Monday, January 4, 2016

Jurgen Moltmann - "The Crucified God" & "How Moltmann Shaped Theology"


Theologian Jurgen Moltmann

From our friends at Homebrewed Christianity comes a lecture series by Jurgen Moltmann with a panel discussion afterwards. The website links to the audio files may be found at Homebrewed's website by clicking on the "blue link" below the title. Enjoy, and Happiest of New Years to you.

R.E. Slater
January 4, 2016
* * * * * * * * *



The Crucified God with Jurgen Moltmann!

December 8, 2015

Jurgen Moltmann is on the podcast!

Moltmann is the most influential theologian from the 2nd half of the 20th century. In this episode you will get to hear Moltmann answer our questions like a theological champ. His one liners are inappropriately zesty!

This is the first half of the live HBC podcast from the American Academy of Religion. You will get to hear Tony Jones and I interview the zesty German one – Moltmann! During the podcast we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Moltmann’s ground-breaking text The Crucified God.

We were also joined by Jennifer McBride and Philip Clayton. Get ready for the excitement!!












* * * * * * * * *

How Moltmann Shaped Theology

January 3, 2016

It’s a new year and you better get your geek out for this one!

This is the second half of the live HBC podcast from the American Academy of Religion. After Tony Jones and I interviewed the zesty German one – Moltmann – we hosted an impromptu all-star panel of HBC regulars discussing the work and influence of Moltmann’s ground-breaking text The Crucified God.

First our friends Philip Clayton and Scot Paeth kicked things off with us discussing the pathos of God, the Trinity, liberation theology and a number of other topics.

Then Tony and I were joined by a number of the authors in the Homebrewed Christianity Guide series with our friends at Fortress Press.

: See that's Tony, Jeff, Adam, Grace & Tripp.

You can order the entire book series now!

Check out the upcoming live events on our new calendar.












at No comments:

The Importance of Being Missional and Not Just Welcoming as a Christian



WHY MANY WELCOMING CHURCHES ARE DYING CHURCHES
http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/6580/why-many-welcoming-churches-are-dying-churches

December 31, 2015

I was listening to a sports radio show on my way to church one morning. The two DJs were doing their usual bit of asking each other trivia questions. One of the DJs asked, “What are the top nine favorite religious Christmas Carols in the United States?” The other DJ had a hard time answering. He got only one: “O Holy Night.” Upon learning that another popular carol is “Silent Night” he asked, “Wait, that’s a religious one? How?” He was familiar with the tune of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” but again, he didn’t know it was religious.

That same day, for our church preschool’s Christmas party, I was helping one of the teachers and her teenage daughter set up some decorations in the sanctuary while the musicians were practicing some Christmas carols. Unknowingly I was humming along and the daughter asked, “Oh, what song is that?” After realizing that I was humming aloud, I had to take a moment to think about what song I was humming along to.

“Oh. It’s ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.’”

“I never heard of that song.”

What is it about this song that no one knows about?

Out of curiosity, I started asking her if she knew other “well-known” Christmas carols. Nope. I don’t think so. Sounds familiar. I think so…? Manger? What’s a manger? Those were the answers to my spur-of-the-moment pop quiz.

It’s no secret that our culture is becoming increasingly “secular.” What’s frustrating is that a lot of our churches still operate with the assumption that everyone knows about the church. And when we meet people that don’t know the Lord’s Prayer, instead of trying to teach them, we become more outraged at the secularity of our culture.

Where I believe my church and others fall short is meeting people where they are and joining in on the conversations they are already having. We still seem to want people to meet us where we are. At a recent visioning meeting, we talked about how we can reach our community and let them know that our church exists. A majority of the ideas were something along the lines of a facelift for our campus so that we can look fresh, brighter, newer for the people driving by.

“If they see a new landscape, they might think there’s life in the church and may want to come and check us out.”

That’s all good, but a new landscape or change of color of the church building isn’t going to draw people in.

That’s the second mistake many of us make. Not only do we assume that a majority of our neighbors know about church, we also look at outreach through the lens of the question “How do we get people into our pews” rather than actually being missional.

My church is absolutely welcoming. Many other churches are also welcoming… and happy, gracious and grateful to meet new families. But a welcoming church can easily become a dying church. Welcoming suggests passively waiting for people to come to be embraced, much like a dog anticipating and waiting for its master to come home.

Yes, we need to be welcoming… but more importantly, we need to be invitational. That means taking a risk and putting ourselves out there for possible rejection when we invite people to our church. It means going out into the world, making contact with people and building relationships with them.

Many decades ago, people looked for the cross and flame (the United Methodist Church logo) when they moved into a new town.

We don’t have that luxury anymore.

We can’t just wait and assume people are going to show up — because they won't. We’re also going to encounter more and more folks who don’t know the things about our faith that we take for granted. And that’s okay.

What’s not okay is for us to mistake the words of Jesus to “Go” for “Stay and wait for people to come” — no matter how welcoming we may be.

---

Joseph Yoo is pastor of St. Mark United Methodist Church in Santa Barbara, California. He is the author of Practical Prayer and Encountering Grace. He blogs at JosephYoo.com.

at No comments: