Apostolic networks link congregations together through personal relationships. They center around apostolic figures who have the ability to mobilize resources, make rapid decisions, and utilize charismatic gifts. Networks of churches organized in this way can respond to postmodernity and cultural innovation. This book takes the story of the emergence of apostolic networks in Britain from the visionary work of Arthur Wallis through the charismatic renewal into the full-fledged Restoration Movement of the 1980s. It covers the events of the 1990s, including the Toronto Blessing, and contains fresh information based upon interviews with leading players and new survey data as well as reanalysis of historical documents.

Covers the 435-year history of the faith, life, and culture of Anabaptists in Europe and Mennonites throughout the world. Presented are people, movements, and places in their relation to Mennonites.

This Encyclopedia was jointly edited by historians and scholars of the Mennonite Church, the General Conference of Mennonites, and the Mennonite Brethren Church. More than 2,700 writers contributed articles.

Volume V includes updates on materials in the first four volumes plus nearly 1,000 new articles edited by Cornelius J. Dyck and Dennis D. Martin.

Over the past fifty years Brazil's evangelical community has increased from five to twenty-five percent of the population. This volume's authors use statistical overview, historical narrative, personal anecdote, social-scientific analysis, and theological inquiry to map out this emerging landscape. The book's thematic center pivots on the question of how Brazilian evangelicals are exerting their presence and effecting change in the public life of the nation. Rather than fixing its focus on the interior life of Brazilian evangelicals and their congregations, the book's attention is directed toward social expression: the ways in which Brazilian evangelicals are present and active in the common life of the nation.

Co-authored by three anthropologists with long-term expertise studying Pentecostalism in Vanuatu, Angola, and Papua New Guinea/the Trobriand Islands respectively, Going to Pentecost offers a comparative study of Pentecostalism in Africa and Melanesia, focusing on key issues as economy, urban sociality, and healing. More than an ordinary comparative book, it recognizes the changing nature of religion in the contemporary world - in particular the emergence of "non-territorial" religion (which is no longer specific to places or cultures) - and represents an experimental approach to the study of global religious movements in general and Pentecostalism in particular.

Explores the role of race and consumer culture in attracting urban congregants to an evangelical church The Urban Church Imagined illuminates the dynamics surrounding white urban evangelical congregations' approaches to organizational vitality and diversifying membership. Many evangelical churches are moving to urban, downtown areas to build their congregations and attract younger, millennial members. The urban environment fosters two expectations. First, a deep familiarity and reverence for popular consumer culture, and second, the presence of racial diversity. Church leaders use these ideas when they imagine what a "city church" should look like, but they must balance that with what it actually takes to make this happen. In part, racial diversity is seen as key to urban churches presenting themselves as "in touch" and "authentic." Yet, in an effort to seduce religious consumers, church leaders often and inadvertently end up reproducing racial and economic inequality, an unexpected contradiction to their goal of inclusivity. Drawing on several years of research, Jessica M. Barron and Rhys H. Williams explore the cultural contours of one such church in downtown Chicago. They show that church leaders and congregants' understandings of the connections between race, consumer culture, and the city is a motivating factor for many members who value interracial interactions as a part of their worship experience. But these explorations often unintentionally exclude members along racial and classed lines. Indeed, religious organizations' efforts to engage urban environments and foster integrated congregations produce complex and dynamic relationships between their racially diverse memberships and the cultivation of a safe haven in which white, middle-class leaders can feel as though they are being a positive force in the fight for religious vitality and racial diversity. The book adds to the growing constellation of studies on urban religious organizations, as well as emerging scholarship on intersectionality and congregational characteristics in American religious life. In so doing, it offers important insights into racially diverse congregations in urban areas, a growing trend among evangelical churches. This work is an important case study on the challenges faced by modern churches and urban institutions in general.

Train Up a Child explores how private schools in Old Order Amish communities reflect and perpetuate church-community values and identity. Here, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner asserts that the reinforcement of those values among children is imperative to the survival of these communities in the modern world.

Surveying settlements in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, Johnson-Weiner finds that, although Old Order communities have certain similarities in their codes of conduct, there is no standard Old Order school. She examines the choices each community makes -- about pedagogy, curriculum, textbooks, even school design -- to strengthen religious ideology, preserve the social and linguistic markers of Old Order identity, and protect their own community's beliefs and values from the influence of the dominant society.

