Worship and Mission After Christendom

Eleanor Kreider, Alan Kreider

• Publisher: Herald Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780836195545
• eBook ISBN: 9780836197761
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Today, as Christendom weakens, worship and mission are poised to reunite after centuries of separation. But this requires the church to rethink both “mission” and “worship.” In post-Christendom mission, God is the main actor and God calls all Christians to participate. In post-Christendom worship, the church tells and celebrates the story of God, enabling members to live in hope and attract outsiders to its many tables of hospitality.

In this passionate and thoughtful study, Alan Kreider and Eleanor Kreider draw upon missiology, liturgiology, biblical studies, church history, and the vast experience of today’s global Christian church-to say nothing of their long tenure as teachers and writers in contemporary England and the United States. Academically responsible but also practical and accessible, Worship and Mission After Christendom is a much-needed guide for people who take seriously God’s call to be the church in a world where institutional religion is no longer taken for granted.

Notes

Series Preface

1. Stuart Murray, Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2004), 19.

Introduction

1. Robert N. Bellah, “God and King,” in God, Truth, and Witness: Engaging Stanley Hauerwas, L. Gregory Jones, Reinhard Hütter and C. Rosalee Velloso Ewell (eds)(Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005), 125.

Chapter 1: Worship After Christendom

1. Wilbert R. Shenk, Write the Vision: The Church Renewed (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995), 51–52.

2. For photos of the Ravenna mosaics see http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth212/san_vitale.html.

3. Codex Iustinianus 1.11.10, cited in Alan Kreider, “Violence and Mission in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 31:3 (2007): 130.

4. For photos of this church, see www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/tivetshallmargaret/tivetshallmargaret.htm.

5. J. Andrew Kirk, What is Mission? Theological Explorations (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 187.

6. W. D. Maxwell, An Outline of Christian Worship (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), 1.

7. Dan Kimball, Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 112.

8. Sally Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 23, 31.

9. Everett Ferguson, The Churches of Christ: A Biblical Ecclesiology for Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 208ff.; C. F. D. Moule, Worship in the New Testament, Grove Liturgical Study 12/13 (Nottingham: Grove Books, 1983), 74–76; I. Howard Marshall, “How Far Did the Early Christians Worship God?” Churchman 99 (1985): 216–29.

10. Rodney Clapp, A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 174.

11. Miguel A. Palomino and Samuel Escobar, “Worship and Culture in Latin America,” in Christian Worship Worldwide: Expanding Horizons, Deepening Practices, ed. Charles E. Farhadian (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 126.

12. Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld, “Living the Word,” Christian Century, August 26, 2008, 20.

13. Jonathan J. Bonk, Missions and Money, rev. ed., American Society of Missiology Series 15 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006), 147.

14. Second Council of Nicaea (787), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., 14, p. 550; cf. Augustine City of God 10.1.

15. Philip Kenneson, “Gathering: Worship, Imagination and Formation,” in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics, eds. Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 54.

16. Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Justice as a Condition of Authentic Liturgy,” Theology Today, 148.1 (1991): 14.

17. Millard Lind, Biblical Foundations for Christian Worship (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1973), 25.

18. Wolterstorff, “Justice,” 9, 16.

19. Ibid., 12. See also Christopher Marshall, The Little Book of Restorative Justice (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2005), 30: “In the absence of justice … religious performances merely nauseate God.”

20. Cyprian Ad Quirinum 3.26.

21. Menno Simons, “Reply to False Accusations” (1552), in Complete Writings, ed. J. C. Wenger (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1956), 559.

22. Doug Pagitt, cited in Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 231.

23. John Witvliet, “Series Preface,” in Charles E. Farhadian, Christian Worship Worldwide: Expanding Horizons, Deepening Practices (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 207), xiii.

24. Eugene H. Peterson, Leap over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 152–53.

25. J. G. Davies, Worship and Mission (London: SCM, 1966), 71.

26. Craig Van Gelder, The Ministry of the Missional Church: A Community Led by the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007), 17–18.

27. Michael B. Aune, “Liturgy and Theology: Rethinking the Relationship—Part II,” Worship 81:2 (2007): 167.

28. Gerhard Lohfink, Does God Need the Church? Toward a Theology of the People of God (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 217.

29. Bob Goudzwaard, Mark Vander Vennen, and David Van Heemst, Hope in Troubled Times: A New Vision for Confronting Global Crises (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 44.

30. Davies, Worship and Mission, 97–8.

31. Ibid., 106.

32. Jesus was quoting Isa 56:7; Jer 7:11.

33. Thomas Schattauer, ed., Inside Out: Worship in an Age of Mission (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 3.

34. David Smith, Mission After Christendom (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2003), 3.

35. George G. Hunter III, “The Case for Culturally Relevant Congregations,” in Global Good News: Mission in a New Context, ed. Howard Snyder (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001), 98.

36. David W. Bebbington, “Evangelicals and Public Worship, 1965–2005,” Evangelical Quarterly 79:1 (2007): 17.

37. Stephen R. Holmes, “Trinitarian Missiology: Towards a Theology of God as Missionary,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 8:1 (2006): 89.

Chapter 2: Mission Under Christendom

1. David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, and Peter F. Crossing, “Missiometrics 2007: Creating Your Own Analysis of Global Data,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 31:1 (2007): 31.

2. Lamin Sanneh, Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 131.

3. Dorothy S. McCammon, We Tried to Stay (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1953).

4. Dorothy S. McCammon and Harriet L. Burkholder, eds., Tragedy and Triumph: Courage and Faith Through Twenty-seven years in Chinese Prisons: The Story of Dr. Yu En-Mei (San Francisco: Purple Bamboo Publishing, 1993).

5. Sanneh, Disciples, 270.

6. Miroslav Volf, “A Vision of Embrace: Theological Perspectives on Cultural Identity and Conflict,” Ecumenical Review 47:2 (1995): 195.

7. Robert L. Ramseyer, ed., Mission and the Peace Witness: The Gospel and Christian Discipleship (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1979), 117.

8. Pierre Charles, Etudes Missiologiques, Museum Lessianum, Section Missiologique 33 (Louvain: Desclée De Brouwer, 1956), 26.

9. Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986), 282, referring to Pantaenus and Gregory of Pontus.

10. H. H. Rosin, “Missio Dei”: An Examination of the Origin, Contents and Function of the Term in Protestant Missiological Discussion (Leiden: Interuniversity Institute for Missiological and Ecumenical Research, Department of Missiology, 1972),...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Worship and Mission after Christendom
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Series Preface: After Christendom
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• One: Worship After Christendom
• Two: Mission Under Christendom
• Three: Mission After Christendom:The Missio Dei
• Four: Post-Christendom Worship: The Recovery of Narrative
• Five: Narrative Resources for Worship: Hoping the Past, Remembering the Future
• Six: Early Christian Worship: Multivoiced Meals
• Seven: After Christendom: Multivoiced Worship Returns
• Eight: Worship Forms Mission I: Glorifying God, Sanctifying Humans
• Nine: Worship Forms Mission II: Actions of Worship
• Ten: Worship Forms Mission III: Worshipping Christians in the World
• Eleven: Missional Worship in the Worldwide Church
• Twelve: Outsiders Come to Worship I: What the Outsiders Experience
• Thirteen: Outsiders Come to Worship II: Hospitality and Wholeness
• Appendix: Are Americans in Christendom?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• The Authors