Worship services display the spiritual stand of the Dutch Reformed Church. In theological and clerical circles, it is accepted that the content of church services in Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) ...congregations shows its spiritual state as a church, or the basic convictions of its Christian faith. From their General Synod as the broadest assembly in this church, stipulations of the DRC Church Order, as well as other resolutions about church services, are accepted to be implemented by congregations. From personal experiences during visits to congregations, the author came to the conclusion that there are tendencies in these church services that are no longer in accordance with its church order and the viewpoints of its General Synod, regarding church services. These tendencies lead to a derailing of the biblical lines of church services. It also indicates a lack of loyalty in this regard, by ministers of the DRC. What it boils down to, is that church services indicate the spiritual stand of the DRC. Contribution: This article shows that church services show the spiritual approach and practice of churches. It states a principle for Reformed churches, and its critique on the Dutch Reformed Church aims at a reformation. The article stresses that the integration of the confessions of a church, as well as the understanding of the church, reflects in the services.
Artikkelen tar for seg nettbaserte gudstjenester i regi av Den norske kirke, og diskuterer hva som skal til for å skape en god opplevelse for mediebrukeren, målt opp mot kirkens uttalte formål for ...gudstjenesten. Studien baserer seg på 131 utsagn fra brukere av nettbaserte gudstjenester, samt to fokusgruppeintervjuer med til sammen ti informanter. Diskusjonen leder frem til en modell som illustrerer forutsetningene for at en slik opplevelse kan skapes. Studien viser at nettbaserte gudstjenester i betydelig grad kan tjene formålet med gudstjenestefeiringen, slik kirken beskriver dette, dersom produksjonen legger til rette for det.
The author reviews the publication of the master’s thesis of Archpriest Sergius Pravdolyubov The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete (History. Poetics. Theology), defended in 1987. The first half of ...the review describes the contents of the book and the second one contains critical remarks. The book itself is devoted to the reconstruction of the biography and creative heritage of St. Andrew of Crete, as well as his main work — the Great Canon. The saint’s life path is scrupulously reconstructed and the features of his homiletic and hymnography heritage are analyzed. The book under review consists of a preface, five chapters, research results, conclusions, a list of abbreviations, a list of the works of St. Andrew of Crete, a bibliography, an index of the shelfmarks of the mentioned manuscripts, an index of names, a table of contents of the volumes of the original dissertation and the contents of the book under review. This edition is a reproduction of the original dissertation, with the exception of a few minor changes. In the first chapter, Archpriest Sergius examines the biography of the saint and briefly characterizes his legacy. The second chapter describes the history of the genre of the hymnographic canon and the putative role of St. Andrew in it. The third chapter discusses poetics and various rhetorical techniques used in the Great Canon. The fourth chapter of the book examines intertextuality in the Great Canon. In the fifth chapter, Archpriest Sergius describes the history of the inclusion of the Great Canon in the divine services, as well as related texts: the kontakion and ikos, troparia to St. Mary of Egypt and St. Andrew of Crete, troparia at the “Beatitudes”, and other elements. The book ends with an extensive reference apparatus and an extremely valuable “List of the works of St. Andrew of Crete”. This list contains all known homilies, full canons, two-ode and three-ode canons, as well as stichera authored by, or spuriously attributed to the saint. The critical part of the review is mainly focused on the problem of the history of the canon genre in the Ancient Iadgari, which is not touched upon at all in the presented book. The remaining remarks are devoted to various unaccounted by Fr. Sergius old and recent studies on the legacy of St. Andrew of Crete: for example, the “List of the Works of St. Andrew of Crete” is supplemented with positions from AHG and CPG.
Confessions of a YouTube preacher: Prelimaniry autoetnographical reflections on the recording and conducting of a digital worship service. Digitalisation as part of a ministry strategy was already ...high on the agenda of communities of faith prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. When considering possible ministry strategies, references to, among others, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its potential systemic influence were evaluated in reflections on the nature of future congregations. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, considerably complicated and accelerated these trajectories, as the digitalisation of congregations took place, as it were, overnight. An autoetnographical exploration presents a personal, intimate and subjective reflection of this dynamics as well as the significance of digitalisation for communities of faith as can be seen in die conducting and recording of a digital worship service. Contribution: In these critical-evaluative autoetnographical reflections, the author sensitively considers, from a practical theology perspective, the possible significance of perspectives for future worship practices of communities of faith.
