First Foursquare Church Of O: A Case Study

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.

Turnaround And Beyond consist of eight chapters that are intended to provide the reader with practical insights and principles from men and women who have led their congregations through renewal. Crandall stresses the importance of leadership right from the start. It is implied that a successful renewal is dependent on how well a congregation is led throughout the process. He analyzes principles from the business world, the Bible, and Church

This book seeks to encourage the declining and stagnate churches to take the example set by other churches that have had a period of decline yet have managed to pull up their socks and regained their lost growth. Stetzer and Dodson call this book the “comeback Churches’ to give the readers

There are many challenges to ministry in today’s world and having a vital and relevant ministry is even harder. Churches across all denominations face drastic declines in both attendees and financial giving. With this as the background, it is imperative that vital ministries seek out opportunities to grow and engage groups and communities that have previously been overlooked, missed or not involved for other reasons including some theological reasons. With this idea and goal in mind, this essay sets out to examine and design a process by which the Churches of Cherokee, Oklahoma can successfully connect with and minster to the new Hispanic community in Cherokee. Using the pastoral cycle method, a process will be designed in this essay to

The lessons I’ve received from transitioning through the church as a child, youth, and adult member have taught me a number of lessons; patience, reverence, and empathy are all traits I’ve strengthened, and they have undoubtably helped me through my high school career. Taught how to ask thoughtful questions, I’m unashamed of my curiosity. Our faith is not always one of direct answers— even our most devoted

Over the last forty or fifty years, the church in the United States has gone through a rather large transformation. In many ways, it probably reflects the cultural changes that have taken place and the church’s ability to effectively reach it, and in Who Stole My Church? Gordon MacDonald writes a fictional biography where, as a local pastor of a conservative, evangelical, and Anglo church in New England, he seeks to help the congregation cope and flourish with this change.

In their book, Comeback Churches: How 300 Churches Turned Around and Yours Can Too, writers Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson report their discoveries concerning 324 churches that made rebounds from five or more years of level and/or decrease. There is promise for the 70 to 80 percent of North American houses of worship that are as of now in a condition of upkeep or decay. Comeback Churches establishes a decent framework for perceiving the issue and will help pioneers in the Church begin moving in the right heading. Furthermore, it makes an extraordinary showing with shielding the requirement for Churches to genuinely assess the wellbeing and welfare of their body. A great guide to any Church pioneers and any individual who should notice that their

Today there are many congregations that are experiencing decline. This decline is evident across all denominations. This should come as no surprise, because all organizations, both secular and spiritual, experience periods of growth, stagnation, and decline. It is possible to bypass this cyclical

This chapter is Jim Lynn’s call to the church to WAKE UP! He uses an organization of a factitious church complied by his many years of observation and personal experience (p. 221). The church is dying from the inside but a change is about to take place. In the beginning, the church was full of excitement, as with any new local body of believers. A building was built, a pastor was called, and attendance grew steadily. The church became a “rock” in the community offering many different programs. “As time went on, the church begin to lose its flavor. What started out with the freshness of new beginnings begin to fade, and the church began to decline in membership.” (p. 223) A number of the congregation became sick with many different diseases,

In recent years, journalists who write about Christianity invariably analyze the slow death of the local Church as if only depopulation has occurred since the 1950s. Pundits blame demographic shifts, popular culture, entertainment and sport, unfaithful parents, and disinterested children. Graying and dwindling congregations typically respond with moderate and insincere programs of Church growth. Analysts rarely focus on liturgical or ministerial reform. Paralleling the returning Babylonian exiles of over 2500 years ago, Christians busy themselves with their “own house” while parishes lay in ruin. Can Christians carry the expectations of the 1950s into the 21st Century without

The reason behind this study is to find out a strategy to be used for replanting a church in the United States, Jackson County, Alabama in a town known as Woodville. The study will put into consideration whether a certain kind of individual can show propensity on a contextual basis towards replanting of a new church through the exploration of distinctive of the people in this town from a cultural stand and also the church planting history in a cultural and geographical context. The study will also involve the determination of demographic research and resources exploration that will be enough for the replanting of a new church in Woodville, Alabama.

61% of WPA’s churches have fewer than 50 weekly attendees. The WPA’s attendance has declined by 1,449 per year since 2001, while the overall population has declined by 8,819 people per year. Furthermore, it has become harder to attract new members as it now takes 17 attendees to gain one new member. Yet, larger churches are able to mitigate this concern. While Sunday school participation has declined 1% every year, the retention rate of children aging through Christian formation groups has increased. Last, 68% of millennials prefer medium sized churches.

Steering Through Chaos serves as a personal mentoring experience where leaders can experience the challenges and victories of organizational change vicariously through Pastor Scott Wilson's narrative of church growth. The underlying premise of the book is that great leaders do not lead through change, instead, they steer their organizations into the change process. This exercise rests on the leader's proficiency in discerning phases of organizational development and managing the potential energy of present growth to catapult the organization into another growth cycle. One's aptitude for predicting and implementing growth renewal is contingent on the leader's ability to continually increase their capacity for leadership, impart the vision and core values of the organization to a guiding coalition, and minimize the frustration of

Maybe the following scenario sounds familiar. Christ Lutheran Church saw significant growth in the late 1970’s. The older members remember those glory days and often dream of recapturing that glory. It was the time in their congregations history that every single program and event seemed to work. Whether is was the Ladies' Aid sewing circle or the men's work day. They were never at a loss for volunteers and the building was abuzz with activity. Now things are different. The Ladies sewing circle is down to a faithful few and younger women are too occupied with work, their careers and trying to keep up with busy sports schedules to have time to sew. You schedule a work day and only Hank and Fred who are in their late 70's show up with their

This five-step process begins by creating a definition for what it is we are addressing as disciples. It’s important to ask the question “what is…” because it helps us distinguish from other topics that are closely related. For example, if we are talking about what discipline is, we would want to distinguish if we are speaking about the punishment of a child, the act of training in a habitual manner, or a branch of knowledge. Our world is a very complicated, intricate, and interwoven place. Though people often want things to be straightforward, they’re not always that simple. It’s important to define exactly what we’re talking about in order to understand the topic as clearly as possible.