Text in Afrikaans / In this study certain dt3ficiencies in connection with administrating church membership are being identified by using statistical information from "Kerkspieel Ill". The cause for these deficiencies can not simply be found in only one or even two factors. It constitutes in several factors some of which are easier to evaluate than others. The fact that it is not easy to measure a cause, does not mean that it should be avoided. Therefore, the practice concerning church membership is being examined in an exploring manner as it is an indispensable organisational matter. It is being approached from two dimensions: first the ecclesiology of the church is studied from a systematic-theological and practical-theological viewpoint with the purpose to determine whether that which the Dutch Reformed Church confesses as church clogma is indeed theologically acceptable. Then, with the ecclesiology as background, the structural phenomenon af church membership is investigated to see in what way the current practice in connection with church membership is conducive or perhaps destructive to the practice of the ecclesiology of the church. After identifying certain descrepancies between the church law and regulations and the E!Cclesiological confession on the one hand, and the church law and regulations and the current practice of membership on the other hand, a new practice for membership is designed. The aim of this new practice is to unite the church's ecclesiological confession and its practice on membership in a closer relationship to each other with the goal to lead members of the church to a fuller understanding of the meaning of their membership. This better understanding will serve as motivation for a more dedicated service to God in honor of his Name. The expectation is that other. renewing projects such as liturgical renewal, will be more effective if it is condu·cted in an atmosphere where members have a better understanding of their membership. / In hierdie studie word vanuit statistiese gegewens soos veral in Kerkspieel Ill opgeteken, sekere lee1mtes wat verband hou met lidmaatskap in die kerk ge'identifiseer. Die oorsake vir die leemtes is sekerlik nie simplisties in slegs een of selfs twee faktore te vind nie. Dit hou verband met 'n verskeidenheid van faktore waarvan sommige makliker meetbaar is as ander. Die feit dat 'n saak nie maklik meetbaar is nie, beteken nie dat dit vermy moet word nie. Daarom word hier verkennend gekyk na die hantering van kerklike lidmaatskap as onontbeerlike organisatoriese aangeleentheid. Dit word van twee kante benader: eerstens word gekyk na die kerk se ekklesiologie vanuit 'n sistematies- en prakties-teologiese perspektief met die doel om vas te stel of dit wat in die Ned Geref Kerk oor die kerk geleer word teologies versoenbaar is. Teen hierdie ekklesiologiese agtergrond word die strukturele verskynsel van lidmaatskap bekyk om uiteindelik na te gaan in watter mate die huidige praxis in VE!rband met lidmaatskap bevorderlik of dalk afbrekend inwerl< op die praxis van die ekklesiologie. Nadat bepaalde diskrepansies tussen die kerkordelike bepalinge en die ekklesiologiese belydenis aan die een kant asook tussen die kerkordelike bepalinge en die huidige praxis van lidmaatskap aan die anderkant aangetoon is, word 'n nuwe praxis vir kerklike lidmaatskap aan die hand gedoen. Die bedoeling is om die kerk se ekklesiologiese belydenis en die betekenis van kerklike lidmaatskap nader aan mekaar te bring sodat die lidmate van die kerk daartoe gelei kan wor:d om al beter te verstaan waarom dit in lidmaatskap eintlik gaan en deur hierdie beter begrip daartoe gemotiveer te word om met groter toewyding die Here tot sy eer te dien. Die verwagting is dat ander kerkvernuwende projekte soos oa die vernuwing van die erediens meer effektief sal wees indien dit geskied waar lidmate ' / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Practical Theology)

This dissertation explores congregational participation in worship services in the discipline of “Building up the local Church”. The research indicates the levels of participation within worship services of 98 respondents. I have felt that the low levels of participation (43 % of the respondents reported no active congregational participation and in 93% of the indicated the congregation were involved in two or less areas of the worship service) contribute to the practice of nominal Christianity. The congregation view themselves as the ‘Audience’(passive participants) at worship rather that the ‘Actors’ (active participants). The hypothesis is that ministers have centralized themselves specifically in worship and this has and is contributing towards the ‘nominal Christian’ problem experienced by the Church presently. Secondly, that a strategically planned and instituted process with the aim of involving all attendee’s at worship will facilitate active participation (the congregation become the ‘actors’ in and during the intercessory prayer time) and in so doing build up the local church. The Thesis sadly also points out that, ministers fundamental beliefs seem to have little or no influence on there practices. Of the ministers interviewed some indicated there primary task as that of ‘equipping the body of Christ’ yet those who held to that tenet had no significant levels of congregational involvement during worship. The research also shows that regardless of fundamental belief where ministers serve more than one congregation there is a 300% more congregational involvement during worship. The thesis then focuses on the roles of intercessory prayer in worship as a vehicle for getting ministry into the hands of the congregation. Interviews have been conducted and stories recorded as to the effectiveness of this process. I was particularly encouraged that the ‘sticky prayer’ as it became know took the ministry in some cases into the work place and created opportunities for ministry with in the worlds of the respondent. Beyond this it also sends a message to the world at large of the church as being faithful to God (expressed in prayer) and serving the world (those for whom we pray). / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

Church leaders and other members of the Mystical Body of Christ can avail themselves more to the contemplative gift while undergoing the Paschal Mystery as a team and cultivating spaces of encounter and communion with people in the Church and in the world for deepening union with God and further entry in the process of divinization. Members of the Mystical Body can be more sensitive to the presence of God within themselves and others through devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that offers an entryway for Divine Love to take captive the affections of the will as the contemplative gift is increasingly activated from within each person. This way is shown through the Holy Family and their common spiritual life which offers a model of Church that invites all people to share in their oneness of heart rooted in the Trinity to be love as one family of God.

L’Église est encore désignée « corps du Christ », surtout dans les épîtres pauliniennes. Elle est pour ainsi dire analogue à un organisme vivant. Par conséquent, sa croissance devrait résulter naturellement de sa santé. Mais l’Église en Occident est confrontée à une stagnation numérique et même à une érosion démographique. Ce qui est fondamentalement en cause, c’est la vitalité ecclésiale et la capacité non seulement de garder les fidèles, mais aussi d’attirer de nouveaux membres. La question du ministère ecclésial, fort populaire en exégèse et en histoire du christianisme dans les décennies 1970 et 1980, est délaissée depuis 20 ans. Elle mérite d’être reprise pour des raisons qui ne sont pas uniquement conjoncturelles, mais bien d’ordre théologique et ecclésiologique. De nos jours, la pluralité ministérielle largement présente dans l’Église primitive est réduite à un monolithisme pastoral. La présente thèse entend remettre à l’avant-plan la question du ministère ecclésial par un angle nouveau inspiré à la fois de l’approche herméneutique et de la méthode d’analyse rhétorique. Dans le but d’offrir des pistes pour l’identification et la mise en valeur des mécanismes de la croissance intégrale de l’Église, nous avons repéré, à la lumière d’une analyse rhétorique de deux textes majeurs du corpus paulinien (1 Co 12–14 et Ép 4,1-16), les besoins fonctionnels vitaux du corps ecclésial et les principes fondamentaux qui s’incarnent dans l’édification des églises du Nouveau Testament et que les apôtres ont cautionnés eux-mêmes. Il ressort globalement de notre étude que : (1) l’Église est dotée d’une structure organique et que sa croissance résulte de la mise en œuvre efficace et efficiente des divers dons spirituels ; (2) l’Église est dotée d’un mécanisme d’édification fonctionnel par lequel les ministres de la Parole forment tous les croyants pour les mettre en état d’accomplir le ministère ecclésial et de contribuer à l’édification de l’ensemble de la communauté ecclésiale ; (3) l’édification ecclésiale se fait en professant continûment la vérité évangélique, en s’efforçant dans l’amour de garder l’unité et en faisant toutes choses pour l’édification de la communauté et pour la seule gloire du Christ Seigneur ; (4) l’édification ecclésiale passe par quatre objectifs de croissance : l’unité de la foi, l’unité de la connaissance du Fils de Dieu, l’état d’homme accompli, la mesure de la stature parfaite du Christ. Nous avons construit, à partir des intuitions repérées, un modèle paulinien de l’édification ecclésiale. / The Church is also referred to as “body of Christ”, especially in Pauline epistles. It is almost analogous to a living organism. Therefore, its growth should naturally result from its health. But the Church in the West is facing a numerical stagnation and even a demographic decrease. What is fundamentally at issue is the ecclesial vitality and the ability to keep followers, but also to attract new members. The question of ecclesial ministry, which was very popular in the domains of exegesis and history of the Christianity in the 1970s and 1980s, was abandoned for 20 years. This question deserves to be retaken for reasons that are not only cyclical, but theological and ecclesiological. Nowadays the widely present ministerial plurality in the early Church is reduced to a pastoral monolithic. This thesis intends to put the question of ecclesial ministry foreground with a new perspective inspired from the hermeneutic approach and the method of rhetorical analysis. In order to provide avenues for the identification and development of mechanisms for the integral growth of the Church, we spotted in the light of a rhetorical analysis of two major texts of the Pauline corpus (1 Cor 12-14 and Ep 4:1-16), the vital functional needs of the ecclesial body and the fundamental principles that are embodied in the edification of the New Testament churches and that the apostles endorsed themselves. The general conclusions from this study are: (1) the Church has an organic structure and its growth is due to the effective and efficient implementation of various spiritual gifts; (2) the Church has a functional edification mechanism by which the ministers of the Word equippe all believers to make them able to accomplish ecclesial ministry and to edify the entire ecclesial community; (3) the edification of the Church is doing by continuously professing the evangelical truth in love, endeavoring to keep the unity and doing all things for the edification of the community and for the sole glory of Christ the Lord; (4) the edification of the Church goes through four growth targets: the unity of the faith, the unity of the knowledge of the Son of God, the accomplished statesman, the measure of the fullness of Christ. We build, from the intuitions spotted, a Pauline model for Church edification.

