Christ Universal Temple Celebrates 60th Anniversary Rev. Dr. Derrick B. Wells Leads Mega Church Founded by Rev. Johnnie Colemon into the Future Chicago, IL (September 28, 2016) – Christ Universal Temple (CUT), the first mega church built on Chicago’s South Side is proudly celebrating its 60th anniversary. Founded by the late Rev. Johnnie Colemon, a pioneer in the New Thought movement, Christ Universal Temple’s congregation grew tremendously under her leadership and was the impetus for the creation of three other churches, an institute, and an academy named for her. Rev. Dr. Derrick Wells is the current senior pastor of CUT. Having grown up in Christ Universal Temple prior to going into the military and attending college, he is
...9, 1997, Rev. Miles preached his last sermon at HCC. Since our newly selected minister, Rev. Kurt A. Kirchoff, was not scheduled to arrive until mid August, Romi Chaffee - long-time HCC member and ordained UCC minister, provided pastoral care and Sunday sermons for this interim six-week period. Finally the Kirchoff family arrived, and Rev. Kirchoff preached his first sermon at our church on August 17, 1997.
Mead, Loren B. The Once and Future Church Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier . The Alban Institute, Inc., 1991. Kindle eBook file.
Southland Christian Church, one of several worship centers in the United States that has earned the moniker “Six Flags over Jesus,” is Lexington’s largest megachurch. With a weekly attendance of 8,000 people and an operating budget that supports a staff of over eighty members, Southland far exceeds most U.S. congregations in terms of financial resources and social clout. In recent years, popular and scholarly studies have attempted to situate the megachurch movement within a broad cultural context. Although the majority of these analyses dispute the precise definition of a megachurch, most distinguish these multiplex sanctuaries from smaller worship communities by using the same criteria—i.e. weekly attendance, campus acreage, annual budget, etc.—that megachurches themselves draw on to represent their own success. [2] However, the essence of a megachurch is not its large buildings, but rather the theology of consumption that informs its programming.[3] In this way, a megachurch ethos has infiltrated even the smallest congregations in the United States and has helped to solidify Christianity’s inextricable connection to consumer capitalism. To those who see megachurches as symptomatic of a flawed Christianity, market-minded church growth confounds one of the faith’s oldest dualities, the contradiction of living in the world without conforming to its ways, as Paul puts it in Romans 12. Megachurches at once reject “the world” and participate in it by seeking to win the lost and wow the consumer at the same time.
In The Meaning of Jesus N.T. Wright and Marcus Borg present different views on issues relating to how Jesus is viewed. While Borg and Wright do agree on central ideals of Christianity, Borg tends to have more liberal views, whereas Wright holds more conservative views.
The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity written by Philip Jenkins looks over religion as a whole in the future. Philip Jenkins was a Distinguished Professor of History in 1973 and was the Co-Director for Baylor's Program on Historical Studies of Religion, he has studied the Bible and the Quran. The main religion being Christianity, as it flows South to other countries such as Central America and southern Asia and Africa. Jenkins also covers “The Rise of Christianity” where he predicts that it will increase in the coming years. The world would be moving from secularism to non-secular as the Northern states and countries are urbanized. The Southern countries are not urbanized, they believe in the practice of spirituality. In the Next Christendom, Jenkins also predicted that there will be a big population growth in the next coming years as Christianity spreads. Christianity as a whole can be adapted to many different cultures, as it is not as strict as many other religions such as Muslims. In other religions you would have to be
The True Temple of Solomon in Chicago, Illinois, was established in 1950 as seen on the Church’s website. Prophet Peter Banks, is the founder of this church. In the religion that he preaches he claims that he and his followers are a form of Christianity. After Prophet Peter passed away his grandson Prophet John, was left to take control of the Church and all other property that corresponded with the church. From 2000 until present day Prophet John has been growing as activist in the south-side neighborhoods surrounding his church. Many fundraisers and food drives have been held over the years to help the ...
