Anglican practices and rituals are primarily found in the Book of Common Prayer, the prayer book of Anglicanism, which helps define Anglican beliefs and worship practices on every level. The book is almost as important as the Bible itself to Anglicans. The Book of Common Prayer, which defines the “common”
The Baptist denomination is the largest free church denomination in the world with 43 million members. It is one of the largest Protestant Free Church denominations. More than 75 percent of all Baptists – about 33 million – live in America. There are about 216,000 Baptists in Great Britain, 850,000
The Catholic Church, known as the Roman Catholic Church, has well over one billion members, about one-sixth of the world’s population. It’s the world’s largest Christian denomination. It’s also the largest organized body of any world religion. Catholics are led by the Pope, also known as the Bishop of Rome,
Lutheranism is not a single entity. It is organized in autonomous regional or national churches. Globally, there are some 150 such Lutheran church bodies. Lutheranism is one of the largest Protestant denominations. It is also the oldest Protestant denomination. Lutheranism retains much of the tradition of the ancient and medieval
There are Methodist Churches in nearly every country in the world and global membership numbers about 70 million in 138 countries. The World Methodist Council (WMC), an association of churches in the Methodist tradition, comprises more than 40.5 million Methodists. There are at least 19 Wesleyan Methodist denominations in the
Why the Old Testament? by Bill T. Arnold Every reader of the Bible is confronted with a question: “Since the Old Testament claims God revealed himself to ancient Israel and that he will reveal himself further in the future, what do I make of these theological claims?” Or to put
“For what shall we pray?” is a weekly post inviting individuals, groups, and congregations to lift up our world in prayer. This resource is prepared by a variety of leaders in the ELCA and includes prayer prompts, upcoming events and observances, and prayer suggestions from existing denominational worship materials. You
In Nairobi, our Hope For the World partner Every Girl Counts is doing something remarkable — reaching girls with the gospel of Jesus through education. Many of the girls in the program come from families who can’t afford to send them to school. Every Girl Counts steps into that gap,
How Did We Get Here? Where 70 Years of Church Growth Took Us …somewhere in the middle of the growth, a question started following me around that I did not have the courage to say out loud. Are we making disciples? Or are we making church attenders who need us
During St. John Henry Newman’s lifetime,[1] his personal library at the Birmingham Oratory housed about 13,000 volumes organized loosely along the lines of the library he accessed as a fellow at Oriel College, Oxford.[2] We know that he did not read each book in his collection. Some occupied the shelf
This fall I am teaching ecclesiology, and as before I began the semester by rooting the Church in creation. Using Book 13 of Augustine’s Confessions and selections from Joseph Ratzinger’s masterful The Divine Project, I try to help my students see that the Church is not an afterthought, a roughly-fitting
What’s Right with the Church By Mike Powers One of the best-known testimonies in Scripture is also a timely illustration of what is right about the Church as criticism of everything that is wrong with the Church continues. Consider Saul the antagonist of Christianity who became Paul the protagonist of