This dissertation is an ecclesiological study, conducted in the form of a case study that examines worship praxis in six parishes in the diocese of Luleå between 1990 and 2009. The specific research problem of the dissertation is whether the organizational changes that took place in connection with the relational change between Church and State in 2000 are reflected in local worship and in church service related decisions in diocese and parishes, and how the concrete relationship between worship praxis and regulations is manifested. The research problem also includes what ecclesiological impact the organizational changes may have had in the studied parishes and what the empirical results can reveal about the ecclesiality of the Church. The dissertation addresses four research questions. In response to the first question: “Are the organizational changes of 2000 reflected in local worship and in worship related decisions in dioceses and parishes and, if so, in what way?” it is noted that organizational change is reflected indirectly in expressions of growing autonomization. In response to the second question "What is the relationship between worship praxis and regulations in the Church ordinance and The Swedish Church manual 1986?” there is a tangible difference between worship praxis and regulations throughout the studied period, i.e. even before the relational change, although the difference over time has increased. Regarding the third question "What impact could the organizational change, associated with the relational change between the Church of Sweden and the State, have had on the ecclesiologies in the worship praxis which the studied parishes represent and hold?” I have not found that the new order has affected, in any direct way, the parishes’ implicit ecclesiologies during the time span covered by the study. Rather, it seems that the Church ordinance that was established at the time of the relational change has reinforced an already existing implicit ecclesiology where the parishes are considered to be autonomous. The fourth question "How can the empirical result be interpreted theologically with regard to its implicit ecclesiology, and what does that say about the ecclesiality of the Church of Sweden?” The theological interpretation of autonomization indicates an overall "immanent ecclesiology", which can be visualized in current praxis in the diocese of Luleå. The ambition that the Church of Sweden despite organizational change in the year 2000 would be the same also indicates a similar implicit ecclesiology. This is because the Church was not thought to change its identity despite being subjected to a revision in form. The study shows that the arsenal of theories and the methodical approach have implications for how much can be clarified and that different ways of studying the Church should be combined. The present study is an example of this by the study's abductive approach and exploratory character, which have allowed both interaction between praxis-related empiricism and theory and interaction between descriptive analysis and hermeneutic interpretation. The study also shows that “ordo-related theories” may be applicable to the study of the Church as an organizational structure.

