Ten Essential Strategies for Becoming a Multiracial Congregation

Ten Essential Strategies for Becoming a Multiracial Congregation
Author: Jacqueline J. Lewis
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2018-03-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1611648556

How do churches build immunity from racial and ethnic tensions that threaten to divide rather than unite congregations? Jacqui Lewis and John Janka believe that the answer lies in the development of multiracial, multicultural communities of faith. Born of the authors' work with The Middle Project, an institute that prepares ethical leaders for a more just society, The Pentecost Paradigm is a collection of wisdom and best practices. Here you will find lessons, questions for conversation, and spaces for journaling. Use the workbook with your planning team, board members, lay leaders, and staff. Ten essential strategies are presented to help build communities that celebrate racial/ethnic and cultural diversity: Embracing Call and Commitment Casting the Vision Managing Change and Resistance Creating Congregational Identity Building Capacity Cultivating Community Celebrating in Worship Understanding Congregational Conflict Communicating and Organizing Collaborating in the Public Square In welcoming communities of faith where everyone is accepted just as they are, we can lead the way toward racial reconciliation and dismantle the prejudices that segregate our houses of worship.

Ten Essential Strategies for Becoming a Multiracial Congregation

Ten Essential Strategies for Becoming a Multiracial Congregation
Author: Jacqueline J. Lewis
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-03-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780664263386

How do churches build immunity from racial and ethnic tensions that threaten to divide rather than unite congregations? Jacqui Lewis and John Janka believe that the answer lies in the development of multiracial, multicultural communities of faith. Born of the authors' work with The Middle Project, an institute that prepares ethical leaders for a more just society, The Pentecost Paradigm is a collection of wisdom and best practices. Here you will find lessons, questions for conversation, and spaces for journaling. Use the workbook with your planning team, board members, lay leaders, and staff. Ten essential strategies are presented to help build communities that celebrate racial/ethnic and cultural diversity: Embracing Call and Commitment Casting the Vision Managing Change and Resistance Creating Congregational Identity Building Capacity Cultivating Community Celebrating in Worship Understanding Congregational Conflict Communicating and Organizing Collaborating in the Public Square In welcoming communities of faith where everyone is accepted just as they are, we can lead the way toward racial reconciliation and dismantle the prejudices that segregate our houses of worship.

Worship for the Whole People of God, Second Edition

Worship for the Whole People of God, Second Edition
Author: Ruth C. Duck
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2021-02-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 164698188X

This revised edition of the popular textbook on worship by renowned hymn writer and professor Ruth C. Duck provides theological foundations for worship and explores the ways Christians have adapted worship to various cultures to help them live faithfully and to communicate the gospel to others. The author celebrates the many languages and cultural settings in which the gospel has been, and is, preached, sung, and prayed. The goal of this volume is to support good pastoral and congregational reflection on what worship is and does. Consequently, Duck discusses many different forms of worship from several cultures (African American, Asian, Euro-American) and offers advice on how to read a congregation and define its culture in order to plan culturally appropriate worship. She includes many practical suggestions for preparing and leading worship, including diverse ministries of music, movement, and visual arts that are becoming more popular today. From worship's theological underpinnings, the book turns to worship leadership, forms of prayer, preaching, the sacraments, ordination, and various other liturgies. Because of its emphasis on vital and Spirit-led worship, this comprehensive book on Christian worship will be used in years to come, not only as a core textbook for seminarians and ministry students from a variety of cultures and traditions but also as a resource for local church pastors and laity who are dedicated to the enlivening of Christian worship. In this new edition, Duck updates and expands the recommended resources, updates the section on worship trends, enhances the section on multicultural worship, and revises marriage information based on cultural and denominational changes. Highlights include stories of four churches that are developing creative ways to grow and meet the possibilities and challenges of these times, especially in seeking justice, serving people in their neighborhood, and building bridges among cultures and religious groups. In addition, a new appendix by David Gambrell addresses the theological and practical questions surrounding online worship in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond.