Mills, Jeannie. Six Years With God: Life Inside Rev. Jim Jones's Peoples Temple. New York: A&W Publishers, 1979.
The original church was built in 1804 and was for both white men and Indians alike. The first preacher was Joseph Brady who was pastor for 17 years. It wasn't a greatly populated area but people came from miles around for the services. As the settlement grew so did the congregation and they soon built a new church on High Street in 1841. Even with the main church there were still occasional services held in the old one until is was blown down by a storm in 1866 (Hein, 957).
The book Under the Feet of Jesus by Helena Maria Viramontes shows you the story of Estrella and her family and the struggles they face as migrant workers. Among all the symbolism in the book the one that stand out the most is Petra’s statue of Christ, which symbolizes the failure of religion and the oppressive nature of the Christian religion especially in minorities. Throughout the book, Estrella’s mother, Petra relies on superstitions and religion to get her through the hardships in life. In tough times, she turns to the statue and prays for guidance. Her thirteen-year-old daughter Estrella is the first of her family to realize that she needs to stop relying on religion and take control of her life. This brings in a wave of self-empowerment, not only for Estrella but eventually for all the characters as well. In the book, you’re able to see how religion exemplifies the failures of religion in minorities and how it hinders the growth of the characters while helping some of them.
Most of the characters in the story have ambiguous tales, but the statement of the woman who has come to the Shimizu temple, also known as the wife of the murdered man, is one of the most controversial. Based on the information from the testimonies of the dead husband and Tajomaru, its deduced she was violated in some way by Tajomaru. She goes through traumatic events that make her account untrustworthy. For example, she gives a radically, contradicting detail about her husband on page 5, “Beneath the cold contempt in his eye, there was hatred. Shame, grief, and anger...I don’t know how to express my heart at that time”. Contrary, her mother, describes her son-in-law “of gentle disposition, so I am sure he did nothing to provoke the anger of
As a leader in our church, after attending the program in Clinical Pastoral Education, I
The Canterbury Cathedral was built first in 597AD by St. Augustine. He was sent from Rome as a missionary to introduce the bible in England where his mission was complete when he baptized the local Saxon king, Ethelbert into Christianity. By 602AD St. Augustine was then given a seat as the first Archbishop of a Church at Canterbury which had been a place of worship during Roman occupation of Brittan rehallowed by the missionary saint. This was a momentous event in the timeline of the Canterbury Cathedral as the Archbishop was the most senior religious figure in the land and was based at the Cathedral, giving a huge significance at both a religious and political level in medieval times; it became a place of peace and power.2
The Baptist Bible Fellowship International has done great things throughout the many years of its existence. The reason for the group’s success has been through missions, evangelism, Bible Colleges, and church planting. In the 1950’s the World Baptist Fellowship ruled the Baptist scene. During the era of the WBF there was a conflict that arose as J. Frank Norris attempted to overthrow G.B. Vick’s presidency at his Bible College. Norris desired to be president of the college that Vick established. Norris attempted to push Vick out by spreading rumors and causing dissension regarding Vick’s character among the students that attended the college. Jeffery D. Lavoie writes in, Segregation and the Baptist Bible Fellowship, that G.B. Vick aided a “movement” for a new fellowship after being removed from his presidency by J. Frank Norris. When about one hundred pastors decided leave the WBF and start a new fellowship. With the leadership of Vick and the other pastors, a brand new fellowship called the Baptist Bible Fellowship was created in May 1950 (Lavoie 2). The WBF was the most prominent fellowship among Baptist pastors, and slowly after the BBF was formed, the WBF faded away. To this day is still existing and running as a missions agency.
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
Evans devotes this chapter to giving specific ways to start a health care ministry in the local church. The author says that Denis Duncan, a British theologian, suggest three priorities in a healing ministry. (1) Form a group to intercede weekly for those in need. (2) Organize a Bible study centered on faith and healing topics. (3) The leadership is to preach and teach on the function and role of the church (p. 176).