Center Church Summary

The Church I selected to evaluate is called Parkview Christian Church. Furthermore, both Churches before their inception the founder's sort guidance from God above to reach people for Christ. The concept of the Tinley Park Church of Christ (currently name Parkview Christian Church) originated in 1948 with two women on a train headed to Chicago. These two women discussed and prayed about how they could be a part of God’s plan to implement the lords work in their community. Later, after they arrive at their destination started a prayer assembly that kept expanding. Consequently, due to their increase in membership on “April 15, 1951” they formed a storefront church called Tinley Park Church of Christ (currently Parkview Christian Church). Moreover,

On Sunday, May 14th 2017 at 9:00am, I attended a worship service at Grand Rapids First Church.

I chose to do my religious ethnographic study at my home church, Tabernacle Baptist Church in Youngstown, Ohio on Sunday, May 8, 2016. Tabernacle is an 112-year-old historic Black Baptist church located on the lower Northside of Youngstown surrounded by a mixed income housing development, homeless shelter, Youngstown State University, and St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. I would say the average age of a Tabernacle member is 55 years old. About 70% of the members at this church are “middle-class” families. Until about five years ago, its membership was almost exclusively middle class. There has seen an influx of membership in working class individuals and students since the arrival of Tabernacle’s young, vibrant pastor, Rev. Christopher McKee, Jr., three years ago. The church is attentive to the needs of this demographic but remains true to its historic Black Baptist church roots. The church previously struggled with this conundrum until it came to the reality that an exclusivist mindset around worship is detrimental to the body of Christ when it did not have a pastor for over three years. The church was dying because no one was welcome to it and it did not have a leader. Though it was difficult, this reassessment was beneficial in making Tabernacle more relevant and welcoming to the community it is blessed to serve.

Galindo analyzes that the fundamental “mission” of a congregation is the same as any other congregation that exists in any part of the world. He argues that though every congregation has a mission and a vision, at the same time, it shares a basic common mission. (43) This reminds me of my home church The First Church of Evanston and my Field Site, The Evanston Vineyard Church. Both churches have a common mission of welcoming people to the church, irrespective of their ethnic, cultural, racial, and economic and, gender backgrounds. The mission is to help people be received in the house of God with due and deserved Christian love so that they feel loved and welcomed. Both these churches encourage church attendees to attend the service and receive the Eucharist.

His primary church leadership experience came from a fifteen-year pastoral role, which he held in an urban church in Melbourne, Australia. During this time, he concluded that the common church growth model that depended on attracting people to an existing church building was becoming increasingly ineffective. As an alternative, Hirsch created a worship experience in a café in an area that was frequently visited by the unchurched. He writes favorably about an Emerging Missional Mode in contrast to the Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Mode of reaching the world. (page 64)

Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis emphasizes the two overarching principles that govern the practice of church and mission, that is: Being gospel centered and being community centered, where the content of our message is the gospel, and the context of our message the Christian community. Only when those principles are put into practice does the Word is carried away, with the mission of the church being carried out and the mission of the church of making relationships a priority is carried out.

Victory Baptist Church is a case study of revitalization. It serves to show that it is possible that younger churches can become complacent very quickly when they experience growth at such an awesome rate. Victory Baptist Church seems to have a promising future in sight. One of the main goals of the associate pastor is to keep a sense of urgency and change occurring. Most of all, he know that this work cannot be done without the help of the Holy

I joined the staff of the Carolina Missionary Baptist Church in March 2002 as a church administrator. My first major responsibility was to complete the development and construction of the Family Life Center. Although, I had worked on development projects in another County before, I had not actually managed the construction of a building and certainly did not know the process in Prince George’s County Maryland where the church is currently located. There was an enormous amount of knowledge for me to gain. My first assignment was to develop a detailed plan. The initial undertaking in the plan was to learn the Construction process.

In trying to get a solution to this trend in the churches, the high profile authors, Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson did a survey of 300 churches from different denominations (10) that had been witnessed to have a significant growth after a tremendous decline. This review looks at their book - “Come Back churches”- the strengths and weaknesses as well as its applicability.

Keller begins his book by giving the reader a little insight into his personal ministry. He writes that the number one stumbling block for people when they consider religion is exclusivity. He then goes on to agree, saying that the exclusive nature and teachings of some religions are off-putting. In a secular worldview there are three ways to deal with this: outlaw religion, condemn religion, or keep religion private. However, Keller’s next point is a rather important one: Christianity can save the world. Dr. Keller teaches that Christianity in its purist form is not an exclusive religion; rather it is a religion that is open to any and all to join.

Often, pastors think within the four walls of the church, and rightfully so, when they look at their ministry. However, getting involved in community events, i.e., city commission meetings, business leaders, local stores, and business, etc., are important to change the culture around the church. Trull and Carter

May 1, 2016, the Mt. Olive Baptist Church, located in Greenwood (S.C.) County will celebrate its 142nd church anniversary. Many years Mt. Olive have been a church that loved people, gave without limits and took great care of its members. The last five of those one hundred and forty-two years, I have been honored to serve as pastor of this great church. Although this is a great church, Mt. Olive and many churches like it are plagued with a disease that has slowly, but surely, causing the church to drift further away from God and fall deeper into the ways of the world. This epidemic is known as “tradition”. Churches that are bound by tradition and not led by the Holy Spirit will find themselves missing the mark of what God has called us to do. The bible is filled with instructions for the church, but as Christians and Disciples of Christ, Matthew 28 is the foundation upon which we should be operating on in the church as well as in our lives. The Great Commission challenges us to “go, teach and preach to all nations.” Traditional churches will allow church tradition to dictate biblical doctrine. It will allow the church to argue about who’s right instead of what’s right. Sadly, church success has been based on structure and finances rather than saving lost souls.

Keller presents another danger in the definition of contextualization. It is the danger of not contextualization at all. Contextualization must be done consciously. It is important to properly contextualize the gospel to the culture, we must be aware of the way how deeply culture affects the way we perceive things. Keller, also and foremost, regarding the lack of cultural awareness leads to distorted Christian living and ministry. He said “an ability to see one owns enculturation has other results”. They used the method of one fit all. Keller point out this statement if we never deliberately think through raise rightly contextualize gospel ministry to a new culture, we will unconsciously be deeply contextualized to some other culture. As a

Thank you for your post. My reply deals mainly with the difficulty of ministering and retaining the nonbelievers in our church. You have proposed for solution an appropriate theological vision for our city that seeks to be mission center, attracting, teaching, and teaching both believers and nonbelievers towards a deeper relationship with God through Jesus Christ. I do not have any problem with that. However, you may have a good theological vison and still fail regarding maintaining the nonbelievers in your church. The development of a core program that sustains your theological vision becomes necessary in that case. In chapter twenty-three, Keller present the way to connect people to God. It is mainly in the way we conduct our worship services.

The emerging church movement consists of a diverse group of people who identify with Christianity, but who feel that reaching the postmodern world would requires it to radically reshape the chruch’s beliefs and practices to conform to postmodernism.[14]