The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Women’s Studies in Religion

The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Women’s Studies in Religion
Author: Helen T. Boursier
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2021-06-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1538154455

The handbook offers interreligious and multicultural perspectives on women’s studies in religion in conversation with specific contextualized gender-biased justice challenges. Contributing authors address 25 current and trending themes from their diverse socio-cultural-religious backgrounds. Themes move across the spectrum of women’s studies in religion, blurring the boundaries beyond “religious studies” to include perspectives from ethics, philosophy, sociology, economics, and law as. Religious diversity addresses challenges for women’s studies through the lens of Wicca, Buddhist, Asian Trans Pacific, Hinduism, Judaism, Muslima, and Christian. The handbook is practical, contemporary, and relevant as it moves theory to practical application in the section on challenging and changing system gender injustice with chapters on sexual violence and the #MeToo movement, femicide and feminicide, a Mohawk response to colonial dominion and violations to Indigenous lands and women, and a religio-politico witness for love and justice, include how to engage the theories of women’s studies in religion in the public square through civic engagement to create empowerment for actual, practical change. It shows the future movement of the becoming of women’s studies with chapters digital activism, reimagining women’s mosque spaces online, minoritized sexual identities, and spiritual homelessness, and charges readers to see “hope now” by challenging and changing gender injustice.

Always A Guest

Always A Guest
Author: Barbara Brown Taylor
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2020-10-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1646980093

From beloved writer and renowned preacher Barbara Brown Taylor comes a new collection of stories and sermons of faith, grace, and hope. Taylor, author of the best-selling books Holy Envy and An Altar in the World, among others, finds that when you are the invited guest speaking of faith to people you don't know, one must seek common ground: exploring the central human experience. Full of Taylor's astute observations on the Spirit and the state of the world along with her gentle wit, this collection will inspire Taylor’s fans and preachers alike as she explores faith in all its beauty and complexity.

Fire in the Whole

Fire in the Whole
Author: Robert G. Callahan, II
Publisher: Presbyterian Publishing Corp
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2024-09-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1646984056

Fire in the Whole explores the anger of Black Christians who feel betrayed by white Christianity’s complicity of perpetuating racism. In this transformative work, author Robert Callahan not only empathizes with this pain, giving words to strong and powerful emotions, but also provides guidance for healing church-related wounds. How can all Christians claim to love and serve the same God and yet see and act in the world so differently? Texas attorney and writer Robert Callahan makes the case that white American Christians have failed to embody both their civic commitment to liberty and justice for all and their biblical call to love every neighbor as Christ loves us. In Fire in the Whole, Callahan explores the poignant journey of Christians who grapple with their sense of belonging within a faith tainted by toxic political ideologies—seeking healing for their souls. Boldly questioning the authenticity of individuals within the white Christian community who adhere to Christian nationalism or claim color-blind ignorance of racial injustice through cultural conflicts, this book navigates the complex modern Christian landscape, illuminating deep-rooted racial and religious rifts exacerbated by recent political figures and toxic theology. Through compelling storytelling and analysis, Callahan provides meticulous research and heartfelt insights, drawing a roadmap for healing. Whether you are a Christian minority who is hurt and angry, a progressive white ally seeking understanding of what went wrong, or a conservative white Christian willing to engage in constructive dialogue to rebuild a fractured community, this book is a powerful guide to navigating the flames of righteous anger and emerging whole again.

Embracing Queer Family

Embracing Queer Family
Author: Nia Chiaramonte
Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2024
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1506490867

A guidebook for Queer families on how to live into your true selves and strengthen your communities through radical love, acceptance, and mutual healing. With hands-on tools for learning and reflection in each chapter, this book will help you embrace Queerness, take ownership of your journey, and use your voice to bring light to your communities.