The paper explores the interplay of elaborate light and sound technologies used in the worship services of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. During the renovation and reconstruction of the church ...venue from former basketball stadium to church auditorium, the church hired professional companies to design and outfit the huge 16,000 seat auditorium in order to create a worship space, which simultaneously is meant to serve as a meeting space for the congregation and as an intimate place for a personal encounter with God. Worship services at Lakewood Church are multi-sensory events in which lights on the ceiling, in the auditorium, and on stage interplay with sound, vision, and space in order to structure the worship service and to mediate divine presence. The analysis is based on fieldwork data acquired on site and textual data drawn from portfolios of the technological companies involved in the reconstruction and outfitting of the church auditorium. I argue that despite the capaciousness of the space an atmosphere of intimacy is created through a specific lighting scheme that departs from traditional church lighting practices.
End-of-relationship rituals are not respected within Protestant churches. Therefore, many church websites emphasize that there are no official divorce rituals to this day. This is despite the fact ...that there are numerous impulses for divorce rituals, some of which are also firmly established in church practice. Practitioners who devote themselves to these rituals often have to be innovative. This article presents three unpublished drafts for separation rituals, which are understood as expressions of ritual design. Experiences from academic teaching show that the field divorce rituals is particularly suitable for initiating learning processes on ritual design, a skill of great importance for future pastors. Although divorce rituals are unpopular now, they are likely to become part of the standard repertoire of churches soon.
Artikkelen er en analyse av tre svært ulike gudstjenester holdt i menigheter innenfor eller tilknyttet Den norske kirke. I artikkelen kartlegges hvilke rituelle differensieringsstrategier ...gudstjenestene benytter seg av, med spørsmål om kontraster til både hverdagen og andre gudstjenestetyper. Ved hjelp av blant annet Catherine Bells og Roy Rappaports ritualteorier drøftes og belyses teologisk-kommunikative betydninger av de ulike differensieringsstrategiene som velges.
The worship service of the Church has been an object of intenseinterest within both scholarly work and the everyday work of thecongregations. This article contributes to this ongoing discussion by ...acognitive analysis of selected services and groups of ritual participantsin the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark. The theoreticalframework is the Canadian evolutionary psychologist Merlin Donald.His theory of the evolution of the human cognition is illustrated bya model that guides the analyses of both services and types of ritualparticipants. The analyses show differences between the cognitive approaches that dominate among the participants and the cognitive appealsthat dominate in the ritual procedures. In continuation of theseanalyses, the conclusion points to cognitive appeals within the ritualprocedures of the established church that may be elaborated on to adjustto the group of participants as well as to appeal to the full spectrumof cognitive strategies that any human being possess.
Previous studies have revealed denominational subculture variations in marriage timing in the U.S. with conservative Protestants marrying at a much younger age than Catholics and the unaffiliated. ...However, the effects of other religious factors, such as worship service attendance and religious salience, remain overlooked. Informed by a theoretical framework that integrates the denominational subculture variation thesis and the gendered religiosity thesis, this study replicates, updates, and extends previous research by examining the effects of religiosity on the timing of first marriage among 10,403 men and 12,279 women using pooled cross-sectional data from the National Survey of Family Growth, 2006–2010. Our survival regression models indicate that: (1) consistent with previous research, Protestants in general, and conservative Protestants in particular, marry earlier than the religiously unaffiliated; (2) irrespective of denominational affiliation, increased frequency of worship service attendance decreases age at first marriage for both men and women, whereas religious salience is associated with earlier marriage only for women; (3) among Catholics, as worship service attendance increases, the waiting time to first marriage decreases; and (4) among Protestants, however, worship service attendance decreases age at first marriage for men who are affiliated with mainline and non-denominational Protestant churches, while for women the decrease in age at first marriage associated with worship service attendance is found for those who report a conservative Protestant affiliation. The complex intersections of denominational affiliation, frequency of worship service attendance, religious salience, and gender are discussed. Results suggest that religion continues to exert influences on marriage timing among recent birth cohorts of young Americans.
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