hear the taunts of the soldiers, the priests, and the passersby even as we hear the famous “seven last words” from the cross. In Witness at the Cross, Amy-Jill Levine shows how the people at the cross each have distinct roles to play. Each Evangelist presents a distinct picture of the death of Jesus. Each portrays different individuals and groups of people at the cross, each offers different images and dialogues, and so from each, we learn how those meanings and messages cross the centuries to any who would come to the cross today. Each Gospel has its own story to tell, all the witnesses have their own memories, and every reader comes away with a new insight. The witnesses at the Crucifixion watch Jesus die, and we watch with them, and we watch them. And we come away transformed. Additional components are available for a six-week study include a DVD featuring Dr. Levine and a comprehensive Leader Guide.
Download or read book Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations written by Robert Schnase and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People are searching for a church shaped and sustained by Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-Taking Mission and Service, and Extravagant Generosity. These fundamental practices are critical to the success of congregations. Their presence and strength demonstrate congregational health, vitality, and fruitfulness. By repeating and improving these practices, churches fulfill their mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Robert Schnase astutely weaves theological insight, practical advice, and exemplary stories into an inspiring book for pastors and laity alike. —L. Gregory Jones, Dean and Professor of Theology, Duke Divinity School Robert Schnase’s words are thoughtful, provocative, and challenging. Any congregation will find encouragement and insight to deepen faithfulness and multiply fruitfulness. —Lovett H. Weems, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Church Leadership, Wesley Theological Seminary Stimulating. Challenging. Uniquely helpful. Bishop Schnase gives us powerful language, rich examples, and practical suggestions for fulfilling the mission God gives us. —Janice Riggle Huie, Bishop of the Texas Conference of The United Methodist Church
Download or read book Holy Envy written by Barbara Brown Taylor and published by Canterbury Press. This book was released on 2019-03-30 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The renowned Christian preacher and New York Times bestselling author of An Altar in the World recounts her moving discoveries of finding the sacred in unexpected places while teaching world religions to undergraduates in Baptist-saturated rural Georgia, revealing how God delights in confounding our expectations. Christians are taught that God is everywhere--a tenet that is central to Barbara Brown Taylor's life and faith. In Holy Envy, she continues her spiritual journey, contemplating the myriad ways she encountered God while exploring other faiths with her students in the classroom, and on field trips to diverse places of worship. Both she and her students ponder how the knowledge and insights they have gained raise important questions about belief, and explore how different practices relate to their own faith. Inspired by this intellectual and spiritual quest, Barbara turns once again to the Bible for guidance, to see what secrets lay buried there. Throughout Holy Envy, Barbara weaves together stories from her classroom with reflections on how her own spiritual journey has been challenged and renewed by connecting with people of other traditions--and by meeting God in them. At the heart of her odyssey is her trust that it is God who pushes her beyond her comfortable boundaries and calls us to "disown" our privatised versions of the divine--a change that ultimately deepens her relationship with both the world and with God, and ours.
Download or read book The Black Church written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series. “Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again “Engaging. . . . In Gates’s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth—as it is in heaven.” —Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and The Black Box, and one of our most important voices on the African American experience, comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America. For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues. In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion. But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.
Download or read book Letter from Birmingham Jail written by Martin Luther King and published by HarperOne. This book was released on 2025-01-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautiful commemorative edition of Dr. Martin Luther King's essay "Letter from Birmingham Jail," part of Dr. King's archives published exclusively by HarperCollins. With an afterword by Reginald Dwayne Betts On April 16, 1923, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., responded to an open letter written and published by eight white clergyman admonishing the civil rights demonstrations happening in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King drafted his seminal response on scraps of paper smuggled into jail. King criticizes his detractors for caring more about order than justice, defends nonviolent protests, and argues for the moral responsibility to obey just laws while disobeying unjust ones. "Letter from Birmingham Jail" proclaims a message - confronting any injustice is an acceptable and righteous reason for civil disobedience. This beautifully designed edition presents Dr. King's speech in its entirety, paying tribute to this extraordinary leader and his immeasurable contribution, and inspiring a new generation of activists dedicated to carrying on the fight for justice and equality.
Download or read book The Evangelical Catechism written by Pilgrim Press and published by Pilgrim Press. This book was released on 1987-10-01 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A resource for confirmation education for confirmation education, this new edition of the original publication was authorized by the Evangelical Synod of North America.
Download or read book For the Strength of Youth written by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This book was released on 1965 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: OUR DEAR YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN, we have great confidence in you. You are beloved sons and daughters of God and He is mindful of you. You have come to earth at a time of great opportunities and also of great challenges. The standards in this booklet will help you with the important choices you are making now and will yet make in the future. We promise that as you keep the covenants you have made and these standards, you will be blessed with the companionship of the Holy Ghost, your faith and testimony will grow stronger, and you will enjoy increasing happiness.
Download or read book Race And The Incidence Of Environmental Hazards written by Bunyan Bryant and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-26 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the poor and people of color and their struggle to take control of one of the most basic aspects of their lives: the quality of their environment. It exposes the fact of environmental inequity and its consequences in face of general neglect by policymakers and social scientists.
