What´s Liturgical Reform?

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.

New circumstances called for re-appraisal of the church: its position and purposes. A pragmatic response to changed

“[The church] lost sight of its true mission and purpose to simply make more and better followers of Jesus Christ. [x]” Stetzer and Dodson agree that “churches desiring a comeback will need to make changes in order to start growing again. [27]” Grounded in scripture, each section intends to illuminate the actions necessary to facilitate a turnaround, determining the status, preparation, and change management.

They give examples from C.S. Lewis when discussing this subject. They quote Lewis with the term “Chronological snobbery”. This term means that while older generations only find value in the traditions and heritage of our faith, the younger generations only find relevance in what is current. They also write this type of separation between the young and old has effectively begun dismembering the body of Christ limb by limb. The authors also put focus on the act of individual preferences through church shopping. This according to Page and Gray, result in the encouraging of churches to offer consumer-driven programming in order to keep members on their rolls.

It was the first time that I felt God’s presence at an annual conference. As odd as it may sound, it is true. Bishop Chow tipped off the conference with an open dialogue about the state of the church. Of course I debated with the young man next to me that it was our inability to attract and keep youth. I argued that our traditional structure has built a fence too high for millennials and screenagers (Generation Z) to climb; making them feel boxed in and unwelcomed. But Bishop Chow quickly proved us wrong. His diagnosis was that the Holy Spirit had left the church. Because we’ve become so entangled with who we are, the Holy Spirit cannot move within the church. He asserted that new programs and initiatives cannot fix a dead church; that we must loosen the chains that we’ve given ourselves so that we can fully praise God. Only then, will his people draw near. I could feel God move amidst the hearts of the conference.

According to the authors, Rainer and Geiger, “simple churches” or dynamic churches, experience a steady increase in the number of members that join their church each year. Churches that experience this annual growth in membership are more likely to have established programs and events that effectively share the gospel with the unsaved and aid in the progression of the church’s congregants’ spiritual development. Paradoxically, churches who do not experience this growth are likely to be “complex churches,” which have ineffective ministries that fail to evangelize and aid in the progressive of congregants’ spiritual development. Rainer and Geiger offer the church leader a

Within the context of American society, we have strayed from the true purpose and identity of what the church was originally created to be. When we hear the word, “church,” we think of a building, a mere location where believers gather together every Sunday. The church of America might believe the essential elements of the church are an air-conditioned sanctuary, ten different ministry opportunities, and a full band to lead worship. While none of these things are necessarily bad, they do not comprise the biblical model of what the church was created to be. The church can be divided into two components: the Universal Church and the local church. Once a person becomes a believer, they are part of the Universal Church, the body of believers

The reality of full churches and choir stalls, lively Sunday schools, and overflowing basements is dead in today's Church. The unexpected has happened. Christ's followers, gripped by fear, are now scattered, or remain silent. Parishes, at worst, carry on blindly, or at best, look for comfortable compromises and expediency. They ignore cultural diversity in general. The rhetoric of denial continues to pour out of parish bulletins, newsletters, and diocesan and national journals. It is status quo.

When considering far-reaching mission and unity, the temporal human mind tends to dismiss God's mystical realities as "too impractical" . It regards earthly impediments such as poor finances, shifting demographics, and outside competition, as insurmountable obstacles to turn the congregational focus outward.  In gazing inwardly, dying congregations tend to revere, venerate, and preserve the mundane elements of Christian worship such as architecture, furniture, prayer-books, and music. When the worshiping church lords the world's temporal realities over God's sacred realities, assemblies suffer natural consequences; namely, aging and depopulation.

In this leadership study case we see the 42 year old first-time pastor Karl facing a new organizational culture at 150 year old Whitney Avenue Congregational Church compared with his previous experience at Community Fellowship church where he tried to initiate some changes hopping that will make a difference in the congregation. After a couple of years teaching at a religious school, he went to seminary and completed all his coursework for Doctorate in Ministry. Now he was for the first time in a full time position as a pastor. Even he was a pastor for ten months at Whitney; he was still considered a newcomer by the “power holders”, which were a few old parishioners of the

Many churches are experiencing economic hardships at this time, and the Methodist church is no exception. In addition to drops in attendance over the last half century, Religion News reports “The percentage of a church member’s income given to the church dropped to 2.3 percent in 2011 (the latest year for which numbers are available), down from 2.4 percent in 2010, according to the Empty Tomb study.” (Burgess) Because of this, many churches are feeling the strains of limited funds. But, there are ways that I believe that the church could possibly improve their situation. The problems include people treating the church as a free rider program, the church being used as a common pool resource, and people acting so that the church becomes a tragedy of the commons. Near the end, a solution will be offered, and it will be explored whether this solution lines up with the church in a normative manner.

In past decades, continuity flourished in Church life through baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and funerals. For many reasons, including shifting demographics and social mobility, such continuity has vanished. Consequently, today’s Church now ministers to people who do not share continually in church life; yet they remain the Church's responsibility simply because they are baptized. The challenge today is to treat all people, both the churched and the un-churched, as people of

In a time where pastoral burnout is on the rise among all denominations, amidst a Church in need of her pastors, some of Peterson’s chastising is well placed, and is aimed at couching some of the issues that lead to the vacating of the office. In general, it is not a conscious decision that causes such strife in the life of the pastor, but the unconscious choice to put time where it is needed, overlooking the utmost need of having one’s nose in the Word, ears set to listen, and eyes searching for the Lord in

It’s a warm Sunday morning coast to coast, as little boys and girls rush to the church that sits patiently waiting for them to arrive. Their parents follow behind, walking just fast enough to keep up, but not so fast that they too look like children. The elderly seem to have already taken their seats, as they like to arrive early in order to obtain their reserved spot only made so according to them. Whether the congregation gathers in a barn or a cathedral, you will always find the same three types of churchgoers: the hypocrite, the seeker, and the day dreamer.

music, language, architecture, etc) are temporal, and therefore, short-lived and disposable. As such, music in particular must be subjected to constant change and revision. It, therefore, can never be planned based on personal preference or the religious conditioning or experience of any group within the Church. Pastors, in selecting music, must never defer to hedonism’s central question (i.e. What feels good?....What is familiar?). Pastors must never allow assemblies to worship according to Epicurean self-gratifying pleasure principles which produce a quasi-comfort for a select few at the expense of the masses whom the worshipping church is responsible