In the most comprehensive study of Old Order schools to date, Johnson-Weiner provides valuable insight into how variables such as community size and relationship with other Old Order groups affect the role of these schools in maintaining behavioral norms and in shaping the Old Order's response to modernity.

This study examines the major themes and personalities which influenced the outbreak of a number of Evangelical secessions from the Church of England and Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century. Though the number of secessions was relatively small their influence was considerable, especially in highlighting in embarrassing fashion the tensions between the evangelical conversionist imperative and the principles of a national religious establishment.

This is an examination of the background to the gift of tongues in the light of Old Testament prophecy. In this book, Hiu firstly examines the background to the gifts of tongues and prophecy with a comprehensive assessment of the historical evidence, both primary and secondary, finding that tongues is a uniquely Christian phenomenon. Hiu then demonstrates that 'New Testament prophecy' is best considered as a direct extension of Old Testament prophecy. Hiu moves on to define and describe the functions of both tongues and prophecy in the New Testament which subsequently provides a clear base from which to seek a coherent understanding of the context and intent of Paul's regulations in "1 Cor" 14.26-40. Attention is then focused on the socio-religious context of the known New Testament churches to determine if these regulations are applicable in non-Corinthian congregations. This ties in with a wider debate in Pauline scholarship surrounding whether Paul's intent was for Corinthians to be only addressed to the church at Corinth or whether he intended it to have a secondary audience also. Finally, Hiu draws the conclusion that Paul's regulations in "1 Corinthians" are aptly applicable in all known New Testament churches and that the Corinthian situation is not unique. The natural inference is thereby that these regulations may be considered further in application to Christian churches in a contemporary setting. Formerly the "Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement", a book series that explores the many aspects of New Testament study including historical perspectives, social-scientific and literary theory, and theological, cultural and contextual approaches, "The Early Christianity in Context" series, a part of "JSNTS", examines the birth and development of early Christianity up to the end of the third century CE. The series places Christianity in its social, cultural, political and economic context. "European Seminar on Christian Origins" and "Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Supplement" are also part of "JSNTS".

There is much talk and teaching about generational curses and how they can be spiritually transmitted through the family bloodline. But what about generational blessings? The same Scriptures that speak of curses that need to be revoked also point to multi-generational blessings that can transform our lives today and impact our children and grandchildren. What you do today in the Courts of Heaven can release generational blessings for you and your family!

Robert Henderson is a recognized apostolic leader in the church and the bestselling author of the Courts of Heaven series. He has given his life to helping individuals, churches, and nations break legal agreements with the enemy by operating in the Courts of Heaven to step into the breakthroughs that Scripture promises. But now, writing alongside his son, Adam, a powerful new revelation is being released. It was his experience praying for breakthrough over Adam that taught Robert Henderson about both breaking curses and releasing generational blessings from the Courts of Heaven.

You will learn how to:

• Experience family freedom by bringing your loved ones before Heaven's Courts and interceding for verdicts of blessing, freedom, and salvation
• Pray according to what's written in the books of Heaven for you and your family
• Approach the Courts of Heaven for generational blessing using a 5-Step Prayer Model observed in the life of David
• Retrieve lost and stolen wealth from past generations
• See prodigals reclaimed and restored to God as you pray Courtroom prayers on their behalf

It's one thing to cancel the enemy’s assignment for our life by dealing with bloodline issues and curses; it’s another dimension to proactively and powerfully enter the Courts of Heaven, partner with the purposes of God, and secure blessing today and in generations to come.

Short Description: Many Christians reject the consensus of contemporary science about the age of the universe, the implications of genetics, and so on. This book presents interviews with 15 eminent scientists who discuss the compatibility of their Christian faith and their mainstream scientific commitments. Features John Polkinghorne, Alister McGrath, John Lennox, Francis Collins, and John Houghton. A collection of exclusive interviews in which 15 eminent scientists talk about their science and their Christian faith. In this collection of interviews, scientists show how Bible-believing Christianity is compatible with contemporary scientific thinking. Christians do not have to choose, they say, between big bang and the Bible. Genesis and genetics can go together. In this book, big questions of the past, the present and the future are asked and answered; the physical impacts and moral implications of climate change are investigated and the intricacies of human DNA and the morality of genetic engineering are unravelled. Physicists, immunologists, astrophysicists, biochemists and mathematicians discuss what it means for humankind to be made in the image of God and how Christians can translate the gospel for our science-savvy society.