Then They Came for Mine

Then They Came for Mine
Author: Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts
Publisher: Presbyterian Publishing Corp
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2022-09-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1646982703

Black Americans’ resilience during centuries of racially-motivated violence is beyond remarkable. But continuing to endure this harm allows for generations of trauma to fester and grow. Healing has to be the priority going forward. For decades, Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts clung to her upbringing in the church, believing that racial reconciliation would come through faith and discipline, being respectable, and doing what’s right. But when her cousin became the victim of a white supremacist’s hateful rampage, her body and soul said, “no more.” The trauma of America’s racial history, wreaking havoc on not only Black and Brown folk but white people too, in its own way, will not be alleviated without the will to face it head-on. We must name the dehumanization that plagues us, practice truth-telling and self-care, and make space for our vulnerability—to do the hard work of healing ourselves and our communities. This book is written with that healing in mind. It unpacks how American systems and institutions enable the kind of violence we’ve seen connected to white supremacy and nationalism. It examines the way media has created a desensitization to violence against Black bodies. It outlines what it looks like for a person who claims to follow Jesus to be anti-racist. But more than anything, it offers a blueprint for healing and reconciliation that includes the necessity of white people untangling from an ancestral mandate of colonization and false notions of supremacy, and Black and Brown people reckoning with the impact of trauma and feeling free to grieve in whatever way grief shows up.

Fierce Love

Fierce Love
Author: Dr. Jacqui Lewis
Publisher: Harmony
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2021-11-09
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0593233875

A healing antidote to our divisive culture, full of evocative storytelling, spiritual wisdom, and nine essential daily practices—by the first female, Black senior minister at the historic Collegiate Churches of New York “Fierce Love teaches us that with spiritual faith we can transcend the darkest moments and come through stronger.”—Gabrielle Bernstein, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Universe Has Your Back We are living in a world divided. Race and ethnicity, caste and color, gender and sexuality, class and education, religion and political party have all become demographic labels that reduce our differences to simplistic categories in which “we” are vehemently against “them.” But Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis’s own experience—of being the first female and first Black minister in her church’s history, of being in an interracial marriage, and of making peace with childhood abuse—illustrates that our human capacity for empathy and forgiveness is the key to reversing these ugly trends. Inspired by the tenets of ubuntu—the Zulu philosophy that we are each impacted by the circumstances that impact those around us, and that the world won’t get better until we all get better—Fierce Love lays out the nine daily practices for breaking through tribalism and engineering the change we seek. From downsizing our emotional baggage to speaking truth to power to fueling our activism with joy, it demonstrates the power of small, morally courageous steps to heal our own lives, our posse, and our larger communities. Sharing stories that trace her personal reckoning with racism as well as the arc of her journey to an inclusive and service-driven faith, Dr. Lewis shows that kindness, compassion, and inclusive thinking are muscles that can be exercised and strengthened. With the goal of mending our inextricable human connection, Fierce Love is a manifesto for all generations: a bighearted, healing antidote to our rancorous culture.

Worship across the Racial Divide

Worship across the Racial Divide
Author: Gerardo Marti
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2012-01-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199912165

Many scholars and church leaders believe that music and worship style are essential in stimulating diversity in congregations. Gerardo Marti draws on interviews with more than 170 congregational leaders and parishioners, as well as his experiences participating in worship services in a wide variety of Protestant, multiracial Southern Californian churches, to present this insightful study of the role of music in creating congregational diversity. Worship across the Racial Divide offers a surprising conclusion: that there is no single style of worship or music that determines the likelihood of achieving a multiracial church. Far more important are the complex of practices of the worshipping community in the production and absorption of music. Multiracial churches successfully diversify by stimulating unobtrusive means of interracial and interethnic relations; in fact, preparation for music apart from worship gatherings proves to be just as important as its performance during services. Marti shows that aside from and even in spite of the varying beliefs of attendees and church leaders, diversity happens because music and worship create practical spaces where cross-racial bonds are formed. This groundbreaking book sheds light on how race affects worship in multiracial churches. It will allow a new understanding of the dynamics of such churches, and provide crucial aid to church leaders for avoiding the pitfalls that inadvertently widen the racial divide.