Praying for the World:Global Singing in Worship (original) (raw)
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Liturgical Studies and Christian Worship: The Postcolonial Challenge
Black Theology: An International Journal, 2007
This article is a first attempt to sketch an agenda for scrutiny of Christian worship through a postcolonial optic. It is suggested that postcolonial theology challenges notions of inculturation and inclusivity as these are sometimes expounded in the context of liturgical studies. Texts and ritual practices are opened to scrutiny and some modest constructive, revisionist proposals are made.
The Mission of the Church in Asia and Beyond
Dave Johnson-The Mission of the Church in Asia and Beyond, 2023
In this edition, we will take a broad, up-to-date look at the mission of the Church in Asia and beyond as it relates to worship, care for its members, ministerial training and engagement, and ministry to the world. The complexity of encountering our swiftly changing world with the timeless claims of Jesus Christ is reflected in the fact that Christianity is more global than it has ever been. This then requires engagement with a multitude of other cultures, global and local religions, and a host of other matters, including the rapid, technology-driven changes impacting our Global Village. Monte Lee Rice leads this edition with a discussion on Pentecostal worship, with a slightly different twist on a theology of one of Pentecostalism's traditionally strong foci, the altar. Noting Pentecostalism's tendency to focus more on doing than reflecting, he notes that little has been done to develop a theology of the altar. Rice's twist here is to see the altar call as a "foundational liturgical rite," a description that would likely have been frowned upon by early Pentecostals, but Rice makes a good case for his point of view. He posits the altar call in the Azusa Street Revival's salvation theology discourse as not only "effecting charismatic experience, but also fostering social inclusiveness" in responding to God together. He goes on to argue that at the altar, believers offer themselves as a sacrifice to God for use in his Kingdom to bring his hope to a hurting world. In doing so, he contends, "we discharge the priestly work (leitourgia) of invoking Holy Spirit outpouring on our offerings of thanksgiving to Christ, who commissions us for God's saving purpose." Jemon Subang's article brings into focus the mission of the church as a corporate body, seeking to edify and build up its members. The specific issue for Subang is the controversy over whether churches should continue online services in the post-pandemic era. While there are some undeniable advantages to online worship, such as ministering to those who are ill and unable to come or those who have never heard the gospel or for some other reason would not consider attending a church, there are also some significant drawbacks. This is what Subang
Journal of Global Christianity, 2018
This book’s ambitious goal is “to help the global church appreciate and generate culturally appropriate arts in worship and witness” (back cover). Accomplishing such a large goal requires many voices, and this book does have many voices—over one hundred writers from twenty countries wrote 148 articles which fill over 600 pages. Invariably, a book with such a grand ambition and such a collection of writers will contain a mixed quality of articles, but even with such a variety, this book is a helpful and essential tool for understanding global worship.
Church History, 2009
Th is review is written in memory and honor of Ogbu U. Kalu, the book's main editor, who was called home to glory in January 2009. He sets the tone for the issues dealt with by the essays by using Andrew F. Walls's observation that 'the labors of the missionary movement, and the cross-cultural process in Christian history, have borne fruit and catalyzed a shift in the center of gravity of Christianity that has immense implications for the theology of the future and for the way we tell its story' (3-4). Walls was a participant in the conference where the papers for the volume were initially read. Th e book brings together carefully selected papers that are representative of the general tenor of the July 2001 Currents in World Christianity project held in Pretoria, South Africa. As Brian Stanley, the director, points out, the conference was the last public event of the project. Th is was a Pew Charitable Trusts-sponsored initiative coordinated by the University of Cambridge. As Stanley notes in his preface to the book, the Currents in World Christianity initiative 'combined an interest in the modern history of Protestant missions with an emphasis on the religious aspects of globalization' (x). A signifi cant aspect of this volume is the amount of attention given to studies of Christianity from the global south by local scholars, including specifi c case studies located in China (chapters 8 and 10), Ghana (chapter 11), Kenya (chapter 12) and India (chapters 9 and 14). Th ese regional and contextual studies, combined with Afe Adogame's chapter on 'Globalization and African New Religions in Europe' (chapter 13) and Joel Carpenter's groundbreaking essay on New Evangelical Universities (chapter 7), most of which are located in the Th ird World, are extremely insightful. Th ey provide very useful perspectives to readers with an interest in Christianity in the non-Western world, something like a kaleidoscope of how the faith has developed as it moved from north to south in the processes of globalization. Th e book is divided into fi ve parts, with each focusing on a particular dimension of the appropriations of Christianity within local contexts, or how particular streams of Christianity such as Pentecostalism have emerged in non-Western religious practice. Ogbu U. Kalu's opening chapter helps readers appreciate the exact contributions that Africa in particular and the Th ird World in general have made to global Christianity. To that end he, like Jehu Hanciles's contribution on 'African Christianity, Globalization, and Mission', privileges the view that in spite of its missionary history African Christianity is 'a genuine African construct' and not a purveyor of 'a product made in America and exported around the world in the form of '"a new Christian fundamentalism"' (80-81). Arguing against claims by such scholars as Paul Giff ord that Pentecostalism is a North American export into regions like Africa, Kalu notes that 'scholarly concern should privilege how transnational cultural forms are appropriated, set in motion, and "domesticated", investigating the way in which local cultural lenses refract the light in global cultural processes' (9). As Christianity is experienced and translated into other cultural symbols, Kalu further notes, 'the indigenous principle blossoms' (9). Th e essays in Interpreting Contemporary Christianity were selected to refl ect this worldview, a selection that makes the subtitle Global Processes and Local Identities more than apt for the book. Th e essays take an approach to the study and understanding of Christianity
Global Church:Reshaping Our Conversations, Renewing Our Mission, Revitalizing Our Churches
2016
Christianity seems to be in decline in the West. But many churches in Asia, Africa, Latin America and other parts of the Majority World are growing rapidly. Western Christianity can no longer claim to be the center of the global church. Before long, two-thirds of Christians will live in Asia, Africa and Latin America. What does this mean for global Christian mission? What does it mean for worship, theology, faith and evangelism in the West? In GlobalChurch, Graham Hill engages with more than one hundred high-profile Majority World Christian leaders to find out what they can teach the West about mission, leadership, hospitality, creation care, education, worship and more. He challenges the Western church to move away from a Eurocentric and Americentric view of church and mission, and he calls the church to construct global missional conversations. The future of the global church—including the churches of the West—exists in these global exchanges. This resource engages with the work a...