Worship Weblog
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Christian Practices Workshops from the Alban Institute
In 2008, Alban is rolling out a new series of Christian Practices Workshops. Each of these Alban seminars focuses on one of the specific, intentional ways that individuals and congregations bring their beliefs to life through their commitments they share and the things they do together. Prayer, worship, forgiveness, weekday spirituality, hospitality, compassion, or leadership in congregations and in daily life all are activities that deepen our relation to what we hold sacred. Such Christian practices “form a way of life” (through which faith takes form and becomes embodied in the world we share with others.)
Weekday Spirituality: Unleashing Faith in Daily Life
FEB. 29, 2008 - MARCH 1, 2008Facilitator: Wayne Floyd
Location: Marywood Center for Spirituality, Jacksonville, FloridaPeople of faith are hungry today for new approaches to affirm the connection between spiritual life as celebrated in Sunday worship or Sabbath services and the realities of the weekday world. In addition to their essential contributions to the vitality of congregational life, people engage in everyday expressions of faith that are the great untapped resource for the church of the 21st century. In their work settings, communities, and family lives, people are ready for their weekday spirituality to be discovered and unleashed, with the capacity to renew if not reinvent the church.
Events • Interdisciplinary Application • Leadership • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • Permalink
Monday, October 29, 2007
Jim Schaap on commemoration and sacraments at a CRC anniversary celebration
Yesterday, 3500 people showed up in a local gym to commemorate 150 years of history of the denomination of which I am a part--the Christian Reformed Church of North America. The size of the crowd was reassuring to the skeptic in me. I’ve thought long and hard about the future of the CRC--and denominationalism in general--and I’m quite sure there are many good arguments to assert its imminent demise. ... But there are also good reasons to believe that the CRC will continue--maybe even grow--and yesterday’s packed house was just one of them.
News • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • Permalink
Alban Weekly on Intentionality, Practice, and Vitality
Intentionality, Practice, and Vitality
by Diana Butler BassSince Alban’s publication of The Practicing Congregation in 2004, when I first wrote about my research on vital mainline churches, hundreds of clergy groups and church leadership gatherings have invited me to share with them insights on what makes for a good congregation. At every gathering, I include the project’s key finding: “Congregations that intentionally engage Christian practices are congregations that experience new vitality.” The sentence combines three components: intentionality, practice, and vitality.
Interdisciplinary Application • Leadership • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • Permalink
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Dwelling with Psalm 63
In staff meeting recently, we dwelled on these words from Psalm 63:
O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
Book Blogging: Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? - Chapter 4
From Chapter 4 of Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church by Jamie Smith: (previous posts)
Book Blogging: Recalling the Hope of Glory - Part 1
I’m in a small group reading through Allen Ross’ recent book Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship from the Garden to New Creation. I’m especially interested in the garden-to-New-Jerusalem narrative, which I explored in my book Bringing Heaven Down To Earth--and its implications for worship, which I explored in this essay, based on Gregory Beale’s book The Temple and the Church’s Mission. Some notes from my reading and our discussion:
Interdisciplinary Application • Reading • (0) Comments • Permalink
BCL materials on communion
Some of our materials on the Lord’s Supper were excerpted (per an arrangement with CICW) in a recent download from BuildingChurchLeaders.com:
“What can church leaders do to ensure that their congregants have a worshipful Communion experience?” God, of course, has done his part. In this resource, we’ve assembled leaders who are striving to enrich the atmosphere in which Communion is observed—whether it is through architecture, worship, the sermon, or a greater sense of mystery.
These materials remain available at our website under Sacraments.
Interdisciplinary Application • Leadership • (0) Comments • Permalink
Christian Smith on “emerging adulthood”
There is a new and important stage in life in American culture, and it is not entirely clear that the Christian church understands or particularly knows what to do with it. I am talking about what scholars call “emerging adulthood.” This is the time of life between ages 18 and 30, roughly, a phase which in recent decades has morphed into quite a new experience for many. Researchers in sociology, psychology, and human development have been investigating the contours of this new life stage and have recently published some fascinating books on the subject, whose findings are well worth pondering for their implications for church and culture.
One of the most helpful articles on what has become a much-discussed subject--young adults and the church--was John Seel’s ”Recovering the Lost Logic of the Church” ("The institutional church,” he states, “only makes sense if truth is objective, if belief is determinative, if plausibility is communal, and if real presence is uniquely promised.")
