Church is a universal word that can be defined in multiple ways. It can have numerous models and images that can represent the church. In Avery Dulles’ Models of the Church there are five models of church that the author discuses. Church as institution, mystical communion, sacrament, herald, and servant are all of Dulles’ primary models. In Lumen Gentium there are also other models and images that are discussed. This document is also known as the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church. It was created during the Second Vatican Council and is one of the key documents from the council. Some of the images of Church from Lumen Gentium are: the Mystery of Church, the People of God, the Church is Hierarchal, etc. Each model or image of Church has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some models can connect with one another. Church as a herald, the Church is hierarchical are models of the Church that allow people to create an outlook for their life and converse with others who have different mindsets about the Church.
To start, the most favorable model of the Church from the Models of Church is Church as herald. In this model of the word of God comes first. The word of God is the gospel or the bible. The Bible is what is emphasized the most in this model. The Bible is the priority of the herald model. The Church is the messenger of the Gospel. The Church preaches the Kingdom of God. This model is a kerygmatic model meaning that the Church receives a message and must pass it on to someone else. The message is preached to the people. “The Church is a congregation that is gathered together by the word, a word that ceaselessly summons it to repentance and reform” (Dulles 82). The Church always calls on its members to change and update their vie...
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...e Bible to the people of God. The Church is always calling on its people to reorganize their ideas about the Church. The Church as Herald can cannot with the Servant model because the herald proclaims and serves the word to the whole world. From the Lumen Gentium the hierarchical created a group of people that run the Church. Christ sent forth his apostles and successors to continue the mission of God. The bishop, deacon and priest all have powers that are shared and unified through the Church. All of the methods allow me to think beyond my outlook on life. The models also allow me to discuss and talk about the models in a different way. Church as communion has allowed me to create a family in Polish School. Church as a sacrament allows me to see the presence of God in a different way. Every person in the world can see the models of the Church in a different way.
highlights the importance of the sacraments and the clergy, can be seen as a response on
When looking at the common theme that Barth develops in God Here and Now, it becomes apparent for the need of congregation to justify, ratify, and promote the Bible as the living word of God. When and where the Bible constitutes its own authority and significance, it mediates the very presence of God through the congregation. Encountering this presence in the Church, among those whose lives presume living through the Bible’s power and meaning. Barth states that the Bible must become God's Word and this occurs only when God wills to address us in and through it. The Christ-event is God's definitive self-disclosure, while Scripture and preaching are made to correspond to him as a faithful witness becomes the perfect statement according to Barth (Barth, 2003, p. 61).
Philosophy of Ministry: God's desires come first, I must always live my ministry God's way. I must live as a Christian (1 Corinthians 9:27) I must have a proper relationship of surrender to the Leader. In my personal life or in the Church I must understand that Christ is Head and Chief Shepherd (Ephesians 1:22, Hebrews 13:20). The “management” of Church is about relationships with God and Man, not just maintaining a social organization.
It is the concept of a single entity within the Church ruling with absolute power. This entity is not limited to a signal priest or religious figure it may also be a group and thus create an oligarchical structure. This is important because religion can often mobilize people, although when the church become authoritarian and totalitarian is can be dangerous.
A 16th-century movement in Western Europe that aimed at reforming some doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the establishment of the Protestant churches. The world of the late medieval Roman Catholic Church from which the 16th-century reformers emerged was a complex one. Over the centuries, the church, particularly in the office of the papacy, had become deeply involved in the political life of Western Europe. The resulting intrigues and political manipulations, combined with the church’s increasing power and wealth, contributed to the bankrupting of the church as a spiritual force.
II was the relationship with the Church and the world. "The Church is a human
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.
The contemporary Church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the Church's silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.”
for its congregation and the general population alike. The church began to place a larger emphasis on its social mission; priests and other Theologians readily
Finally, the last book of the Bible inspires hope in the lives of the worshipping church. It depicts they day when God and the Church will be united forever and face-to-face. No longer will there be a temple to go and meet God, because God himself will be the temple (Revelation 21:22). The hope for ultimate intimacy with God forever drives the focus and vision of the church to worship in the meantime. Through good or bad, easy or difficult, success or failure, pleasure or pain… the reality of intimate worship with God for eternity gives strength and eager expectation of the New Earth to come.
This essay gives a brief outline of the major developments in the role of the Papacy between the Early Church and the present day. It will cover four aspects. The development of the papacy as a temporal ruler, Papal elections, the Curia and the development of the ‘mission role’ of the Papacy. It will explore how the papacy changed from being an organisation that had the influence to appoint kings and arrange state borders to one with a billion followers. These followers see the papacy as being responsible for the administration, pastoral and spiritual care of their membership.
The Church was organised into a hierarchical system that sustained the Church’s stability and control over the people and lower clergy, by organising them into different groups. First there were the ordinary believers, the citizens of the kingdom who followed the Christian faith. Then there was the clergy, the members who devoted their lives to the church. Each group of the clergy was assigned specific functions by the clergy nobles to help run the Church competently. Amongst all the clergy associates, the Pope was at the top, he had the equivalent if not more power than the ruling monarch and was in charge of all political affairs and administered the clergy. He was able to dictate political laws and even comment on the Monarch’s decisions. Under the Pope, there were the bishops. The bishops directed church courts and managed cases correlated to the public such as marriage, wills and other public predicaments. Priests held religious services that consisted of sacraments, baptisms and the usual Sabbath services. The monks and nuns received manual labour that required helping clean the monasteries and assist the needy. Educated monks copied manuscripts of medieval and ancient knowledge in the Scriptorium. Finally...
The doctrine of the church is ecclesiology, which comes from the greek word church - human beings who are like Christ. This doctrine is a doctrine for the universal church. We sometimes enter a singular way of talking about our culture when the bible speaks in plurality. Ecclesiology gives us the basis of our belief and marks of the church which gives us clarity of what it means to be “one holy catholic and apostolic.” The church bears four marks: Unity, Holiness, Catholicity, and Apostolicity. These four marks are the truth about the church. We must act in Unity because the church is one, 1 Corinthians 12:12 say “Just as the body is one and as many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” The Holiness is a inheritance given to us by Christ. However we can not achieve that alone. As we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, He actualizes that for us. Catholicity is the universality and wholeness the church, making room for people to enter the body of Christ. Lastly is apostolicity which is about the authority and truth, and the authority of the apostles is in their eyewitness testimony of Jesus (2 Peter 1:16). The church teaches about the apostles truth that is true to the gospel of Jesus
One of the most important reasons that led to the creation of the church was the essential need of the early church to have a document which listed the basic beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church. This was created by the authority of the church, the apostles appointed by Christ to lead the church. They had to find a way to spread the church of God, and these creeds provided a method to complete this task. None of the churches at the time had all books tha...