In Liquid Ecclesiology Pete Ward explores the theological contours of the turn to ethnography in the study of the Christian Church. His approach rests on a theology of culture that holds in tension and paradox the expression of the Church and divine presence. This theological framework is then developed through an extended qualitative empirical case study examining the communicative practices of the contemporary evangelical Church. The case study examines how the evangelical Gospel through expression has become marginalised in the everyday life of communities being replaced by a new more individual and personalised theology seen in worship songs. The final section of the book returns to the debates around ethnographic forms of theology and the question of normativity. This book will be of interest to all those engaged in empirical and theological work, as well as those researching the contemporary Church and evangelicalism

What is church? What spaces does church occupy? Can ecclesial space exist beyond the boundaries of church? In An Interweaving Ecclesiology Mark Scanlan offers a fresh vision of Christian community as constructed for and by participants as potential ecclesial spaces combine to create an experience which we call “church”. Drawing in particular on research into the dynamic between youth groups and the churches within which they operate, Scanlan brings us a distinct approach to the church in mission that can nuance and develop the tired and sometimes flawed thinking around Fresh Expressions and pioneer ministry. Combining deep ecclesiology with a practical approach, this book will be useful to students and scholars of pioneer and youth ministry and those with a wider interest in how churches operate.

This study confronts the current crisis of churches. In critical and creative conversation with the German theologian Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923), Ulrich Schmiedel argues that churches need to be “elasticized” in order to engage the “other.” Examining contested concepts of religiosity, community, and identity, Schmiedel explores how the closure of church against the sociological “other” corresponds to the closure of church against the theological “other.” Taking trust as a central category, he advocates for a turn in the interpretation of Christianity—from “propositional possession” to “performative project,” so that the identity of Christianity is “done” rather than “described.” Through explorations of classical and contemporary scholarship in philosophy, sociology, and theology, Schmiedel retrieves Troeltsch’s interdisciplinary thinking for use in relation to the controversies that encircle the construction of community today. The study opens up innovative and instructive approaches to the investigation of the practices of Christianity, past and present. Eventually, church emerges as a “work in movement,” continually constituted through encounters with the sociological and the theological “other.”

How is our Christian hope both expressed and experienced in contemporary worship? In this Dynamics of Christian Worship volume, pastor, theologian, and songwriter Glenn Packiam explores what Christians sing about when they sing about hope and what kind of hope they experience when they worship together.

This book provides an interdisciplinary exploration of the challenges faced by pastoral ministry in South African Pentecostalism as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as some interventions being made to manage these challenges. Contributors present descriptive approaches to churches’ reactions to lockdown measures, and especially the adaptations generated within Pentecostalism in South Africa. Through a variety of approaches—including pastoral care, virtual ecclesiology, social media, and missiology—contributors offer intervention techniques which can help readers to understand the unique role of Christian ministry during the pandemic, in South Africa and beyond.

In Collaborative Practical Theology, Henk de Roest documents and analyses research on Christian practices as it can be conducted by academic practical theologians in collaboration with practitioners of different kinds in Christian practices all around the world.

This book aims to introduce a distinctively evangelical voice to the discipline of practical theology. Evangelicals have sometimes seen practical theology as primarily a ‘liberal’ project. This collection, however, actively engages with practical theology from an evangelical perspective, both through discussion of the substantive issues and by providing examples of practical theology done by evangelicals in the classroom, the church, and beyond. This volume brings together established and emerging voices to debate the growing role which practical theology is playing in evangelical and Pentecostal circles. Chapters begin by addressing methodological concerns, before moving into areas of practice. Additionally, there are four short papers from students who make use of practical theology to reflect upon their own practice. Issues of authority and normativity are tackled head on in a way that will inform the debate both within and beyond evangelicalism. This book will, therefore, be of keen interest to scholars of practical, evangelical, and Pentecostal theology.

Flexible Church proposes an ecclesiology for innovative expressions of church that is grounded in biblical texts whilst self-consciously and intentionally developed for the contemporary Western milieu. The result is a framework serves as a guide and auditing tool for pioneering church planters.

From 2006 to 2011 researchers at Heythrop College and the Oxford Centre for ecclesiology and Practical Theology (OxCEPT, Ripon College Cuddesdon) worked on a theological and action research project: "Action Research – Church and Society (ARCS). 2010 saw the publication of Talking About God in Practice: Theological Action research and Practical Theology (SCM), which presented in an accessible way the work of ARCS and its developing methodology. This turned out to be a landmark study in the praxis of Anglican and Catholic ecclesiology in the UK, showing how theology in these differing contexts interacted with the way in which clergy and congregations lived out their religious convictions. This book is a direct follow up to that significant work, authored by one of the original researchers, providing a systematic analysis of the impact of the "theological action research" methodology and its implications for a contemporary ecclesiology. The book presents an ecclesiology generated from church practice, drawing on scholarship in the field as well as the results of the theological action research undertaken. It achieves this by including real scenarios alongside the academic discourse. This combination allows the author to tease out the complex relationship between the theory and the reality of church. Addressing the need for a more developed theological and methodological account of the ARCS project, this is a book that will be of interest to scholars interested not only Western lived religion, but ecclesiology and theology more generally too.

This volume is about ecclesiology and ethnography and what really matters in such academic work. How does material from field studies matter in a theological conversation? How does theology, in various forms, matter in analysis and interpretation of field work material? How does method matter? The authors draw on their research experiences and engage in conversations concerning reflexivity, normativity, and representation in qualitative theological work. The role and responsibility of the researcher is addressed from various perspectives in the first part of the book. In the next section the authors discuss ways in which empirical studies are able to disrupt the implicit and explicit normativity of ecclesial traditions, and also how theological traditions and perspectives can inform the interpretation of empirical data. The final part of the book focuses on the process of creating "the stuff" that represents the ecclesial context under study. What Really Matters is written to serve students and researchers in the field of ecclesiology and ethnography, systematic and practical theology, and especially those who work empirically or ethnographically--broadly speaking. The book might be particularly helpful to those who deal with questions of methodology in these academic disciplines. This volume offers perspectives that grow out of the Scandinavian context, yet it seeks to participate in and contribute to a scholarly conversation that goes beyond this particular location.