Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Institutions & Organizations

A practical handbook, Contemporary Worship contains everything that a congregation needs to plan, launch, and stabilize contemporary worship services. The writers in this volume discuss three formats for contemporary worship: (1) Spirited-Traditional, (2) Contemporary Praise, and (3) Contemporary Outreach-oriented services.

Brief, defining articles--which work well as reproducible handouts with worship teams-- precede each Resource Kit. The resources include sample formats, sample messages that are appropriate for the format, sample skits or dramas, and a database of...

Creative, inspiring aids to prayer in corporate worship from one of today's best known preachers and teachers.

"John Killinger has been helping us to worship the true, living, and interesting God for a long time. John loves words, particularly words spoken to God by those who have heard God speak. This is a wonderful collection of prayers." --William H. Willimon, Dean of the Chapel and Professor of Christian Ministry, Duke University Chapel, Durham, North Carolina

"Lost in Wonder, Love, and Praise is a book of worship resources and prayers that is practical in nature and...

How can we heal the rift between our daily lives and the sacred? How can we live a life capable of hearing "the still small voice" of God while experiencing the speed and sensory overload of modern life? This book is Ware's answer to these questions. She acknowledges that others have addressed the questions. On the one hand there are books which have significant depth but speak in academic or "in-group" language and provide little help adapting these insights to everyday life. On the other hand, there are practical "how-to" exercises which assist in very particular spiritual experiences...

An upgrade to the ground-breaking book that has shown thousands of congregations how to overcome the destructive attitudes and systems that prevent them from focusing on their true mission: making disciples of Jesus Christ.

In this upgraded edition, Bandy continues to explore the meaning of walking with Jesus in the 21st century. Drawing on the stories of exciting new congregations that have arisen within the last few years, he sharpens his portrayal of the thriving church system, demonstrating its essential concern for savvy awareness of the larger culture and fidelity to the core...

Many in our day think that it is no longer possible to have big, strong, vital, influential, mission-minded downtown congregations. Those who predict the end of downtown churches will point to the suburbanization of Anglo populations, the erosion of inherited institutional loyalties, the decline of public transportation, the lack of interest by a younger generation in Sunday evening worship, the deterioration of central city public school systems, the fear of crime, the closing of downtown department stores with the rise of shopping malls, and so on.

While much can be learned about...

Those interested in Christian worship have tended to limit their attention to three areas: (1) the history of rites and texts; (2) the theological meaning of specific liturgical acts; and (3) the nature of ritual speech and gesture. But there has been little attention paid to the interaction between Christian worship and its immediate social context. This book will argue that one of the primary influences on the social context of Christian worship is the pervasive presence of technology and technological process, and that these have had a profound effect on liturgical theory and practice....

The church's mission, argues Reggie McNeal, engages every aspect of life. The front lines of the collision between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness are homes, schools, offices, health clubs, civic organizations, and neighborhoods - wherever God's people find themselves. Equipping the church for this mission can no longer be the responsibility solely of professional clergy. A new team of leaders, drawn from the membership of each congregation, must arise to meet the challenges that ministry in the third millennium will present. Yet where and how will these leaders be...

Thomas Edward Frank points out that the dominant paradigm of many contemporary books about church administration reflects an underlying "theology of progress," a distilling of the gospel into self-worth, a conflation of basilea with market growth. According to Frank, good fortune and blessing are confused; praise and good feeling are identified. This paradigm of success and progress, however, fails to account adequately for the vision of the believers' presence in the world as ecclesia. "The soul of the congregation," argues Frank, is a way of being and being-in-the-world, and not didactic...

Generational differences are nothing new in church. There have always been groups and subgroups within a congregation, divided according to age. Yet with the possible exception of their educational programs, congregations have generally practiced a "one-size-fits-all" approach to ministry and worship. Whichever group is dominant--generally the older members, although it can be the younger--sets the tone for musical styles, preaching emphases, and outreach focus. Frequently the non-dominant groups grow restless and dissatisfied, leaving the church to find better opportunities of service and...

As the twentieth century closes, the cry for equality between the sexes is provoking unprecedented conflicts between women and men in the workplace and in the family. Women of all colors and classes continue to carry out an enormous amount of indispensable, unremunerated caring labor, which at once undergirds and is peripheral to human life--as men have defined it--and therefore without value. Also a Mother protests this definition of work and value, and claims that beneath the everyday scuffles over gender roles and child care lies an essential religious crisis of work and love....