The Pastor’s Role
I must say that I learned a lot from this class both through the readings and through class discussion. I really, honestly do not have anything that I starkly disagreed with in either. I found it all to be very valuable information for me and this class was extremely helpful in assisting me to better understand the current paradigm shift the church is going through. There are three take-a-ways in particular that helped me to better understand the post modern shift in the church and my role as a minister in this changing paradigm. The first take-a-way is the understanding that there is a shift occurring towards focusing more on the congregational life of the church with more attention on the laity and its formation. Second, is how to plan, as a church and as pastors, to adjust to this shift towards congregational life and how to be better prepared as a postmodern church to be relevant in this changing time. Lastly, I received a better way of explaining the meaning of what truth is in this post modern time.
I agree with Kitchens, Mead, and Roxburgh who all basically say in their own way that one change in ministry that we need to focus on more is the congregational life of the church. However, I think Mead explains it best when he says that the future church must be more intentional in the spiritual formation of its laity (Mead, location 919). According to Mead, the church is moving towards becoming a more missional institution that cares for the needs of the community. Therefore, oftentimes laity will be the ones on the front lines and will need the capacity to minister to people on their own without the help of clergy. In order to do this they will need more directed and intensive training to deal with...
... middle of paper ...
...t. Now I realize that the entire universal church is going through a change and that God is doing a new thing. It appears right now, in this post modern time, that God is showing us that he is more concerned with transforming lives and making his people whole. I agree as we said in class that we are moving from orthodoxy to orthopraxy and I for one think that is a great thing. Now maybe we can move closer to becoming what God called the church to be and that is to be living vessels of his light and love in the world.
Bibliography
Mead, Loren B. The Once and Future Church Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier . The Alban Institute, Inc., 1991. Kindle eBook file.
Roxburgh, Alan J. Missional Map-MakingSkills for Leading in Times of Transisition. San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2010. Kindle eBook file.
Finney, Charles Grandison. Lectures on Revivals of Religion. New York: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2009. Accessed April 21, 2014. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/finney/revivals.toc.html.
It is apparent that the issues are similar at Willow Creek and New Hope, as both have experienced great growth. They are addressing these issues by adding additional services and by assignment of small groups or small ministries to meet their congregation's needs. They have been successful in addressing the issue based on each church's individual needs. Willow Creek has added services to accommodate the service seekers or the un-churched. New Hope attempts to match congregation member's needs through joining auxiliaries or other ministries of the church.
In every sense, the Emergent church is at least, improvisational. It takes Christianity, and not only challenges the traditional ways of the religion, but alters it in order to appeal to a new generation of non-believers as well as believers. The emerging church is used to describe the new and rapidly growing amount of mission Christian congregation. It is a name given to those who believe that God is the truth alone, but the old ways of exposing that fact are no longer useful in today’s society. Such things include worship, prayer, preaching, and outreach. The emerging generation sees these aspects as very flexible features of the Christian church since the old forms of expression don’t seem to have as much of an effect on society today than it did decades ago. In this logic, the emergent church is seeking alternative forms of spiritual formation that are controversial to, and within Christianity, which is making it a misunderstood movement. Like every other type of movement, this effort had just started as a conversation among its leaders.
The Reformation was a decisive period in the history not only for the Catholic Church, but also for the entire world. The causes of this tumultuous point in history did not burst on the scene all at once, but slowly gained momentum like a boil that slowly festers through time before it finally bursts open. The Reformation of the Church was inevitable because of the abuses which the Church was suffering during this period. At the time of the Reformation, a segment of the Church had drifted away from its mission to bring Christ and salvation to the world. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Church had gradually become weaker because of abusive leadership, philosophical heresy, and a renewal of a form of the Pelagian heresy.
