Provocations

Evangelism or Mass Marketing?

2009-11-25T12:23:51Z

Rethink Church is the new outreach plan released on May 6 by United Methodist Communications. A website dedicated to seekers ages 18-34, www.10thousanddoors.org uses images of doors, demonstrating numerous ways one can enter into a relationship w...

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Wesley’s General Rules, Not Programs

2009-10-27T20:38:08Z

The United Methodist Church should seriously consider the place of the General Rules in forming its identity as the people of God in the world. More specifically, we should explore how these rules functioned in the Methodist movement not onl...

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UMC Connectionalism or Corporatism?

2009-10-14T15:56:20Z

One element within the Wesleyan/Methodist tradition that might clarify what it means to be the people of God is the practice or principle of connectionalism. In the early Methodist movement, connectionalism referred to a basic set of practic...

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Is There an Alternative Vision to the Market-Oriented Church?

2009-09-29T18:29:18Z

How do we resist the placement of religion in the private sphere and subvert the impulsive focus on the needs of the individual? What shapes our conversations about what the church is and should be – the Gospel, or the all-encompassing market? ...

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John Wesley - Church Growth Expert?

2009-09-23T10:53:25Z

One aspect of modern United Methodism is to consider the church in functional terms. More specifically, a church is successful when it effectively facilitates the spiritual growth of individuals. Such “success” is noticeable through membership, ...

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Emergent United Methodism

2009-09-14T19:14:29Z

A few years ago, I became interested in the Emergent Church movement, which represents (among other things) an ongoing experiment with cross-traditional liturgical and formative Christian practices. The United Methodist Church has also shown in...

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A More “Nimble” United Methodist Church, or Niche Marketing?

2009-09-08T02:55:49Z

In an address to the Council of Bishops in 2007, Council President, Bishop Janice Riggle Huie suggested, “United Methodists need to get past their perception of themselves as an institution and once again become a movement that responds nimbly to...

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Are We All Slaves to Debt?

2009-09-01T20:44:12Z

Usually it's the Left (religious and political) condemning advertising and consumerism. The Right, in response, tends to characterize these as the free market in action. Similarly, we hear the Left ranting about corporate control of the media...

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Evangelism, or Niche Marketing?

2009-08-26T17:57:15Z

In The( Magic) Kingdom of God, Michael Budde describes the transformation of capitalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Facing diminishing returns from mass-market production, capitalism shifted to new strategies to sustai...

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Serving Christ or the Market?

2009-08-20T19:34:44Z

In his book Another City, Barry Harvey mentions two places in modern societies where the Church seeks legitimation—the state and the market. Regarding the state, Harvey argues that most post-Reformation churches continue to embrace some form of ...

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