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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian worship > General
2020 Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year ("Also Recommended,"
Church) Is a church just something we create to serve our purposes
or to maintain old traditions? Or is it something more vital, more
meaningful, and more powerful? This can be hard to believe when we
look at what happens in any one congregation or denomination.
Certainly not all churches act like Jesus in the world, and many
individual churches in the West are dying. When it's so easy to be
confused, frustrated, or simply apathetic about the church, how
should we understand its purpose today? In this appealing
introduction to the nature of the local church, set in the context
of Christian history and global diversity, historian and missionary
Scott Sunquist shows us the church in motion. Why Church? clarifies
the two primary purposes of the church-worship and witness-and
unpacks what the church is (and ought to be) using five movements
of worship: come together stand to praise God kneel to confess sit
to listen to the Word of God go out into the world Packed with
stories and insights from experiences in churches around the world,
this book explores cultural contextualization, the meaning of
conversion, worship in both personal and communal aspects, and how
mission combines telling the good news with being good news as a
community. From Fuller Theological Seminary's renowned
church-planting program, this primer is well suited to leaders and
their core teams to read together and share with new attenders as
they catch the spirit of the dynamic gathering that is the local
church.
The heart of the biblical understanding of idolatry, argues Gregory
Beale, is that we take on the characteristics of what we worship.
Employing Isaiah 6 as his interpretive lens, Beale demonstrates
that this understanding of idolatry permeates the whole canon, from
Genesis to Revelation. Beale concludes with an application of the
biblical notion of idolatry to the challenges of contemporary life.
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