Zusammenfassung
Most congregations today exist in what George Thompson calls the "middle of anywhere." They live comfortably with their surrounding culture, focusing their energies on serving the needs of their current members. These congregations have many strengths and gifts that they can exercise without changing a thing. But Thompson envisions a deeper, more prophetic call for congregations to explore the meaning of being in the world but not of it--a church on the "edge of somewhere." Thompson sees a church that is deeply engaged in ministering to the community while calling on others to commit to doing the same. By analyzing the interaction between a congregation's focus of identity and their stance with the world, Thompson has created a helpful grid for congregations to place themselves on today's cultural map. A congregation that sees itself as existing on the margins of society will look different than one that sees itself as embedded in society. A congregation that hears a call to serve the surrounding community will look different from one that focuses on its internal needs. Knowing where they stand now is the key for congregations to discover where they must go in the future to fully live out their call to be God's people in the world.
Schlagworte
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- „... spirit of its distin-guishing purpose?a pilgrimageNot long before finishing the manuscript for this book ...” „... purposes. Church of the Savior also chose to expect specific kinds of things from those who became official ...” „... , juggling a job, career, family, church, and all the rest. What did it actually look like to be a member of ...”
- „... jobs are available to them—these and other factors have some significant bearing on your church’s life ...” „... of Nowhere are, for all intents and purposes, invisible to society. These con-gregations serve a ...” „... looking for a job, and so on. But these easily observable features of an inner-directed mar-ginal ...”
- „... laborers, doing simple, routine jobs for modest wages. Most of the women in this community are busy raising ...” „... influence. Its pastor wears a handsome suit most days and no longer works a second job. City Council, law ...” „... first American experience, having emigrated directly from their homeland. For others, job opportunities ...”
- „... , al-leviating poverty is one of the church’s three historic purposes, and American churches are at risk of ...” „... prisons, while still others have secured build-ings to use for sleeping, job training, education, and ...” „... themselves, because their understanding of identity and purpose points be-yond themselves. Those American ...”
- „... ; veterans headed off for college or a new job; wedding bells rang; hospitals filled with the cries of ...” „... locations. A 175-acre multi-purpose facility in nearby Mary-land provided retreat space, an old farmhouse, a ...” „... at one overriding purpose: “to be a place where the lives of everybody who touched it could become ...”
- „... their families, and most of the congregation’s activities serve this purpose. It is not unusual for ...” „... to identify with the strange-speaking, strange-smelling folks moving into town to work the jobs that ...”
- „... their jobs are limited in participation at church by its form of government? Our fifth and final lemon ...” „... diverse” dynamics within churches. In other words, the purpose of typologies is not to ‘pigeon-hole ...”