Seeking the Church intends to introduce students, teachers and inquirers to key themes and dynamics in being the Church. In a time of significant change and search for new forms of Christian community the book locates such developments within the wider Christian tradition of theological reflection on the doctrine of the Church.

Stephen Pickard

Acknowledgements

Seeking the Church Sources and Tasks

Seeking God, seeking one another

Emerging Church: Israel, Jesus and the kingdom

Founding the Church

Kingdom, Church and eschatology

Conclusion: emerging Church in brief

The task of ecclesiology

Questions

Ecclesial Portraiture

Scriptural images and ecclesiology

From images to models

Beyond models: practices and the new ecclesiology

Conclusion

Natural Ecclesial Heresies Some Implications for Practice

Heresy and the Church

Sacred inflation: the ungrounded Church

De-sacralized ecclesia: the disappearing Church

The heretical impulse: implications for ecclesial praxis

Conclusion: beyond ecclesial heresy

A Renewed Sociality

Connectivity and society

The ecclesial nature of Christianity

Church: created sociality

Church: redeemed sociality

The ecclesial bond in Christ

The Church beyond the Social Doctrine of the Trinity

Renewal in Trinitarian theology

Problems in the social doctrine of the Trinity

Divine sociality: a preliminary reflection

The form of the Church: a provisional statement

Measuring the Mystery

Church as mystery

Church in the mystery of God: the Epistle to the Ephesians

Measuring the mystery

The marks as measures: a brief history

Marks as measures of the mystery

Apostolic in shared discipleship

Structured for Freedom

Ordering the mystery

An ordered structure: polity, faith and ministry

The dynamic structure of social systems

Ecclesial structures, human agency and hierarchy

Ecclesial structure and the polity of God

A theology of polity: the ecclesiology of Richard Hooker

Conclusion: polity within a renewed sociality

Energy for the Journey

The ordered energy of God

The energetics of worship

The media of worship: word and sacrament

Holy Scripture

Slow Church Coming

Postscript for a travelling ecclesiology

In praise of slowness

Recovering an ecclesial pace

Recovering ecclesial presence

Fugitive ecclesia: elusive pace and presence

Travelling companions

Bibliography

Index

Seeking the Church is an ideal introduction for all who want to engage with the churches theological self-understanding in the present day and through the ages.

Seeking the Church offers students, teachers and scholars an introduction to key themes for a contemporary doctrine of the church. The book considers some fundamental questions: What does it mean to seek the Church? How is this related to the search for God? Who are the contemporary travellers seeking God but not interested in the Church? What is the relationship between the Triune God and the Church? How might the Church recover a pace and presence in tune with the Spirit of Christ? Where does energy come from for a resilient discipleship in the contemporary world? Is community a good idea? Chapters cover sources, images, models and practices of the Church. Faulty doctrines of God are examined for their impact on the relationship between the church and the world, leadership and mission. At the heart of the book is an emphasis on movement and pilgrimage with the Triune God. Later chapters offer a fresh examination of familiar themes in ecclesiology: the marks of the Church; structure and polity in terms of freedom; and word, sacraments, witness and care in relation to energy. The result is a dynamic systematic ecclesiology that concludes with a provocative account of the 'slow church coming'. Questions and suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter make this a particularly useful text for students and teachers.

Stephen Pickard combines that rare gift of being able to write about the church, mission, culture and theology with wisdom, insight and profound depth, and all rooted in his own pastoral and ministerial experiences. He is without doubt one of the most exciting theologians of our generation, and this, his latest book, is a rich and illuminating study that is set to become essential reading for all who seeking to understand the forces shaping ecclesial life and Christian discipleship in contemporary culture. Seeking the Church is a major book on the nature of the church for our time, and by one of our wisest and most creative scholars. -- Martyn Percy This book is a Vade Mecum for a journey into the Church and into the social heart of God. Stephen's pilgrim's ecclesiology derives its energy from worship, word, sacrament, service and witness. Reviewing other earlier ecclesial patterns, Stephen fashions a guide for a travelling church, shaped by practices instead of simply relying on models. The bond of all is Christ but this bond releases the Christian community to be a transforming society rooted in the mystery of the faith and powered by the dynamic of grace. It offers a refreshing Church in every sense. -- Stephen Platten Through a critical engagement with a long theological tradition of reflection on the nature of the Church, Stephen Pickard offers us a dynamic 'pilgrim ecclesiology'. The search for God is necessarily undertaken through a shared human journey across the world's rocky terrain. The Church is made visible in those myriad moments and places in which God's people confess together that they have been sought and found by Christ. This book will be an invaluable resource for clergy, teachers and students who wish to learn about the nature of the Church and its place in the world. -- Simon Oliver

Stephen Pickard is an Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Canberra and Goulbourn and was formerly Director of the Oxford Centre for Ecclesiology and Practical Theology at Ripon College Cuddesdon.

Seeking the Church intends to introduce students, teachers and inquirers to key themes and dynamics in being the Church. In a time of significant change and search for new forms of Christian community the book locates such developments within the wider Christian tradition of theological reflection on the doctrine of the Church. The book covers the basic themes in ecclesiology presented in a systematic manner. It draws upon historical examples and engages where appropriate with the Anglican tradition. The intent is to cover the key areas without pretending to be exhaustive so that a reader will gain a solid and creative introduction to a major area of theology. Seeking the Church is an ideal introduction for all who want to engage with the churches theological self-understanding in the present day and through the ages.

• An up-to-date introduction to ecclesiology, a key area of Christian theology. • The book emerges from the author's teaching of ecclesiology in one of the leading theological training institutions in the UK. • SCM is the leading publisher of theological textbooks in the UK. • Revived interest in ecclesiology through a number of networks such as Ecclesiological Investigations, Receptive Ecumenism and Ecclesiology and Ethnography.

Stephen Pickard combines that rare gift of being able to write about the church, mission, culture and theology with wisdom, insight and profound depth, and all rooted in his own pastoral and ministerial experiences. He is without doubt one of the most exciting theologians of our generation, and this, his latest book, is a rich and illuminating study that is set to become essential reading for all who seeking to understand the forces shaping ecclesial life and Christian discipleship in contemporary culture. Seeking the Church is a major book on the nature of the church for our time, and by one of our wisest and most creative scholars.

This book is a Vade Mecum for a journey into the Church and into the social heart of God. Stephen's pilgrim's ecclesiology derives its energy from worship, word, sacrament, service and witness. Reviewing other earlier ecclesial patterns, Stephen fashions a guide for a travelling church, shaped by practices instead of simply relying on models. The bond of all is Christ but this bond releases the Christian community to be a transforming society rooted in the mystery of the faith and powered by the dynamic of grace. It offers a refreshing Church in every sense.

Through a critical engagement with a long theological tradition of reflection on the nature of the Church, Stephen Pickard offers us a dynamic 'pilgrim ecclesiology'. The search for God is necessarily undertaken through a shared human journey across the world's rocky terrain. The Church is made visible in those myriad moments and places in which God's people confess together that they have been sought and found by Christ. This book will be an invaluable resource for clergy, teachers and students who wish to learn about the nature of the Church and its place in the world.

Seeking the Church

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