Tragedies and Christian Congregations

Tragedies and Christian Congregations
Author: Christopher Southgate
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2019-09-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 135105077X

When tragedy strikes a community, it is often unexpected with long-lasting effects on the people left in its wake. Too often, there aren’t adequate systems in place to aid those affected in processing what has happened. This study uniquely combines practical theology, pastoral insight and scientific data to demonstrate how Christian congregations can be helped to be resilient in the face of sudden devastating events. Beginning by identifying the characteristics of trauma in individuals and communities, this collection of essays from practitioners and academics locates sudden trauma-inducing tragedies as a problem in practical theology. A range of biblical and theological responses are presented, but contemporary scientific understanding is also included in order to challenge and stretch some of these traditional theological resources. The pastoral section of the book examines the ethics of response to tragedy, locating the role of the minister in relation to other helping agencies and exploring the all-too-topical issue of ministerial abuse. Developing a nuanced rationale for good practical, pastoral, liturgical and theological responses to major traumas, this book will be of significant value to scholars of practical theology as well as practitioners counselling in and around church congregations.

Tragedy in the Church

Tragedy in the Church
Author: A. W. Tozer
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Total Pages: 107
Release: 2007-02-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1600663559

In this collection of 12 profound sermons, A. W. Tozer points out why so many Christians and churches today are weak. But he doesn't leave us without hope. He uplifts our spirits and helps us recognize what God wants to do in and through each and every one of us. These sermons deal directly with the subjects of the Christian church and the spiritual basis for its varied and continuing ministries. They display A. W. Tozer's love, appreciation, and concern for the church, which motivated him to so consistently issue caution. Tozer always yearned to reveal to the Christina and Missionary Alliance a desire for each church member to reach their full potential for honoring the Lord Jesus Christ, and this book represents that yearning well.

This Tragic Gospel

This Tragic Gospel
Author: Louis A. Ruprecht, Jr.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2008-07-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0470374357

This Tragic Gospel suggests that the "Gospel" of John intended to supplant the first three gospels and succeeded in gaining undue influence on the early churches. This study focuses on the tragic moment when Jesus prays for deliverance from his impending death in the garden of Gethsemane. Ruprecht contends that John rewrote this scene in order to convey a very different dramatic meaning from the one reflected in Mark's gospel. In John's version, not only did Jesus not pray to be spared, he actually mocked this prayer, embracing his imminent demise with godlike confidence. Ruprecht believes that this dramatic reinterpretation undermined the tragedy of Jesus's death as Mark imagined it and so paved the way for the development of a kind of Christianity that focused far less on compassion in the face of human suffering. John's Jesus offers the faithful food so that they will never hunger, water so that they will never thirst, and the promise of a world in which no faithful person ever sheds a tear. Mark's Christians do suffer, but they witness to suffering and death differently...with compassion. Mark's Christ suffers, like all Christians after him, but he embodies a tragic hope in the promise of a faith shored up by love and compassion.

Trauma-Sensitive Theology

Trauma-Sensitive Theology
Author: Jennifer Baldwin
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2018-09-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 149829684X

The intention of Trauma Sensitive Theology is to help theologians, professors, clergy, spiritual care givers, and therapists speak well of God and faith without further wounding survivors of trauma. It explores the nature of traumatic exposure, response, processing, and recovery and its impact on constructive theology and pastoral leadership and care. Through the lenses of contemporary traumatology, somatics, and the Internal Family Systems model of psychotherapy, the text offers a framework for seeing trauma and its impact in the lives of individuals, communities, society, and within our own sacred texts. It argues that care of traumatic wounding must include all dimensions of the human person, including our spiritual practices, religious rituals and community participation, and theological thinking. As such, clergy and spiritual care professionals have an important role to play in the recovery of traumatic wounding and fostering of resiliency. This book explores how trauma-informed congregational leaders can facilitate resiliency and offers one way of thinking theologically in response to traumatizing abuses of relational power and our resources for restoration.

Prophetic Lament

Prophetic Lament
Author: Soong-Chan Rah
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2015-09-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830897615

The American church avoids lament. But lament is a missing, essential component of Christian faith. Soong-Chan Rah's prophetic exposition of the book of Lamentations provides a biblical and theological lens for examining the church's relationship with a suffering world. Hear the prophet's lament as the necessary corrective for Christianity's future.

