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Importance of Crucifixion of Jesus to believers
Scripture analysis
Analysis of the Implications of the Christian Worldview
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Synthesis
The main difference between two Testaments is that God reveals himself in flesh as Christ in human history. Christ comes bearing a mission that changes the destiny of human races. His coming also changes our way to worship. The changes do not wipe out all the meaning of the previous worship, but to reflect our deeper understanding and appreciation for our God’s ultimate sacrifice for us. As the people of God, we must obey our Lord’s commandments and follow his alike to be holy. We should not take the sacrifice of Jesus, God’s only beloved Son for granted. Through Him, our problem of sin has a solution. Our broken relationship with God has re-established. We become a new community who has the Spirit of God dwelling within us. We should worship in every moment in our lives. In this way, we are practicing daily what Deut. 6.4-9 or Mark 12.29-31 say about love our God with all our heart, soul, and might.
Conclusion
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Many Christians today use church size, wealth, number of attendees to measure church success. Some mega-churches promote prosperity theology to attract thousands of people to attend and offer. Sunday worship with contemporary music becomes the main stream. Many people come to church because they feel good in the worship, want their kids to be in a healthy environment, and can meet with their friends. Church people enjoy communal gathering in every Sunday but rarely attend prayer meeting, Sunday school, or Bible study. These reflect strong individualism and problematic attitude to see church and worship. In fact, it is what Jesus condemned in Matt. 21.13 or what Isaiah wrote on Isa. 29.13. We need to
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.
“About 270,000 religious congregations in the US have combined annual revenue of $80 billion. Slightly more than 50 percent of Americans belong to a religious congregation. In terms of membership, the largest faiths in the US are Catholic (about 25 percent of the population); Baptist (16 percent); Methodist (7 percent); Lutheran (5 percent); Presbyterian (3 percent); Pentecostal (2 percent); and Episcopalian (2 percent). Church membership statistics are notoriously unreliable.”(Hoover’s 2008)
Religious institutions have always been a fundamental piece of American culture, and their influence is evident in many aspects of American life. Especially during the 20th century, the spread of Christianity became more competitive as churches vied against one another to draw in new members. This was particularly evident in the development and growth of conservative Protestant groups. Protestant leaders responded to this competition for followers by developing radically new methods for the worship experience. They used their charisma and entrepreneurial spirit to send their messages to the masses. Protestant leader’s manipulation of these methods of outreach was able to attract many new members to the conservative protestant cause, and encouraged Americans to join these large groups of worship.
Not all-church growth is beneficial. Churches tend to take on the persona of their pastor. If the pastor is an evangelist then they church will produce evangelists, if they are a deeper teacher then the it will produce deep thinkers. Because of this, churches need a team to lead them so they do not become one dimensional, placing the fate of the church on one persons shoulders (Reimer, 2016). A church can experience rapid growth in a specific area but if it can’t compliment that area to make the discipleship process well rounded then cripples the people. A church can’t be so focused on evangelism that it doesn’t spend time making sure that proper discipleship is taking place with the people that they are
Mark’s gospel and John’s gospel contain many differences from the beginning, but both end with Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. The gospels of John and Mark represent Jesus as two different people. The disparity is that Mark represents Jesus as a servant while John portrays Jesus as a divine being. However, one must realize the two texts are meant to read by different audiences during different time periods. Each description presents a particular aspect of the life of Historical Jesus.
All of us have encountered someone in our lifetime – a family member, a co-worker, a neighbor, or an acquaintance – who asked us WHY? Why do we pour all of our talents, all of our gifts, and all of our service into church?
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.
In order to have faith in something or someone you need to be able to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you have faith in is 100% true. If you have believed that the sun will rise each day that is called faith but true faith is believing in something or someone that you cannot see. By comparing "The Sermon on the Mount" and “The Shahnameh”, I will show how different a person’s views are and what makes certain views wrong and what makes others the truth. I will demonstrate in this paper that “The Sermon on the Mount” is a true belief while demonstrating that “The Shahnameh” only focuses on serving man.
... on the person’s particular faith example a Jewish person would belong to a synagogue where Christians belong to a Church or Cathedral. Another misconception of the meaning of church is that it is a society which engages in the rectification of social wrongs. This is a misconception because the church is designed to enhance spiritual development and to follow the teachings of God as a parish community. The nature of churches allows people to contribute to the ceremony. Churches allow input by any member to develop the service.
Christ. Once in the nave one gets a real feeling of awe and the great
In today’s society, Christianity is plagued with many disagreements about how to deal with current issues in society. These problems arise from the fact that Christians have the same fundamental beliefs, but they often disagree on the details. This is the reason why there is a panoply of denominations in the Christian faith. The way that many of the factions in Christianity interpret the word of God can be categorized into different styles of gospel, such as evangelicalism and fundamentalism. One such category that is beginning to gain popularity in today’s society, often taught in megachurches, is Prosperity Gospel. Prosperity Gospel, also called the “Health and Wealth Gospel” by Scot McKnight’s internet article “The Problem for the Prosperity Gospel,” is the belief that if humans adhere to God’s will, then He will in turn bless them with prosperous lives (McKnight). This prosperity often comes in the form of health and wealth according to many megachurches that preach this gospel. In times of economic strife, the prosperity gospel offers comfort in the hopes of having a prosperous future. It is also suspected that Prosperity Gospel has also become an outlet for the people who have a considerable amount of money as a means to justify their wealth. Whatever the reason for believing this gospel, it is important to remember that Prosperity Gospel is just one of the many ways that we can interpret the teachings of the Bible.
In today's world, the Churches of Christ have a few distinctive traits that they hold to. In order to make their own identity:
It seems that a large thread in the study of ecclesiology is the community aspect of religion. “Church is not about a few like-minded persons getting to gether for mutual support; it is about millions and millions of different kinds of persons transcending their differences” (Rolheiser, 115). After reading this chapter I understand how religion is important for the human race because it ties millions and millions of people together. If there was no church, there would be more a large increase in conflicts among ourselves, something the human race cannot
In Ronelle Sonnenberg’s article (Being together in youth worship: An empirical study in Protestant Dutch contexts) she address the community aspect of “youth worship”. The main question asked in her article is “What aspects can be distinguished in the quality of ‘being together’ in youth worship and how can they be understood sociologically and theologically?” while trying to answer this question Sonnenberg and her fellow researchers focused on the social interactions, community experiences and relations within different youth worship gatherings (Sonnenberg, Nel, Kock, & Barnard, 2015). This begs the question “why are community and this sense of being together such an important subject?”; “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”(Romans 12:4-5), here Paul speaks about the importance of this sense of togetherness in Christ, to be as one body. “For there where two or three are gathered together as my followers, I am there among them.” (Matt 18:20), in this verse Jesus highlights the
One of the many benefits of going to church and becoming a christian is understanding your purpose of being on earth and understanding how to live your life with utmost fulfillment and achieving joy while preserving your morals. While all humans are innately built with a need to achieve pleasure the main difference between those of the world and those in the church are the means and ways of accomplishing this goal. The deviation stems from the difference in the types of pleasure each set out to attain. Many of the world's pleasures conflict with our conscience and morals, and the teachings of the church. It's these conflicting actions which lead to many non-christians being dissatisfied and being unhappy. “Many who don’t belong to a church try desperately to convince themselves that they are happy. They fool everyone but themselves. Or they know they are not happy and try to drown their sorrow in drinking, drugs, sports, work or something else to keep their minds off their unhappiness”(Gritters). This dissatisfied feeling leads to thousands and thousands to suffer from d...