This volume provides a theoretically- and empirically-grounded study of the significance of landscape, its intersection with cultural heritage, and associated implications for tourism, in Christian pilgrimage. It provides an international and interdenominational perspective on these issues, drawing on a wide range of examples and using three detailed case studies: Meteora, Greece; Subiaco, Italy; and the Isle of Man, British Isles. These case studies have been chosen for their international and denominational diversity, as well as rich landscape and heritage contexts. They include Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Ecumenical/ Protestant denominations, incorporating different Christian theologies, practices and perspectives on the nature and purpose of pilgrimage. None have received significant attention within pilgrimage literature and thus provide a wealth of new comparative data to evaluate in relation to existing studies of Christian pilgrimage. They draw on rich participant experiential accounts and interviews with clergy, laity and local stakeholders.

The volume provides analysis of this original data which is inflected by careful attention to theoretical and conceptual engagement with literature on mobilities, sacred place and practice, place-temporalities, aesthetics, embodiment and performance, "communitas," emotion and affect, theology and spiritualities, multi-faith and post-secular society, cultural heritage, consumption and commodification, and the pilgrim-tourist continuum.

Offers a lively blend of liturgical history, sacramental theology, and practical hints to help parish altar guilds carry out their ministry.

Paul Bradshaw, one of the world's foremost scholars on the history of Christian liturgy, has shared this expertise in several works that have become standard texts for students of liturgy. In Rites of Ordination, Bradshaw turns his attention to the ways that Christians through the ages have understood what it means to ordain someone as a minister and how that has been expressed in liturgical practice. Bradshaw considers the typological background to ordained ministry some have drawn from the Old Testament and what ministry meant to the earliest Christian communities. He explores the ordination rites and theology of the early church, the Christian East, the medieval West, the churches of the Reformation, and the post-Tridentine Roman Catholic Church.

Worship professor and practitioner Constance Cherry shows how to create services that are faithful to Scripture, historically conscious, relevant to God, Christ-centered, and engaging for worshipers of all ages in the twenty-first century. More than 150 colleges and seminaries have used or currently use the first edition as a required text. In this new edition, each chapter has been substantially updated and revised, including illustrations, key terms, examples, technological references, and suggested resources for further reading. A new chapter on global worship and a new appendix on live-streamed worship are included.

Exploring how the Bible may be appropriately used in practical and public theology, this book looks at types of modern practical theology with specific emphasis on the use of the Bible. Bennett juxtaposes the diversity of modern practical theology with the work of leading nineteenth-century public 'theologian', John Ruskin, and then assesses the contribution of this analysis to some modern issues of public importance in which the Bible is used. The final chapter offers a framework for a biblically informed critical practical theology which draws on the writer's experience and invites the readers to engage their own.

In hope, Christian faith reconfigures the shape of what is familiar in order to pattern the contours of God's promised future. In this process, the present is continuously re-shaped by ventures of hopeful and expectant living. In art, this same poetic interplay between past, present and future takes specific concrete forms, furnishing vital resources for sustaining an imaginative ecology of hope. This volume attends to the contributions that architecture, drama, literature, music and painting can make, as artists trace patterns of promise, resisting the finality of modernity's despairing visions and generating hopeful living in a present which, although marked by sin and death, is grasped imaginatively as already pregnant with future.

R. Andrew Chesnut offers a fascinating portrayal of Santa Muerte, a skeleton saint whose cult has attracted millions of devotees over the past decade. Although condemned by mainstream churches, this folk saint's supernatural powers appeal to millions of Latin Americans and immigrants in the U.S. Devotees believe the Bony Lady (as she is affectionately called) to be the fastest and most effective miracle worker, and as such, her statuettes and paraphernalia now outsell those of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Saint Jude, two other giants of Mexican religiosity. In particular, Chesnut shows Santa Muerte has become the patron saint of drug traffickers, playing an important role as protector of peddlers of crystal meth and marijuana; DEA agents and Mexican police often find her altars in the safe houses of drug smugglers. Yet Saint Death plays other important roles: she is a supernatural healer, love doctor, money-maker, lawyer, and angel of death. She has become without doubt one of the most popular and powerful saints on both the Mexican and American religious landscapes.

