Religion Commons^™

Faith Forming Faith, Faith Shaping Ministry, Paul E. Hoffman

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

Here are these three different gifts of our Lutheran theological and liturgical tradition that help us bear baptismal fruit that will last, once we’re out of the font:

Luther’s baptismal theology of a daily dying and rising.

The weekly rhythm of the assembly gathering around Word and Sacrament.

The wonder and mystery that is the liturgical year.

Each of these gifts in their own way urge and equip us to get beyond the waters of an individualized baptismal security tank and into the world to serve, the very place to which the tide of our baptismal waters is meant to …

Being The Body Of Christ, Jessicah Krey Duckworth

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

...catechumenal formation is not a dress rehearsal for discipleship, but is discipleship itself. Catechumenal formation is ministry – the sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with those who need to hear it most.

The catechumenate facilitates newcomer participation in the central practices of discipleship alongside oldcomers.

Yet, that is not all. Where the catechumenate thrives is when leaders tend to the relationships between newcomers and oldcomers – where leaders tend to the ministry that occurs between newcomers and oldcomers.

How Baptism Doesn't Form Us: Why We Seek Other Ways To Grow The Church, Craig Alan Satterlee

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

What if we don’t want to entrust the Church to Jesus because Jesus might have some dying and rising in mind? Could it be that we desire to be formed in ways other than the ways the triune God active in baptism forms us? Is it possible that the Church born from the font is not the Church we want? And so, we seek other ways of forming and growing the Church so that we won’t ever die.

Baptism will form the Church in ways we don’t want to be formed. Allow me to share six ways: (1) giving up …

Rituals Of Care: A Look At The Church's Ministry With The Sick, Lizette Larson-Miller

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(excerpt) "I had an interesting experience last month writing an article on Christian healing for a journal of medicine. The parameters of the requested article were a bit vague, and as I prodded the editor with questions I realized just how much I was in un-chartered territory. The familiar concepts (or, more to the point) the familiar assumptions that are part of an insider conversation theologically and ecclesiologically were missing, and I found myself having to carefully spell out the focus of what I thought might be helpful to discuss in a journal read solely by health professionals. The experience …

On The Table-Servers: Ministry In The Assembly, Gordon Lathrop

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(excerpt) "Christianity came into existence at table. The earliest churches — that is, the earliest assemblies — seem to have continued the meal tradition of Jesus, the meal tradition with which the gospels are filled: 'Behold a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and of sinners,' went one description of Jesus (Luke 7:34). Christian communities struggled to understand and maintain Jesus’ remarkable open commensality — his astonishing, God-signifying, religiously offensive and politically dangerous eating and drinking with the hoi polloi, his critique of the dining-room practice of the closed circle, his re-working of mealmeaning."