THE CHURCH STRUCTURE
Thelma Grannison
DSMN 620-D02
December 15, 2012
INTRODUCTION
Churches throughout the world teach the Good News in diverse settings. Some churches use a the pulpit to deliver their message every Sunday, while others take a more organic approach meeting outside the walls of the church in several places to deliver the message of Jesus Christ. In America, the mission of the church is set against an environment of secularism. Secular values of diversity and extreme liberty have created a culture of ‘anything goes’ that leads to ambivalence among unbelievers. The universal belief in today’s culture is that if it works for someone, it is acceptable but if it does not work for someone then it can be ignored. The
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In the words of Billy Hornsby, “The attractional church never loses sight of the souls for whom Christ died, with a passion to reach outward to cultures that the church has neglected. It engages these cultures through a relevant, relational approach to communicating the gospel.” Hornsby points out that the attractional church finds it impossible to be indifferent to the cultures around them, whether those cultures are subcultures within the dominant contemporary culture or foreign cultures in other lands.
The attractional church perceives missions as the reason for its existence because it is through missions that members fulfill Jesus’ command to disciple others to the ends of the earth. At the same time, the attractional church uses a fairly traditional structure within which to minister and outreach to others. In addition, the attractional church empowers others through training and leadership opportunities to minister to seekers in a variety of contexts. As such, the hierarchical structure has a bottom-up approach that focuses on the people whom the church serves and works its way up to the top without losing this emphasis. As a part of this focus, attractional churches create inspiring worship services that appeal to many people and intend to encourage members and new believers to participate in building the kingdom of God. As such, the attractional church
In their book The Great Commission to Worship: Biblical Principles for Worship-Based Evangelism, authors David Wheeler and Vernon Whaley contribute their respective expertise in evangelism and worship in an attempt to synthesize the two categories by showing each fundamental imperative of the Christian disciple to be integral to and an outflow of the other. The impetus for evangelism par excellence is the “great commission”
The Art of Personal Evangelism: Sharing Jesus in a changing culture By Will McRaney, Jr. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Academic, 2003, 268 pp., $19.99 paper.
The process by which Scripture has been preserved and compiled is one whose history is worth noting. The early church had many opportunities to share the Good News of Christ via word of mouth, but from the time of Christ’s resurrection until the mid-second century, there had not been a single culmination of writings considered to be essential for the purposes of
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.
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.
Many people believe that that the motivation of the Christian church is to radically “change the world”. However, through his book To Change The World, James Davison Hunter explains how this common believe is a misconception. Rather, he shows readers that, from a sociological perspective, while Christians thrive in many areas of life by reaching others individually, they fundamentally components of creating cultural change.
Church buildings, musical instruments, ministers’ attire, choir robes, hymns, names of converts, schools and curriculums had Americans’ religious, cultural, and economic trademark. The Christianity that addressed issues of life in the American cultural context was transplanted in different parts of the world. Unlike the transition of the Hebraic-Christianity from the Jewish culture to the Gentile world in the first century, which developed its own unique theological, cultural, and leadership identity in a short period of time, the phenomenal growth of Christianity in the majority world has been largely influenced by the dominance of American Christianity. As the result, we have Christian faith that is not well anchored on local theology. And to most of the churches in the majority world, up until recently,
Subsequently, the church has a mission which is to go into all the nations making disciples, baptizing them, and to teach them to observe the ways of Christ as noted in Matthew 28:19-20. When looking at the differences between the missional model and the attractional model is the missional goes out to win the lost, and the attractional seeks to bring the lost in not focusing the cultural boundaries. Stetzer and Hirsch state, “Missional represents a significant shift in the way we understand the church. As the people of a missionary God, we are entrusted to participate in the world the same way He does—by committing to be His ambassadors.” In retrospect, Hirsch cites that, “The attractional model, which has dominated the church in the West, seeks to reach out to the culture and draw people into the church—what I call outreach and in-grab. But this model only works where no significant cultural shift is required when moving from outside to inside the church.” Both have their uniqueness, however, they are designed to seek and make disciples.
This Christian religion, known as the “church of Christ”, is experiencing rapid growth despite the large amount of opposition it is facing. It seems that this is largely due because of the concerted effort that the Christians are making to teach their religion to everyone in the entire world. But while everything may seem
Women play a complex role in Robert Orsi’s The Madonna on 115th Street, at some points exercising power and at other points exercising less power than men. In Italian Harlem when describing a “domus,” the woman at the center is the one actually being described. A domus, according to Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, “constitute[s] a formidable reservoir of power and counter-power which could hold out with some degree of success against the external powers surrounding it.” Italian women in Harlem had no direct power in the outside world, but they were able to use their sphere of influence to leave their mark. The power that women in Italian Harlem have is given to them by the matriarchal society modeled by the church.
In the book, “Breaking the Missional Code,” Ed Stetzer and David Putman lay a foundation for church leaders and pastors to break the missional code that has caused so many churches today to decline or worse, shut their doors. It is not easy to grow a church because there are many factors that have to be dealt with when dealing with people. This book does a great job to connect the dots in showing how churches can achieve their mission to connect the message of the gospel with the community at large. It is also evident that others are equally frustrated, following the exact same model for outreach but with lesser results. The authors go to great detail to show that just because a missional breakthrough occurs in one place that does not mean
It has been said that worship is the core or center of mission. The ultimate goal of any missionary is to bring people (entire people groups) into a passionate, relationship with God. John Piper states,
The idea of spiritual formation has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle of “going to church” versus retaining the understanding that we in fact are the church and we carry within us the knowledge and the skill to be transformational. The role of evangelism in Christian education is to aid in church growth and expansion, as well as advancement toward the salvation of souls.
This course has had a great impact on my walk with Christ as well as my witness for Christ. I pastor a church and teach two classes and for me I thought that I was doing plenty. However this course has helped rekindle my passion for sharing Jesus Christ with people through personal evangelism. This paper will demonstrate what I have learned throughout this course.
Furthermore, it is vitally crucial for the church leadership to clearly articulate its missional vision, which is to be embraced by the rest of the church’s community. The process of spiritual transformation starts from the invitation and continues through engagement and discipleship. This transformational process embodies the missional vision and the language for 'right now ' and 'here '. Surely, the church’s vision ought to be aligned with the missional attributes of the gospel itself, which are 'the good news is for everyone ' and 'belonging before believing '. Our witness should take place amidst relationship and listening. One principle that I consider to be exceptionally useful in my community is St. Patrick’s idea of Celtic Evangelism: establish community, engage in conversation, and invite commitment (2009, 101).