Church as Institution and Church as Mystical Communion

The beginning of church is said to have risen from the resurrection of Jesus. In fact after the Pentecost, the disciples were celebrating the blessing given to Moses at Mount Sinai in which he experienced the presence of God. After this experience, the disciples were believed to be bold, understanding and Courageous. These characteristics till this day are still celebrated on Pentecost Sunday and are used for the sacrament of Confirmation, which is receiving the responsibility of a Christian and accepting the Holy Spirit. Church has been the backbone of people's faith. It has given them a comforting home to pray and be one with God. Today, however, more people are practicing faith outside the church. The majority of followers believe in God and life after death, however, many have lack of interest in the church. Church must be looked as a community of disciples. The book uses a suggestion from a Roman Catholic theologian Avery Dulles. He suggests, "that most appropriate image of the church for our times is the church as a community of disciples"(pp. 157). I totally agree with his suggestion. In order for Christians to find fulfillment in ones faith, one must help others understand their faith. We need to be grounded in grace; by being a Christian community your focus on believing is responding freely to a personal call and

In the Introduction section of the book, The Hidden Lives of Congregations, Israel Galindo states that a congregation is a “corporate relationship organization” (3) and is not an organization. He points out that the hidden life of a congregation would depict the “nature” of a congregation. This further identifies the relationships and faith of the congregation. According to him, the universal principles are followed by the congregations so that “systemic relationships” can work. The leaders learn the roles that they have within the people who are the congregation. The journal will focus on Dr. Fowler’s question “what is the purpose of this gathering we call the church?”

Church a place many people go on Sunday mornings. A place to worship in the Lord and Savior or whichever God the individual believes in. Some individuals believe that church can only be held in the church building. When in reality it can be held anywhere for example the bedroom or a field. A thing that has been noticed is there are many types of people who go that fit in with a certain group. The types include everyone from the screaming child to the strict churchgoers and everything in between. Church may be a good place to go but it is believed that the churches today are corrupt.

iii) On biblical grounds the Church is a community of both saints & sinners. Separation only comes at final judgement. Therefore ‘two’ churches: the essential/invisible church contained within the outward empirical church. (To what extent did this distinction allow for the development of corruption within the empirical church?)

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.

In this paper, I am going to share my ideas of theology. I believe that one of the biggest mistakes I made in the past was that I was afraid of being rejected, so I wrote a theology paper and tried to give the previous COM what I thought they wanted to hear instead of what was truly inside of me. Fortunately for me, even though I was not given a green light in order to see the Eccleastical Council, I was licensed to preach and this gave me time

As to the teaching at Grace, we see it's current condition as the result of men filling a role that they are neither gifted for nor received a call by God's people to fill; coupled with the neglecting of seeking out a pastor but rather choosing to be a self-shepherding flock, and so deprive ourselves off the blessing of obedience to God in that area and working of His Spirit amongst us through a pastor. It is this seeming deliberate absence of a pastor that prompts us to visit other assemblies of God's people.

They give scripture which identifies the importance of unity. Ephesians 4:14-16 shows how the body of Christ should be unified in the midst of diversity. Leaders should work extra hard to keep the church family worshipping together. The authors condemn chronological snobbery and suggest that both the young and old come together. The young generation must grow up and the older generation needs to adapt.

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate how the Sacramental Life or Incarnational Tradition help me focus on my life as a harmonious unit and to illustrate how my life is impacted by my view of worship. In addition, I will give a theological analysis on how focusing on life as a harmonious unit is essential to the myself, the individuals I administer spiritual counseling to and my ministry constituents.

In the first section, we deal with the biblical foundation of church growth, health, and evangelism. In details, he gives three main reasons why we have church in the world. Our first responsibility as a church is to glorify God’s name.

The Hybrid church structure is a hands-on guide that allows the intimacy of small “house church” and the impact of a megachurch to combine the best features of both. Dave Browning who wrote the book on the Hybrid Church, articulates that this church movement has a synergy. The proposition is “buy two, get one free”, which means bringing intimacy and impact strong components together to create a third component that makes the ministry both personal and powerful. The merging of the two together, Browning believes it could change the world. The challenge that Browning shared is getting every ministry to think larger and smaller simultaneously. The small ministry advantage is harnessing the power of prayer and being Christ-centered. The large ministry advantage is the power

The Chinese Christian church in the United States often has ethnic characteristics, but different Chinese churches often have special concentration in the composition of the congregation, which reflects the tide of Chinese immigrants in different stages. For example, descendants of early immigrants from southern China usually have their fixed church. International students from the mainland of China have the church which they set up together. And other "informal immigrants" also formed Christian organizations. According to Aihui Lee, she divides American Chinese Christianity into four categories.

Gilbert Bilezikian gives four areas that need to be addressed when administering the church here on earth, 1. A shared faith, 2. A share purpose, 3. A shared lifestyle and 4. A shared authority (Bilezikian, 1993, p. 195-197). A shared faith is noted in Ephesians 4:5 where God’s people are told to have “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (NIV). Gilbert tells his readers, “every church needs to formuloate clearly its understanding of the Christian faith” ( (Bilezikian, 1993, p. 195). With this written statement everyone within the church will have a common ground from which to govern, with all people knowing what the belief of that church is.

In his hardback titled The Church: Contours of Christian Theology, Edmund P. Clowney writes a systematic presentation about concerning the doctrine of the church. In chapter eight of his book, he describes the Marks of the Church. Clowney writes about the marks of a true church of Christ, which include the true preaching of the Word of God; the proper observation of the sacraments; and the faithful exercise of church discipline.

Within each church, spirituality is expressed in different traditions and is practiced in various ways. In identifying these traditions Richard Foster placed in six categories namely, contemplative, holiness, charismatic, social justice, evangelical and incarnation. Although these traditions are found to be central to our Christian faith each church has demonstrated a tendency to prefer the practice of one over another.