Download or read book Who Moved My Pulpit written by Thom S. Rainer and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2016-06-01 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who Moved My Pulpit? may not be the exact question you’re asking. But you’re certainly asking questions about change in the church—where it’s coming from, why it’s happening, and how you’re supposed to hang on and follow God through it—even get out ahead of it so your church is faithfully meeting its timeless calling and serving the new opportunities of this age. Based on conversations with thousands of pastors, combined with on-the-ground research from more than 50,000 churches, best-selling author Thom S. Rainer shares an eight-stage roadmap to leading change in your church. Not by changing doctrine. Not by changing biblical foundations. But by changing methodologies and approaches for reaching a rapidly changing culture. You are the pastor. You are the church staff person. You are an elder. You are a deacon. You are a key lay leader in the church. This is the book that will equip you to celebrate and lead change no matter the cost. The time is now.
Download or read book The Mysticism of Ordinary and Extraordinary Experience written by Harry L. Serio and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-04-12 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are so much more than we appear to be. The “why” of our existence is far more complex than the “how” of our being. Mysticism probes the hidden nature of who we are, why we are, and our relationship to our Creator. We catch glimpses of this not only in the ordinary experiences of life, but also through extraordinary and unusual encounters with mystery. Mysticism is the awareness of our reality.
Download or read book Hidden Histories in the United Church of Christ written by Barbara Brown Zikmund and published by The Pilgrim Press. This book was released on 2007-06-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a denomination that reflects the pluralistic story of American Protestantism. Created in 1957, the UCC has brought together ecclesiastical bodies rooted in English Puritanism, American frontier revivalism, and German religious history. In this book, the contributors attempt to move beyond the four main streams of the UCC—the UCC "historical orthodoxy." This collection of essays expands knowledge about the diversity of the UCC, and connects the UCC with many significant developments in American religious and ethnic history. It explores such areas as: Native American Protestantism; black Christian churches; a schism in the German Reformed Church; Armenian congregationalism's missionary beginnings; German congregationalism; blacks and the American Missionary Association; Deaconess ministries; the Schwenkfelders; the Calvin Synod (Hungarian); women's work and women's boards; and Japanese-American Congregationalists. Contributors include Clifford Alika, Percel O. Alston, John Butosi, William G. Chrystal, Clara Merritt DeBoer, Sally A. Dries, Serge F. Hummon, Martha B. Kriebel, Miya Okawara, Ruth W. Rasche, John C. Shetler, Vahan H. Tootikian, and Barbara Brown Zikmund.
Download or read book History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints written by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book What Makes You So Strong written by Jeremiah A. Wright (Jr.) and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the fortress of Louisbourg fell to the British in 1758, the Acadians of Prince Edward Island (then known as Île Saint-Jean) were doomed to a horrible fate--deportation from their homes to an unknown land thousands of kilometres away. Shipwrecks and disease took a terrible toll during the voyage to France, and hundreds of the approximately three thousand deportees lost their lives. Earle Lockerby's meticulously researched account sheds new light on this tragic event, from its implementation to the experiences of the Acadians who eluded British troops and escaped to the mainland, to the deportees' arrival in Europe. Featuring excerpts from original documents and letters, Deportation of the Prince Edward Island Acadians is an important record of this neglected chapter in the saga of the Acadian people.
Download or read book The United Church of Christ in the Shenandoah Valley written by H. B. Cavalcanti and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2010-08-20 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While congregational studies have expanded our understanding of American religion, little is known about the local practices of a single denomination at its smallest jurisdiction. This book explores how national denominational commitments are affecting the practices of local United Church of Christ congregations inside a single association in the Shenandoah Valley. Nationally, the UCC defines itself as a united and uniting church in its ecumenical work; as multiracial and multicultural in its diversity; as accessible to all in welcoming those with disabilities; as open and affirming for its LGBT members; and as a just peace church in its support of social justice. So, how fully have local congregations embraced these commitments? Might congregations be more attached to their older identities, particularly in areas where the church's predecessors were strongly rooted? Or are the national church's commitments being lived out at the grassroots level? The book measures congregational life in one of the UCC's oldest and smallest associations. Books on congregational studies either focus on a case study of a particular congregation, or large-scale surveys of U.S. congregations that explore aggregate data to explain their work. This book looks instead at a group of local congregations inside a small judicatory (the Shenandoah Association) of the United Church of Christ to explain religious life at the grassroots level.
Download or read book William Bickerton written by Daniel P. Stone and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Bickerton is the founding prophet of the third-largest Latter Day Saint denomination, known as the Church of Jesus Christ. Remarkably, his life has largely remained in the shadows. Bickerton immigrated to America in 1831 at the height of the Second Great Awakening. In 1845 Sidney Rigdon, a former counselor to founding prophet Joseph Smith, accepted him into the Church of Christ. Rigdon soon bankrupted his church and abandoned his followers. Unsure where to turn, Bickerton joined with Brigham Young until a moral objection to polygamy left him once again in search of a religious community. Divine inspiration led Bickerton to form his own church based on the original teachings of Joseph Smith. A visionary man, Bickerton expanded his church along the western frontier, even among the Native Americans, and kept his congregation afloat through financial trials. Yet when an allegation of marital infidelity against Bickerton split his church in two, he was disfellowshipped and his legacy obscured. Biographer Daniel P. Stone carefully reconstructs the forgotten details of this American mystic, fulfilling Bickerton's final wish, as taken from the Book of Job: "Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!"