Just as Gunilla Norris' previous book, Being Home, garnered accolades from such spiritual writers as Bishop Desmond M. Tutu, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Harold Kushner, Brother David Steindl-Rast, Madeline L'Engle, M. Scott Peck, and a host of others, so too will readers find in this companion book the insights that they seek in living each day as a prayer. In these powerful poems, designed around the place, process, and seasons of making and eating bread, the transformative power of love, in all its many faces, resides. In such meditations as Beginning, Place, Willingness, Gifts, Living, Discipline, Pain, Sharing, Savoring, and then into Beginning Again, the author leads us through a process of alchemy: we become the bread and we become the love transformed. Helpful and hopeful, lyrical and resonant, Becoming Bread will be embraced by mature women and men of all faiths, including: * retreatants and spiritual seekers. * lovers of exquisite poetry. * those who have suffered loss and want to find a way to understand. * those who embrace the holy in the daily. * those who use daily prayer and stillness as renewal.

This book explores the way in which liturgy can be used effectively in all-age communication. It is also a comprehensive practical resource - containing 12 complete all-age worship outlines for use throughout the year.

Christian churches and groups within Anglo-American contexts have increasingly used popular music as a way to connect with young people. This book investigates the relationships between evangelical Christianity and popular music, focusing particularly on electronic dance music in the last twenty years. Author Stella Lau illustrates how electronic dance music is legitimized in evangelical activities by Christians discourses, and how the discourses challenge the divide between the secular and the sacred in the Western culture.

Unlike other existing books on the relationships between music cultures and religion, which predominantly discuss the cultural implications of such phenomenon, Popular Music in Evangelical Youth Culture examines the notion of spirituality in contemporary popular electronic dance music. Lau s emphasis on the sonic qualities of electronic dance music opens the door for future research about the relationships between aural properties of electronic dance music and religious discourses. With three case studies conducted in the cultural hubs of electronic dance music Bristol, Ibiza and New York the monograph can also be used as a guidebook for ethnographic research in popular music.

An ideal book to read with children to wonder and learn about baptism, with illustrations that reflect the diversity of God's people. Grounded in the Episcopal liturgical tradition, it is an accessible and inviting introduction to baptism for children and families of many Christian traditions. While learning what occurs during a baptism service, the reader (both child and parent) will be guided through the sacramental and communal aspects of the celebration. Beautifully illustrated in full color, a dedication page encourages personalization of the book, making it a perfect baptism gift. A family section offers questions and suggests ways to go deeper in conversation about baptism, making it a resource that families will use again and again with their children.

A leading expert shares important benchmarks for leading liturgy. Grounded in Christian liturgical theology and how ritual forms the people who practice it, this book offers the principles at work in good liturgical practice, guidance for making liturgical choices, and best practices in leading and presiding over liturgical worship. Topics include curating liturgy and leading with excellence, principles for liturgical planning and presiding, and best practices for the Eucharist and Baptism. The author draws on his wide-ranging work in ritual theory to provide a practical guide that clergy and lay leaders in the Episcopal Church will find to be an essential resource. Those in other denominations will also find this book to be a useful reference in standard setting.

From birthday cakes and anniversary dinners to summer vacations at the beach, each family has its own ways of marking the days and seasons of its life. For the Christian family especially Episcopalians it s no different. With an array of colors and an assortment of rich traditions, Episcopalians move through the Church year, marking the days and seasons that tell the story of Christ in our lives in history and today.

This book written for newcomers to the Episcopal Church as well as lifelong members takes readers by the hand and leads them through the Church year, from the first Sunday of Advent through the last Sunday of Pentecost, answering questions like Why do we use purple in Lent? and What does Maundy Thursday mean? In an easy-to-read conversational style, Welcome to the Church Year introduces readers to the traditions of the Church seasons and explains why we do what we do. But it does more than offer interesting trivia about church vestments and pageantry. Its insights can help readers participate in the liturgies of the Church year in a deeper, more meaningful way."

Describes the responsibilities and duties of the server at the Holy Eucharist and other services, as governed by the rubrics of "The Book of Common Prayer" and by tradition. Includes a glossary.

This is a sequel to two highly successful collections of short songs ("Come All You People" and "There Is One Among Us") for use in worship. Here the net is thrown wider with material from AIDs-ridden communities in the developing world side by side with recent products from the Wild Goose Resource Group. It is an ideal collection for small choirs, social justice enthusiasts, multiculturalists and all who regard themselves a global Christian.

