Area of Disagreement The family-integrated church model (p. 182-183) is not easily compatible with the format of Christian Endeavor. The family-integrated model does not have age-specific ministries, but CE is set up in such a way to work with churches who have a separate children’s or youth program. While CE values and encourages intergenerational learning, this happens in age-segmented group. Age-segmented grouping can be helpful because it can supports children and youth to learn, grow, and serve in ways that are most appropriate developmentally and spiritually where they are, while still valuing intergenerational connectedness.
Applications to Ministry
Surprising, one of the sections I felt was most relevant to the project was in the
Pipes and Lee, in Family to Family: Leaving a Lasting Legacy seeks to provide parents with a framework for passing a lasting Christian legacy to their children. Of course, they do so with a decidedly conservative underpinning one would expect from Southern Baptist ministers and they make no excuses for doing so. Pipes and Lee lay out a plan in six chapters where parents can pass on their faith to their children and reverse the trend of them leaving the church upon turning 18. Beginning with Healthy Families in Chapter One and concluding with sharing the message in Chapter Six, Pipes and Lee provide and outline filled with helpful tips and ideas on how families can grow closer
One organization that is becoming increasingly popular, is the new youth church. These churches are made up primarily of young adults; those that attend gain a sense of belonging by their family-like structures and “cell groups”. They also dabble with the postmodern and nontraditional ways of worship, to attract outsiders, and they have a strong emphasis on missionary work.
Evangelism is described as a three-way cord; building relationships, sharing the gospel, and introducing people to community. The authors encourage the Gospel and the Word to stay central, as well as community involvement and helping the needy in the name of Christ. There is a great emphasis on home groups (the authors are themselves home-group leaders), and how this practice makes church planting easier. The togetherness of this practice aids in ones spiritual growth because one cannot become holy on his
In the family-equipping model Strother maintains age isolation, but drastically rebuilds all services within the congregation to own the same concentration of supporting and supplementing families to be the essential disciplers of their kids. Strother uses a diagram that shows the 3 parts of this model, with the goal being a non-secular formation of kids through Catalysts, Content, and Context (Paul & Stinson, p.149). The ministry arrange covers non-secular development and provides six biblically-based characteristics that area unit to be educated and instilled in
When discussing children signing a pledge and making a commitment to be involved in Christian Endeavor, the book emphasizes the need to “Go Slowly.” It urged leaders to take time to meet with children individually to make sure they fully understand and are sincere in their faith and commitment. It says to be certain children are “not attracted to the novelty of the affair” (p. 10). This idea is not often at the forefront of ministry in our culture, which regularly uses novelty to entice children and uses the number of people making commitments to prove the validity of a ministry. Especially in regards to children, who are very impressionable, leaders should not seek to pressure children in any way. I think it’s also important to note the book
At the time of the attempted change, the church followed the model of many successful “Boomer” churches of the 80s – personality driven, weekend service centric, and largely dependent upon disjointed programs for discipleship and leadership development (Rainier, October 5, 2015). While some attempts had been made to bring the staff and departments into alignment, cohesive vision was surface level at best and a focused unified leadership pipeline remained elusive. The staff team was made up of mainly leaders under 50, with the bulk in their 20s and 30s, and just a few older staff. There existed a strong desire to shift the church culture to a more generationally relevant model. However, at the time, the congregation was dominated by older members (above 50), and didn’t retain young families. Finally, while evangelism had always played a key role in the life of the church, there was very little evidence of a
The intriguing analysis identifies the problems of materialism, religious diversity, and Christian denomination’s challenges in an attempt to preserve religious communities and their identities through education. Though the focus is on Christianity, the challenges are equally the same for other religions in America. Argues that the success of these religions isn't that they maintained their identity, but they embraced an American way of life through their religion. Hill’s argument is since the South did not experience patterns of foreign immigration similar to those in other regions, it was characterized list by religious pluralism then by religious hegemony, therefore the thesis of Herzberg’s is not applicable to the South. Employing observation
Another challenge concerning the Millennials is that a lot of these young adults are growing up without attending church. The Barna group calls them the unchurched segment and report that this segment has increased in the last 10 years, from 44% to 52% (5 Reasons). This is a problem because it decreases the chances for new members to join the church. The majority of people that follows a specific religion learned about that religion in early childhood. Students of human behavior believe that “The most significant borrowing occurs in early childhood. Family is thus an important factor…” (Wuthnow 106). If the number of the unchurched segment continues to grow at this pace, in the next few decades, this will continue to be a major concern for church leaders across the Americas. It is a lot harder to try to reach those people that have never attended church or don’t come from a religious background than try to reach those that belong to a church or have been brought up in the faith.
Chapter Three: "Theology of Community and Ministry" Prostitutes are often cast out, missed judged, socially undesired, secretly lived but yet "Favored" by God. Are you a prostitute, are you having an affair with a married woman or man, is the money on your nightstand after a sexual encounter paying your bills? Then guess what, you may think you are counted out, but God just dealt you in! The purpose of this paper will show how following the examples of Jesus in the community will change lives as well as bringing into focus the end game of a prostitute's life, such as Hosea's marriage to Gomer (Hosea 1:6).
This week’s devotional that presented the issue the Corinthian church had concerning the eating of meat offered up at pagan worship service is not an issue we have in today’s church. However, there is the basic application of Christian liberty that was introduced in the first century and is practiced in the 21st-century.
The Metropolitan Community Church located in New York area is founded in 1971. At a first glance, with the limited sight I have, I thought the outside seemed to look like a nursery school with different colors and a flag hanging by the door. However, once someone pay more attention, the building was actually painted with Christian symbols using rainbow color paints, symbolizing gay pride. As soon as you entered the door, on your left was a narrow wooden stairway. On the first level, on the right was an entrance, where they conduct the ceremony. By the door, there were ushers waiting and greeting everyone with a smile, shacking everyone's hands and handing out the program for the month of November until the first week of December.
For the interethnic church experience, I went to St. George Serbian Orthodox Church in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania. I attended with three of my friends Ashley, Cassandra, and Jennifer. My friends came along in order to gain the experience from the church with me. We all had different experiences, but we all felt glad that we went together and to the church.
The purpose of this study is to measure the spiritual disciplines and generational characteristics of Generation Z and how they could be integrated into the ministry at Golden Valley Lutheran Church to engage Generation Z and increase their spiritual maturity.
Relationships are the most powerful tools to make differences in the lives of individuals. They can direct people down a certain path, build different personality traits, and crush or raise the overall spirit of a person. The power of interpersonal relationships is put into use by youth pastors in Christian churches world wide. They strive to develop connections with adolescents in order to help them grow stronger in their morals and their faith in God. The adolescent years are often full of rebellion, confusion, anger and doubt, but youth pastors take the challenge of reaching these uncertain teens and steering them down the proper path. The big question is: just how do they go about conquering this challenge?
As a child I regularly listened to the radio broadcasts provided by the conservative Christian organization, Focus on the Family–both the daily broadcast on family issues and the weekly broadcast of the radio drama for children, Adventures in Odyssey.