[pt] A presença de Deus se evidencia no mundo de diversas formas. Ela se tornou ainda mais manifesta quando Deus irrompeu na história e selou com Israel uma aliança. Amorosamente escolhido, o povo da antiga aliança pôde experimentar a cuidadosa presença do Senhor através de inúmeros sinais-sacramentos. Segundo o relato das Escrituras e o testemunho das primeiras comunidades cristãs, essa mesma presença se fez carne em Jesus Cristo, o Verbo eterno do Pai. Por meio de gestos e palavras, Jesus revelou aos homens a presença de Deus e, na potência de seu Espírito, lhes tornou membros de seu Corpo, a Igreja. As primeiras gerações cristãs, conscientes de serem herdeiras da fé do antigo Israel, procuravam - sobretudo em suas assembleias litúrgico-cultuais - experimentar e testemunhar, diante do mundo, o Cristo ressuscitado, sinal privilegiado da presença de Deus. Nele, por meio dele e com ele, doravante, o ser humano e o restante da criação carregam em si a potência de serem sacramento da presença do eterno no tempo. Segundo Santo Agostinho, isso se aplica, de modo particular, ao mistério e à missão da Igreja - corpo-presença de Cristo na história. Diz o santo Doutor que, no regime da nova aliança, este no qual vivemos, convém falar na presença e ação de um Cristus totus. Trata-se do Cristo todo inteiro: o Cristo - plenitude e primogênito, por meio do qual todos os seres são reconciliados com Deus - e seu Corpo, a Igreja, cooperadora de Cristo em seu agir reconciliante. O Concílio Vaticano II, por sua vez, reverberando o pensamento do Doutor da Graça, consegue captar e reconhecer que a Igreja tem um importante papel no processo de reconcilação-deificação do criado. A Igreja, sacramento de Cristo, poderia, então, ser chamada de Corpus totum. E tudo em vista do mais profundo e original anelo do Deus-Amor: ser presença geradora de comunhão em tudo o que existe. / [en] The God s presence in the world can be felt in many ways. Thy presence has become more and more evident when God showed in the history and seal an alliance with people from Israel. Chosen with love, the old people could feel the Lord s presence through many sacramentals-signals. According to the Scriptures and the first Christians testaments, the Lord s presence became flesh in Jesus Christ, the God s eternal Word. Through the things Jesus had made and His words, He showed the human been the God s presence and the Power of the Holy Spirit, and made them part of His Body, the Church. The first Christians, knowing been the old Israel faith heritage, tried - mainly in their cultural-liturgical meetings, feel and testimony to the world, the resurrection Christ, real signal of God s presence. In Him, though Him and with Him, from now on, the human been and the rest of the creation bring in the power of the Eternal God forever. According Saint Agostin, this means, in particular way, the mystery and mission of the Church - presence-body of Christ in the history. The Doctor saint said, in the new alliance, that we live, it could be good to say about the presence and action of Christus totus. That is, The whole Christ: The Christ - plenty and firstborn through all of us are reconciliate to God - and His Body, The Church, that helps the reconciliation act. The Second Vatican Council, at a time, reflecting the Doctor of Grace, recognize that the Church has an important hole in the reconciliation - sanctification of the creature. The Church, Christ s sacrament, could be called the Corpus totum. Considering the more profound and original enlace of God-Love: bringing union among everything that exists.

With globalization the subject of partnership has become one of the main issues in World Mission. Partnerships are formed in all parts of the world in order to promote collaboration between churches, denominations, and mission organizations. Although good partner relationships are a desired objective, historical prejudices and cultural differences and bias lead to barriers which hinder good partnership relations. How can these barriers be overcome? Christian partnerships are usually only based on a collaboration of the partners and the Christian aspect in a relationship in World Mission is neglected. This study presents a theological basis for a Christian relationship in World Mission, coming from the creation of the human being in the image of God, the communion within the Trinity, especially the concepts of “kenosis” and “koinonia,” and the image of the Body of Christ. A second part of this study researches the historical and sociological aspects of partnership in order to identify barriers for a good partner relationship. The findings of the theological research will then be compared with the outcomes of the historical and sociological study and conclusions for an improvement should be presented. The foundation for mission-church relationship in a global context needs to be a spiritual relationship, since the acting partners come together on a basis of their Christian faith and are part of the universal Body of Christ. The kenotic attitude of the partners plays a major role in their relationship and the proposed model for functioning relationships in World Mission needs to be an organic-complementary communion. The last part then presents a new model for the relationship in World Mission, in which several elements of organic-complementary communion are described. These elements are living together in the Body of Christ, learning together, serving together, suffering and celebrating together, sharing together, working together, and discovering theology together. The study concludes with a proposal of a concept of a “common space” in order to show how such a new model could be lived out in the everyday relationships in World Mission. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / D. Th. (Missiology)

With globalization the subject of partnership has become one of the main issues in World Mission. Partnerships are formed in all parts of the world in order to promote collaboration between churches, denominations, and mission organizations. Although good partner relationships are a desired objective, historical prejudices and cultural differences and bias lead to barriers which hinder good partnership relations. How can these barriers be overcome? Christian partnerships are usually only based on a collaboration of the partners and the Christian aspect in a relationship in World Mission is neglected. This study presents a theological basis for a Christian relationship in World Mission, coming from the creation of the human being in the image of God, the communion within the Trinity, especially the concepts of “kenosis” and “koinonia,” and the image of the Body of Christ. A second part of this study researches the historical and sociological aspects of partnership in order to identify barriers for a good partner relationship. The findings of the theological research will then be compared with the outcomes of the historical and sociological study and conclusions for an improvement should be presented. The foundation for mission-church relationship in a global context needs to be a spiritual relationship, since the acting partners come together on a basis of their Christian faith and are part of the universal Body of Christ. The kenotic attitude of the partners plays a major role in their relationship and the proposed model for functioning relationships in World Mission needs to be an organic-complementary communion. The last part then presents a new model for the relationship in World Mission, in which several elements of organic-complementary communion are described. These elements are living together in the Body of Christ, learning together, serving together, suffering and celebrating together, sharing together, working together, and discovering theology together. The study concludes with a proposal of a concept of a “common space” in order to show how such a new model could be lived out in the everyday relationships in World Mission. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Missiology)