Campbell, Ted A. “The Wesleys’ New Denomination.” Christianity Today. 11 Mar 1991: 33-35. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 24 Nov 2013
5. Blumhofer, Edith L. Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture, 1993
With that said, the time has come at OGBC to manage the inevitable transition of welcoming a new pastor. The researcher is an associate minister at OGBC and recognized the need for developing a transition plan to help her church to transition well. Transition is the process of letting go of the ways things used to be and then holding on of the way they subsequently become. William Bridges identifies a place in between the transition process called the “neutral zone”. Bridges suggests that while in the neutral zone people resist the transition because it takes longer (often much longer) than change, and it leaves us in this zone while a replacement reality and a new reality is gradually being formed. The researcher’s church was in the neutral zone for three years until they finally selected a new pastor. The time has come for OGBC to let go of the way things used to be and take hold of the way things have become and then move forward with their new pastor embracing the process for a healthy pastoral transition. Transition is the way that we all come to terms with change. The pastoral transition process does not have to be chaotic thus, this project is develop in the anticipation to make the way smoother for
Richardson, William E., and Dave Kidd. “Articles.” Pentecostal Evangel. General Council of the Assemblies of God. Web. 13 Nov. 2011.
Bolger, Ryan & Gibbs, Eddie. Emerging Churches: Creating Christian community in postmodern cultures (Grand Rapids, MI) Baker Academic, 2005
“Today, God is creating wave after wave of people receptive to the Gospel; more people are receptive to the Good News. However, churches are missing the spiritual waves because they haven’t been taught the needed skills to bring revival, health, and explosive growth.” We need to ask “What is keeping our church from growing?” not “What will make our church grow?” Some places to start questioning would be - first review the pastor of the church; are they being the example? Then to the church leader(s), staff and volunteers; are they qualified? Followed by the programs of the church; are they supporting your mission statement? There are many more question to be asked and answered. However, I believe through the lectures, training and guidance given from pastoral leadership 201 I will be able to answer this question:
I want to say what Philosophy of Ministry means to me, this is my first time attending college, as like so many others this ministry thing hit you at a young age and you began to go through life wanting to know more about Adam and Eve, Noah and Jesus, everyone else in the Bible really don’t count to you or not that important to you as a child, as a child, growing up without a father my mother had to work so we had less time with her too. Now, my mother was working a lot back then so me and my brothers and sisters had to either stay with our grandmother or stay home in the house. At “Granny’s” nothing but church on TV or Radio, so that was I knew I wanted to be a Minister. The way that I am preparing for Ministry is I went back to school to
In an age when culture continues to lower standards of intellect, Marva Dawn makes compelling observations and suggestions for the Church to rethink its’ strategy on impacting society. How do we evangelize without weakening the message of what we are communicating? The majority of her text focuses on the worship environment generally, but later she focuses on music, preaching, and liturgy specifically. According to Dawn, a gathering of believers should emphasize God as the subject and object of worship, challenge each individual to grow in godly character, and accentuate the community of believers (not only in the room, but throughout history as well). Through this grid, she encourages leaders and participants to evaluate each worship element. If these primary goals are accomplished, then worship will not be empty and simpleminded. Instead the worship atmosphere would be held to a higher standard and, she believes, both pleasing to God and attractive to those who do not know God.
I have often been so consumed on church growth that I have overlooked the fact that there is a greater need for growth in faith as outlined in the book Transforming Evangelism. This is a sometimes hard concept for me because success is often measured on church growth.
There is no doubt that the fundamental idea of Church, faith, and prayer lived by the early Christian, needs to be rediscovered among many contemporary Christians. The conviction that the apostles had to preach the Gospel of Jesus certainly was aided by their idea of Church, faith, and prayer. In his book “Catholicism: A Journey to the Heat of the Faith”, Father Robert Barron tries to revive the idea of Catholicism that seems to weaken and lose its real sense. With my understanding of Church, faith, and prayer, I argue that because of the lack of understanding about Catholicism that exist today in our midst, many people fall short about what Catholicism really means. However, it is not my intention to answer this question.
His church is a “good sized” suburban church that has been around for 295 years. He describes the parishioners as having a “broad tent” of theological views. This congregation is open to new ideas and re-visiting the old. They appear to be carrying out intentional missional work in their community