Raise your spirits and toast Saint Nick! Hot gin toddies. Smoking rosemary old fashioneds. A "wet" Advent calendar. Now you can experience Christmas the way it was meant to be celebrated: with festive cocktails and a lively history of Saint Nicholas and other saints! Michael Foley, author of Drinking with the Saints, presents holiday drink recipes; beer, wine, and cider recommendations; and witty instruction on how to honor the saints in this exquisite gift book that will make your Christmas more spirited than ever before. "With lively stories and delicious drink recipes, this book takes us on a rollicking journey through the lives of the saints. What a fun and fabulous way to engage with your faith during the holidays." - Jennifer Fulwiler, author of One Beautiful Dream and host of the Jennifer Fulwiler Show on the Catholic Channel

The Altar Call is a thorough examination of the public invitation practice within Christian evangelism. In addition to giving a comprehensive historical background that spans three continents, The Altar Call also poses the following question: If John Wesley, George Whitefield , and Jonathan Edwards are regarded as the great figures of modern evangelicalism, why did none of these important leaders practice the invitation system that became so important in so many later evangelical groups? This important study will be of interest to both religious scholars and lay people, who are curious about the antecedents, development, and current use of the altar call.

Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives critically surveys and scrutinizes the terrain of liturgical theology through postcolonial optics. In doing so, it breaks new ground by bringing together for the first time liturgical studies and postcolonial criticism. This book provides an important enrichment - and long overdue corrective - to literature on the liturgical ordo, which has not yet learned to engage postcolonial perspectives. The volume also offers useful resources to those familiar with the more established field of postcolonial biblical/theological criticism by expanding the burgeoning academic debate about postcolonialism into the environment of worship. It therefore seeks to be a resource that will bring postcolonial perspectives to a wider audience: the church, much of which has been bypassed by the academic trajectory postcolonial criticism in theology has so far taken. Because of its inter-disciplinary nature, this book advances significant innovative material. The particular ways that material from each discipline is juxtaposed is itself highly original, and the challenges of appropriating postcolonial theological perspectives in Christian worship and liturgical practice will be met by the provision of strategies and resources to face this task. This important work of theology is, therefore, crafted to praxis in assemblies of the church as well as suitable for study in universities and seminary classrooms.

Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives critically surveys and scrutinizes the terrain of liturgical theology through postcolonial optics. In doing so, it breaks new ground by bringing together for the first time liturgical studies and postcolonial criticism. This book provides an important enrichment - and long overdue corrective - to literature on the liturgical ordo, which has not yet learned to engage postcolonial perspectives. The volume also offers useful resources to those familiar with the more established field of postcolonial biblical/theological criticism by expanding the burgeoning academic debate about postcolonialism into the environment of worship. It therefore seeks to be a resource that will bring postcolonial perspectives to a wider audience: the church, much of which has been bypassed by the academic trajectory postcolonial criticism in theology has so far taken. Because of its inter-disciplinary nature, this book advances significant innovative material. The particular ways that material from each discipline is juxtaposed is itself highly original, and the challenges of appropriating postcolonial theological perspectives in Christian worship and liturgical practice will be met by the provision of strategies and resources to face this task. This important work of theology is, therefore, crafted to praxis in assemblies of the church as well as suitable for study in universities and seminary classrooms.

This volume brings together an ecumenical team of scholars to present key theological concepts related to worship to help readers articulate their own theology of worship. Contributors explore the history of theology's impact on worship practices across the Christian tradition, highlighting themes such as creation, pneumatology, sanctification, and mission. The book includes introductions by N. T. Wright and Nicholas Wolterstorff. A forthcoming volume will address the historical foundations of worship.

Is God missing from our worship? Obstacles to true worship are not about contemporary or traditional music, electronic gadgetry or seeker sensitivity. Rather it is the habits of mind and heart, conditioned by our surrounding culture, that hinder our faith in the real presence of the transcendent God among his people. Sensing a real need for renewal, John Jefferson Davis offers a theology of worship that uncovers the most fundamental barriers to our vital involvement in the worship of our holy God. His profound theological analysis leads to fresh and bracing recommendations that will be especially helpful to all those who lead worship or want to more fully and deeply encounter the glory and majesty of God.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.