Theology: Practical Theology: Liturgy

Almost every congregation is experiencing tension over worship. Many congregations have been participating in a renaissance of worship known as the "liturgical movement" and have reclaimed worship forms that have served the church for centuries. Yet because the church today is operating in a radically changed cultural environment, many people in our society do not understand liturgical worship and thus we must find language, music, themes, and images that speak to the unchurched, spiritually seeking person. In Beyond the Worship Wars, Thomas G. Long discusses the nine characteristics of vital and faithful worship practiced by a wide range of "third-way" congregations--all characteristics that make for vital and faithful worshi

The Oxford History of Christian Worship is a comprehensive and authoritative history of the origins and development of Christian worship to the present day. Backed by an international roster of experts as contributors, this new book will examine the liturgical traditions of Orthodox, Catholic,and Protestant, and Pentecostal traditions throughout history and across the world. With 240 photographs and 10 maps, the full geographical spread of Christianity is covered, including Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, East Asia, and the Pacific. Following contemporary trends inscholarship, it will cover social and cultural contexts, material culture and the arts.Written to be accessible to the educated layperson, this unique and beautiful volume will also appeal to clergy and liturgists and more generally to students and scholars of the liturgy, Christian theology, church history, and world history.

This new book on worship by renowned hymn writer and professor Ruth C. Duck provides theological foundations for worship and explores the variety of ways Christians have adapted worship to various cultures to help them live faithfully and to communicate the Gospel to others. The author celebrates the many languages and cultural settings in which the Gospel has been, and is, preached, sung, and prayed. The goal of this volume is to support good pastoral and congregational reflection on what worship is and does. Consequently, Duck discusses many different forms of worship from several cultures (African-American, Asian, Euro-American) and offers advice on how to read a congregation and define its culture in order to plan culturally appropriate worship. Although the book does not offer prescriptive formulas or advise a single pattern of worship, it includes many practical suggestions for preparing and leading worship, including diverse ministries of music, movement, and visual arts that are becoming more popular today. From worship's theological underpinnings the book turns to worship leadership, forms of prayer, preaching, the sacraments, ordination, and various other liturgies. Because of its emphasis on vital and Spirit-led worship, this comprehensive book on Christian worship will be used in years to come not only as a core textbook for seminarians and ministry students from a variety of cultures and traditions, but also as a resource for local church pastors and laity who are dedicated to the enlivening of Christian worship.

In The God We Worship Nicholas Wolterstorff takes a ground-up approach to liturgical theology, examining the oft-hidden implications of traditional elements of liturgy. Given that "no liturgy has ever been composed from scratch," Wolterstorff argues that the assumptions taken into worship are key to perceiving the real depths of historical Christianity's understanding of God. Across the liturgies of the Orthodox, Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, and Reformed churches, Wolterstorff highlights theologically neglected elements of God, such as an implicit liturgical understanding of God as listener. A dissection of liturgy is not only interesting, Wolterstorff argues, but crucial for reconciling differences between the God studied by theologians and the God worshiped by churchgoers on Sunday.

Almost every congregation is experiencing tension over worship. Many congregations have been participating in a renaissance of worship known as the "liturgical movement" and have reclaimed worship forms that have served the church for centuries. Yet because the church today is operating in a radically changed cultural environment, many people in our society do not understand liturgical worship and thus we must find language, music, themes, and images that speak to the unchurched, spiritually seeking person. In Beyond the Worship Wars, Thomas G. Long discusses the nine characteristics of vital and faithful worship practiced by a wide range of "third-way" congregations--all characteristics that make for vital and faithful worshi

The connection between Christian ethics and liturgy has been on the research agenda for some decades now. Liturgy and Ethics addresses this issue departing from the particularity of the Reformed tradition and its potential for contributing to the discussion. The volume offers in-depth studies of how to understand God's acting in worship, the centrality of justice, and the formative meaning of the liturgy, and relates these reflections to various moral issues and contemporary liturgical practices. In combining a specific theological approach with a broad disciplinary treatment of the topics this volume aims to push forward the scholarly discussion on liturgy and ethics in significant ways.

Across national and cultural borders, the archetype of the fool has played a significant role in how communities interpret and ascribe identity. As Charles Campbell and Johan Cilliers remind us, the Christian preacher, tasked with delivering a paradoxical gospel, is a fool. In a delicate exploration with enlightening results, Preaching Fools uses a diverse representation of fools and foolish actions to show how modern preaching is inseparable from the folly of the cross. Campbell and Cilliers walk the fine line between the ugliness and beauty of the gospel and challenge readers toward a deeper engagement with its unsettling message.

What is the foundation of good preaching? How should preachers prepare themselves to faithfully and effectively address the church? And, just as importantly, what ought congregants, who come to church to hear a word from God, hope for from their preachers? These are often asked -- and often answered -- questions. But Robert Farrar Capon tackles them with a freshness and a frankness that make both the questions and the answers new. In Part 1 of the book, "The Bedrock of Preaching," Capon discusses how essential it is to have "a passion for the Passion" (to believe passionately in the Good News of salvation in Christ), how to overcome the stumbling blocks to genuinely accepting grace, and how to relinquish a false sense of control over our salvation. This part of the book also has important things to say to those of us who listen to sermons and who look to the pulpit for words of grace and hope that are truly meaningful to our lives today. In Part 2, "The Practice of Preaching," Capon concentrates on the mechanics of preaching in anything but a mechanical way. He begins by discussing the ingredients of preaching, emphasizing the importance of not just reading but really hearing the Word in the original Greek and Hebrew, and offers some pointed comments on the Common Lectionary. He then goes on to illustrate how to preach effectively from notes, giving specific, day-by-day suggestions for preparation. He also shows, using the full text of one of his sermons as an example, how to preach from a more fully written manuscript and explains how to move from first notes to final notes for a sermon, again using some of his own notes as an example. In Capon's creative hands these instructions are not just a nuts-and-bolts exercise; they are lively, challenging lessons in preaching that, for all their practical advice, never lose touch with the center of preaching and belief -- the astonishing grace of Jesus Christ.

Trygve Johnson invites us to consider a new metaphor of identity of The Preacher as Liturgical Artist. This identity draws on a theology of communion and the doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ to relocate the preacher's identity in the creative and ongoing ministry of Jesus Christ. Johnson argues the metaphorical association of the preacher and artist understood within the artistic ministry of Jesus Christ frees the full range of human capacities, including the imagination to bear upon the arts of Christian proclamation. The Preacher as Liturgical Artist connects preachers to the person and work of Jesus Christ, whose own double ministry took the raw materials of the human condition and offered them back to the Father in a redemptive and imaginative fashion through the Holy Spirit. It is in the large creative ministry of Jesus Christ that preachers find their creativity freed to proclaim the gospel bodily within the context of the liturgical work of God's people.

Hughes Oliphant Old masterfully summarizes the worship of Israel and the early church and traces the development of worship through the period of the Reformation. He provides a sterling historical study that will be highly useful for pastors and church study groups as well as for scholars and students interested in Reformed worship. An extensive bibliography of resources for the study of Reformed worship adds to the value of this book.