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News for the Studying Congregations Community

Just about every religious group out there is producing materials to assist congregations in this difficult time. In addition to whatever your own denomination may be providing, the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship is compiling things that many Protestant leaders may find...
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From Sidewalks to Ports – Expanding Congregational Connections

Ninety percent of the consumer goods we use daily come to us through the global shipping industry, a sector invisible to most of us and rarely thought about by congregations. Growing attention focuses on the conditions under which goods are made, but what about the people who...
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We Will Feast – Studying New Ways of Congregating

I attended my first dinner-church service on a warm Thursday evening in the summer of 2015. As part of my coursework in Food Studies, I’d just completed a semester-long project on the formation of relationships over a meal – what anthropologists call “commensality.” The...
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The Practicalities of Change: Racial Integration in a South African Church

In South Africa churches may be among the last bastions of apartheid, but some churchgoers are crossing racial lines, for the sake of survival. Philippolis is a small farm town far away from everything. Far from the city and the government, far from justice and equality. The...
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From the Archives: “6 Ways to Keep Congregational Conflicts Constructive”

Question: We are watching congregations all around us be torn apart by conflicts. How can we prevent this from happening to our church and stay out of conflict? It sounds like you are concerned that if your church has a conflict, it necessarily will be torn apart. Not all...
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