Related Posts
Ministering to the Missing Generation (includes related links)
Interdisciplinary Application • Leadership • Reading • Worshipers • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • Permalink
Richard Ostling on religious freedom
From a recent Books&Culture article by Richard Ostling, the longtime religion writer for Time magazine, who will be speaking at Symposium 2008--a review of Joseph Viteritti’s book “The Last Freedom”:
The Viteritti doctrine would “grant people of faith the most generous scope of freedom possible without infringing on public order” or limiting peoples’ right to believe or to disbelieve. He wants to maximize freedom of conscience and “minimize situations in which the state uses its authority to force people to do something they think is wrong.”
The underlying problem, Viteritti contends, has been a “negative predisposition toward religion in the courts.” A “snobbish bigotry,” rooted in fear and ignorance, infects not only judges but other cultural élites. He believes that a wide swath of intellectuals, opinion leaders, and influential media mistakenly suppose that Americans who take religion seriously “are irrational and uninformed, a stupid lot who must be treated with suspicion.”
Unlike the anti-theocracy crowd, Viteritti therefore concludes that the risks from “antireligious sentiment now outweigh the risks that emerge from the outbreaks of religious zealotry that have dotted the political landscape; to put it more bluntly, the threats from the left are more dangerous than those from the right.” He finds that most Americans fall into an ambiguous “hollow middle,” rejecting both rigid secularism and overly intrusive religion. Yet Americans generally favor religion’s role in society, unlike the Supreme Court and government, which Viteritti says engineered secularization of public life and the public schools during recent decades. ...
Events • Interdisciplinary Application • Reading • (0) Comments • Permalink
New blog by young clergy women
From Fidelia’s Sisters, a new blog funded in part by The Louisville Institute:
Fidelia’s Sisters is an online publication by, for, and about young clergy women, with new material appearing on a rotating schedule over the course of a month. We publish short stories, visual art, poetry, liturgical resources, personal essays, reflections, interviews, book reviews, and more. We strive to be a space where some of the professional and personal issues that young clergy women face are addressed with honesty, all the while recognizing that no one “kind” of young clergy woman has a monopoly on who young clergy women are.
Interdisciplinary Application • Leadership • Preaching • Reading • (0) Comments • Permalink
Terry Mattingly on food and faith
From syndicated religion columnist Terry Mattingly:
When it comes to the rhythms and symbols of faith, it’s easy to see the role that food plays, especially in the intense and emotional final months of the religious calendar.
“Food is all about the stories that define our lives,” said Daniel Sack of the University of Chicago Divinity School, author of the book “Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture.”
Related Post
Festival of Food and Faith
Interdisciplinary Application • Reading • (0) Comments • Permalink
JECS on Ancient Church Order Literature
The Ancient Church Order Literature: Genre or Tradition?
Joseph g. Mueller, S.J.
Journal of Early Christian Studies
Vol 15:3, 337–380 (2007)
The ancient Christian texts frequently called “church orders” do not fit this label well, and attempts to define a single literary genre for these texts have proven problematic. One can consider them as witnesses to a tradition of ecclesiological Old Testament exegesis that conceives itself as apostolic. This becomes clear by an extension to all these texts of insights from recent studies on the Didascalia apostolorum and the Apostolic Constitutions. This move makes it possible to group these texts with many others that witness to this same tradition, which maintains a dynamic contact with ancient Jewish exegesis.
Interdisciplinary Application • Reading • (0) Comments • Permalink
JSNT on the Head-Waiter and Bridegroom in John 2
Head-Waiter and Bridegroom of the Wedding at Cana: Structure and Meaning of John 2.1-12
Jean-Bosco Matand Bulembat, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya
Journal for the Study of the New Testament
Vol. 30, No. 1, 55-73 (2007)
This study of the account of the wedding at Cana in Jn 2.1-12 was prompted by reactions to the manner in which Jesus addresses his mother as `Woman’. The literary structure of the pericope is analysed, and the roles of Jesus and his mother compared and contrasted with those of the bridegroom and head-waiter respectively. It is argued that Jesus is the true bridegroom and his mother the true head-waiter in this story, reflecting their status and roles in the divine dispensation. The connotations of `woman’ need to be understood in their cultural context, and approximate those of `mother’, the term of respect with which many African people address women in their societies.
Interdisciplinary Application • Preaching • Reading • World • (0) Comments • Permalink
Friday, October 12, 2007
‘Rise up church with broken wings’
In chapel at Calvin College this morning, we sang ”Shout To The North and the South,” and I was struck by the lyricism and ecclesiology of this verse:
Rise up church, with broken wings;
Fill this place with songs again,
Of our God Who reigns on high.
By His grace, again we’ll fly.
Music • Worshipers • Worshipping Communities • (0) Comments • Permalink
Book Blogging: Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? - Chapter 3
From Chapter 3 of Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church by Jamie Smith: (previous posts)
Interdisciplinary Application • Reading • (0) Comments • Permalink