Visions and Faces of the Tragic

Visions and Faces of the Tragic
Author: Paul M. Blowers
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2020-06-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0198854102

Despite the pervasive early Christian repudiation of pagan theatrical art, especially prior to Constantine, this monograph demonstrates the increasing attention of late-ancient Christian authors to the genre of tragedy as a basis to explore the complexities of human finitude, suffering, and mortality in relation to the wisdom, justice, and providence of God. The book argues that various Christian writers, particularly in the post-Constantinian era, were keenly devoted to the mimesis, or imaginative re-presentation, of the tragic dimension of creaturely existence more than with simply mimicking the poetics of the classical Greek and Roman tragedians. It analyses a whole array of hermeneutical, literary, and rhetorical manifestations of "tragical mimesis" in early Christian writing, which, capitalizing on the elements of tragedy already perceptible in biblical revelation, aspired to deepen and edify Christian engagement with multiform evil and with the extreme vicissitudes of historical existence. Early Christian tragical mimetics included not only interpreting (and often amplifying) the Bible's own tragedies for contemporary audiences, but also developing models of the Christian self as a tragic self, revamping the Christian moral conscience as a tragical conscience, and cultivating a distinctively Christian tragical pathos. The study culminates in an extended consideration of the theological intelligence and accountability of "tragical vision" and tragical mimesis in early Christian literary culture, and the unique role of the theological virtue of hope in its repertoire of tragical emotions.

Dangerous Church

Dangerous Church
Author: John Bishop
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2011
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310318327

Dangerous churches are willing to put everything on the line for the one thing that matters most; reaching lost people. Through probing questions and amazing stories of God's grace, John Bishop confronts church leaders to embrace what matters most to the heart of God, whatever the cost. Most churches naturally gravitate to what is safe and familiar. Church leaders who take risks are bound to fail, and fear drives us to continue in our comfortable, but ineffective patterns. But reaching out to a lost world was never meant to be easy. Jesus promised his followers that they would have trouble in this world. Dangerous churches are churches that are willing to risk everything--comfort, safety, and the security of the familiar--for the sake of the one thing that matters most: reaching out to people who may spend eternity separated from the God who created them. God wants us to live on the edge of our margins, walking by faith and not simply following scripted methods or programmed patterns. Dangerous Church takes you back to the Book of Acts and reminds church leaders that the heartbeat of the church is not found in agendas or human plans, but in pursuing the mission of God and reaching out to a lost world. Learn what can happen when church leaders abandon their fears and begin to live a dangerous faith. Dangerous Church is part of the Leadership Network Innovation Series.

Night of Tragedy

Night of Tragedy
Author: Dan R. Crawford
Publisher: Shaw Books
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2000
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9780877885856

On September 15, 1999, a lone gunman entered a church youth rally, shot several rounds of ammunition, and killed seven people before killing himself. This book is the official record of the tragedies and victories of that night and the days that followed - a story of how the One who is the Light turned tragedy into triumph.

Disunity in Christ

Disunity in Christ
Author: Christena Cleveland
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2013-10-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830864954

Despite Jesus' prayer that all Christians "be one," divisions have been epidemic in the body of Christ. Though we may think we know why this happens, Christena Cleveland says we probably don't. Learn the hidden reasons behind conflict and divisions, the unseen dynamics at work that tend to separate us from others. Here are the tools we need to build bridges.

When Church Conflict Happens

When Church Conflict Happens
Author: Michael Hare
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2019-04-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0802496830

You Don’t Have to Dread Conflict Every church will experience conflict at some point. But it doesn’t have to destroy you. In fact, conflict can be an incredible opportunity, if you know how to seize it. Unfortunately, very few churches use the opportunity well, but your church can. Michael Hare, PhD, has been helping churches recover (and even grow) from conflict for over 20 years, and now he can help you too. Learn: how to recognize healthy and unhealthy conflicts what the five levels of conflict are and why they matter how to design an action plan that will succeed how to prevent unhealthy conflict before it begins With copious case studies and practical tools, you’ll find it’s surprisingly manageable to develop these new skills. Learn to lead confidently in the face of conflict and invest in your church’s future today. PLUS! Additional Resources in the back include: Conflict management Style Survey Conflict Assessment Tools Interview Questions for Assessing Conflict and more! "I enthusiastically endorse this book and welcome it as a valuable addition to the growing stable of peacemaking resources!" KEN SANDE Author of the Peacemaker and Founder of Peacemaker Ministries and Relational Wisdom 360 "Few things break God’s heart more, and cause the hosts of hell to rejoice more, than conflict among His followers. My friend Mike Hare is well-qualified to prepare church leaders with practical intervention strategies (brought to life by case stories) that enable us to anticipate, analyze, and resolve conflict, moving step-by-step through processes that result in unity and blessing." DR. WESS STAFFORD President Emeritus, Compassion International Author of Too Small to Ignore and Just a Minute