By: Carol McLaughlin on October 17, 2014
I confess (How’s that for the start of a blog post?) that I was not certain which path to follow after reading Albert O. Hirschman’s Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States. Reading about Exit I naturally thought in terms of those exiting the Church. From a consumer standpoint I…
By: Travis Biglow on October 16, 2014
Thinking Theologically, a quest to know God October 16, 2014 So many thoughts came into my mind as I began to read “Who Needs Theology” because this book hit on a lot of points that have a lot to do with my theological thinking today. At Azusa Pacific University our program…
By: Brian Yost on October 16, 2014
I never cease to be amazed at the reactions people give when questioned about their theology. In my experience, those who say they love theology are in the minority. In fact, many people are highly suspicious of those who would call themselves theologians. I was appalled, but not surprised that “A 1994 poll funded by…
By: Liz Linssen on October 16, 2014
My previous church that I served at in Seoul, South Korea, had 60,000 members. Yet this wasn’t the biggest church in the city. Across the river, just a few kilometres away is located the world-famous Yoido Full Gospel Church, with the largest church membership in the world numbering around 800,000. Worlds apart from my current…
By: Ashley Goad on October 16, 2014
This certainly was a pithy read. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States by Albert O. Hirschman begins by stating that all organizations decline over time. Further, there are two methods of precipitating this decline: exit and voice. Exit is simply leaving or withdrawing from the relationship. For example, a customer…
By: Phillip Struckmeyer on October 16, 2014
Directionally Normalizing In the book, Who Needs Theology?: An Invitation to the Study of God, the authors Stanley J. Grenz and Roger E. Olson successfully attempt to normalize the concept and practice of theology. By taking a topic our culture and society has moved to the top and almost unreachable shelf for the elites and…
By: Bill Dobrenen on October 16, 2014
It is amazing how much an organization can change over time, sometimes for the better, but often for the worse. And almost always, at least in my experience, the change is linked to leadership. If the change is for the worse, what do the old-timers of the organization do? They usually either voice their concerns,…
By: Nick Martineau on October 16, 2014
There is a sure fire way to make sure no one shows up for a new class being offered at church, just put the word Theology in the class description. You would think believers would desire to study the nature of God but I think most of us are afraid. Stanley Grenz and Roger Olson…
By: Telile Fikru Badecha on October 16, 2014
In his book, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses To Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Albert O. Hirschman argues the inevitability of failure at times in any institution. Hirschman contends, “No matter how well a society’s basic institutions are devised failures of some actors to live up to the behavior which is expected of them…
By: Deve Persad on October 16, 2014
“As a rule, then, loyalty holds exit at bay and activates voice.” (p.78) In his book, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, the author, Albert O. Hirschman, contends that engendering loyalty prevents erratic movement away from organizations while at the same time promotes the capacity to increase input which,…
By: Mary Pandiani on October 16, 2014
A few years ago, a friend of mine challenged me to name my prolegomena. A big word to simply mean, the introduction to who you are, articulating what biases, beliefs, even your suppositions, for whenever you present to a group or write a book. In other words, don’t hold the cards under the table, but…
By: Jon Spellman on October 16, 2014
Folk theology from a recovering Pentecostal. If Grenz and Olson can lean on Peanuts metaphors in their book, Who Needs Theology? An Invitation to the Study of God, then I suppose I can pull out the big guns: Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin and his stuffed tiger/imaginary friend, Hobbes, are serenely lying under a tree, contemplating life. …
By: Dave Young on October 15, 2014
Sitting around the table at Cork Grinders was a diverse group of people: A late-thirties former pastor currently a teacher with advanced degrees in theology from a Lutheran seminary; a newlywed twenty-something young woman working downtown in IT; a middle-aged nurse who is young and inquisitive in her faith; a millennial philosophy major who’s also a…
By: Stefania Tarasut on October 11, 2014
My last encounter with the Pentecostal church was about ten years ago when a family friend was convinced that I wasn’t saved because of the choices I was making (I chose to be a pastor and was thinking about doing my MDiv). He offered to lay hands on me and pray that I would receive…
By: Ashley Goad on October 10, 2014
(Once again…coming to you LIVE from under my favorite mango trees in Haiti…!! Please exuse errors, as it was typed on my iPhone!) Global Pentecostalism. I have to be honest. The title in itself scared me. Images of the movie “Jesus Camp” are embedded into my brain. Pentecostalism evokes shouts in tongues and fires with snakes crawling…
By: rhbaker275 on October 10, 2014
It is generally understood and well documented that the center of Christianity has shifted from the centers of Western Christianly to the South and the East. Philip Jenkins notes, “We are currently living through one of the transforming moments in the history of religion worldwide.”[1]In Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement, Donald…
By: Carol McLaughlin on October 10, 2014
Surely Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement is a book that confronts Western stereotypes and expectations concerning Pentecostals. I recall hearing the excitement in a young college student as she described what she had heard was happening in far off Africa. People delivered from demons, being healed of their diseases and even…
By: John Woodward on October 10, 2014
“Hi! My name is John! I am a recovering Pentecostal-critic!” Or, should I say, “I am recovering Fundamentalist”? itisexam You see, my first awareness of anything charismatic came during college years, when a number of friends involved in my Inter-Varsity campus group jumped ship to join a Pentecostal Church student group. This was both shocking…
By: Julie Dodge on October 10, 2014
My friend Miriam will tell you about a dream she had. She was standing at a busy crossroads. Lying in the middle of the intersection, crying, was a baby. She felt compelled to run into the street to save the baby. Once she picked up the baby, she found herself surrounded by children and many…
By: Travis Biglow on October 10, 2014
With all due respect I think that critical thinking is an important tool to use in ministry and in board meetings. Some of the best decisions that you will make will come from other people rationalizing an issue from another perspective. More than that I am sure critical thinking is going to be critical while…
