During my tenure as a student at Barclay College, I have been consistently challenged and affirmed in multiple areas of my spiritual life. In many cases I was, it seems, laboring under a delusion that these areas were either totally secure, or fatally flawed in some way that left them beyond the reach of redemption or change. These flaws in particular were brought to light last semester, and by the grace of God I have seen that there is a path forward for me. My own stream, to use Fosters analogy, cutting thought the once barren landscape of my spiritual journey. I have come to see over the course of the past few months that I am neither as secure nor as flawed as I was once lead to believe. I am reminded of God's admonition to Ezekiel, “God grabbed me. God’s Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun. He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”I said, “Master God, only you know that.”He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones: ‘Dry bones, listen to the Message of God!’”God, the Master, told the dry bones, “Watch this: I’m bringing the breath of life to you and you’ll come to life. I’ll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You’ll come alive and you’ll realize that I am God!”1 Just as last semester God got hold of my areas of weakness, it would seem that this semester He is choosing to challenge my areas of greatest security. In reading Fosters book I was consistently challenged to reassess my belief structure about his streams, and I am now in this paper forced to make an attempt at coalescing those challeng...
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...at societal impact we once enjoyed. Like Woolman we need to consider how out testimony on equality, simplicity, and peace fit into the stream of evangelicalism. If we can recapture that passionate devotion to the King and his love and concern for the least among us then I have no doubt we will once again create tsunami like waves of impact on the world for Christ.
I have greatly enjoyed the Foster text. It challenged my thinking on several key issues and I am certain that I will be returning to it in the future as I continue this journey.
Works Cited
Foster, Richard J. Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998.
Herrington, Jim, Mike Bonem, and James H. Furr. Leading Congregational Change: a Practical Guide for the Transformational Journey. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
Integrating Change Models and the Theology of Leadership A sentiment common to almost any organization is that the one fact that remains constant is change. As society changes, and human understanding grows, any organization that maintains a static posture, assures its demise. Churches and Christian organizations are no exception. The gospel may remain the same, but the method for communicating it must speak to the audience to assure understanding. The Christian leader must be prepared to meet this
more on the congregational life of the church with more attention on the laity and its formation. Second, is how to plan, as a church and as pastors, to adjust to this shift towards congregational life and how to be better prepared as a postmodern church to be relevant in this changing time. Lastly, I received a better way of explaining the meaning of what truth is in this post modern time. I agree with Kitchens, Mead, and Roxburgh who all basically say in their own way that one change in ministry
Microsoft is Bill Gates. William Henry Gates III was born in the midst of a scenic Seattle on Thursday, October 28, 1995 to his parents Mary and William Henry Gates Jr. His childhood was uneventful and was well raised. He went to Sunday school at the Congregational church and sang in the choir. He was a Boy Scout but never showed interest for either of these activities. Gates was an unusual child who spent long periods in his room in deep thought. He loved science and showed great skill in the area of math
How much of the historical atmosphere and feeling does the congregation need to experience imaginatively for the text to op... ... middle of paper ... ...s we noted before, the people are conservative. - What are the demographics and the congregational context in which the sermon will be preached? 50-100 members predominantly white, and very traditional worship services - What current issues in the life of the congregation need to be addressed? The issues are that English is a barrier for the
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Branches off further, including Episcopal and Methodist Churches. The Protestant branches off a second time into two further branches. The first group includes Lutheran, Calvinist, Reform, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Unitarian, and Congregational. The second branch is the Free Churches and the denominations include Brethren, Mennonite, Amish, Baptist, Quaker, Pentecostal, and African Instituted. In all, according to Fisher, there are currently nearly twenty one thousand independent church
and promoted Havurot (small prayer groups). Among other things, Leeser produced an Anglo-Jewish translation of the Bible, founded the Jewish Publication Society, and edited a Jewish periodical, The Occident and American Jewish Advocate, which attempted in its pages to unite the diverse voices of the American Jewish community. He also rallied his community to respond to incidents of anti-Jewish persecution around the world. Conservative Judaism Before the Breslau Reform Conference began in 1846
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How is this possible with such an anti-truth world? It is possible when Apostolics alter their approach and how they reach out, without altering their doctrine. To gain a better understanding of this it is vital to search out the different eras leading up to postmodernism, such as pre-modernism and modernism itself. Also, one must search
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Jim Collins’s book, “Good-To-Great”, is about how to structure and manage a good organization into one that produces sustained lasting and profitable results. (Collins: pg. 14) This paper focuses on the concepts from Collins text that any church leader can acquire and apply to a local church context. There are six key concepts processed through three broad stares: disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. Although this book references businesses, its concepts may also