Download or read book Congregations in America written by Mark Chaves and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More Americans belong to religious congregations than to any other kind of voluntary association. What these vast numbers amount to--what people are doing in the over 300,000 churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples in the United States--is a question that resonates through every quarter of American society, particularly in these times of "faith-based initiatives," "moral majorities," and militant fundamentalism. And it is a question answered in depth and in detail in Congregations in America. Drawing on the 1998 National Congregations Study--the first systematic study of its kind--as well as a broad range of quantitative, qualitative, and historical evidence, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the most significant form of collective religious expression in American society: local congregations. Among its more surprising findings, Congregations in America reveals that, despite the media focus on the political and social activities of religious groups, the arts are actually far more central to the workings of congregations. Here we see how, far from emphasizing the pursuit of charity or justice through social services or politics, congregations mainly traffic in ritual, knowledge, and beauty through the cultural activities of worship, religious education, and the arts. Along with clarifying--and debunking--arguments on both sides of the debate over faith-based initiatives, the information presented here comprises a unique and invaluable resource, answering previously unanswerable questions about the size, nature, make-up, finances, activities, and proclivities of these organizations at the very center of American life.

Download or read book The Congregationalist written by and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 1760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Part Time is Plenty written by G. Jeffrey MacDonald and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Churches experiencing numerical and financial decline may dread the day when they can no longer afford a full-time pastor. Freeing up funds that would go to a full-time salary sure would help the budgetmaybe even enough to turn things aroundbut is it even possible to run effective ministries with just a half- or quarter-time professional? Journalist and part-time pastor Jeffrey MacDonald says yeschurches can grow more vibrant than ever, tapping into latent energy and undiscovered gifts, revitalizing worship, and engaging in more effective ministry with the community.Readers get a much-needed playbook forhelping congregations to thrive with a part-time ministry model. They learn to see the model in a new light: to stop viewing part-time as a problem to be eradicated and to instead embrace it as a divine gift that facilitates a higher level of lay engagement, responsibility, playfulness, and creativity.

Download or read book The Congregationalist and Advance written by and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 1756 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Congregationalist and Christian World written by and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 1026 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Southport Congregational Church Southport Connecticut March 7 1843 November 30 1915 written by Southport (Conn.). Southport Congregational Church and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Outgrowing the Ingrown Church written by C. John Miller and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 1986 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book for pacesetters -- church leaders who desire to help their churches break free of the things that turn them in on themselves. It is a masterly mix of biblical principle, objective analysis, and personal experience.

Download or read book Singing the Congregation written by Monique M. Ingalls and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-17 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary worship music shapes the way evangelical Christians understand worship itself. Author Monique M. Ingalls argues that participatory worship music performances have brought into being new religious social constellations, or "modes of congregating". Through exploration of five of these modes--concert, conference, church, public, and networked congregations--Singing the Congregation reinvigorates the analytic categories of "congregation" and "congregational music." Drawing from theoretical models in ethnomusicology and congregational studies, Singing the Congregation reconceives the congregation as a fluid, contingent social constellation that is actively performed into being through communal practice--in this case, the musically-structured participatory activity known as "worship." "Congregational music-making" is thereby recast as a practice capable of weaving together a religious community both inside and outside local institutional churches. Congregational music-making is not only a means of expressing local concerns and constituting the local religious community; it is also a powerful way to identify with far-flung individuals, institutions, and networks that comprise this global religious community. The interactions among the congregations reveal widespread conflicts over religious authority, carrying far-ranging implications for how evangelicals position themselves relative to other groups in North America and beyond.

Download or read book The Southport Congregational Church Southport Connecticut March 7 1843 November 30 1915 written by Southport Congregational Church (Southport, Conn.) and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Brotherhood written by and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Christian Nurture written by Horace Bushnell and published by . This book was released on 1861 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Presbyterian Church Within the Field of the Presbytery of Westchester Synod of New York written by William James Cumming and published by . This book was released on 1889 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Old Silver of American Churches written by Edward Alfred Jones and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 958 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book History written by Alvah P. French and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Panoplist and Missionary Herald written by and published by . This book was released on 1819 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vols. for Jan. 1819-Dec. 1820 include a section called: Missionary herald.

Download or read book Plan of Union and Congregational Churches of Christ in the Middle Atlantic States written by Richard Henry Taylor and published by Taylor Publishing Company (TX). This book was released on 2005 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A directory of Congregational and Plan of Union Churches in the states of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania." -- Verso t.p.

Download or read book The Hidden Lives of Congregations written by Israel Galindo and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with crisis, lack of direction, or just plain "stuckness," many congregations and their leaders are content to deal only with surface issues and symptoms—only to discover that the same problems keep recurring, often in different, and more serious, ways. In The Hidden Lives of Congregations, Christian educator and consultant Israel Galindo takes leaders below the surface of congregational life to provide a comprehensive, holistic look at the corporate nature of church relationships and the invisible dynamics at play. Informed by family systems theory and grounded in a wide-ranging ecclesiological understanding, Galindo unpacks clearly the factors of congregational lifespan, size, spirituality, and identity and shows how these work together to form the congregation’s hidden life. He provides useful tools for diagnosing and understanding how one’s congregation fits into the various categories he names and suggests what leadership skills are necessary to get beyond the impasse of surface issues and help the congregation achieve its mission. The Hidden Lives of Congregations provides one of the most far-reaching looks into the invisible nature of faith communities written in recent years. For seminaries and divinity schools, it provides a standard text for getting a solid start in congregational practices; for experienced pastors, it provides support for renewing ministry; for lay leaders and committees, it offers insight to deepening mutual ministry. Israel Galindo has written an indispensable manual that leaders will return to repeatedly for new wisdom and guidance