Ministry and Worship with Children among Churches of Christ in the United States: A Quantitative and Qualitative Investigation

Why do congregations have separate children’s worship instead of intergenerational worship? What connections do such practices have with the presence and work of a children’s minister? Is separate worship with children more common in certain kinds of congregations within Churches of Christ? In a mixed-methods study, we found trends between congregational demographics and worship practices. Our qualitative research revealed that children’s ministers often consider worship choices to be rooted in pragmatic decisions and not theological imperatives.

Race Relations in the Churches of Christ

The denomination of Churches of Christ is racially segregated. While this is true for most Christian denominations, this chapter argues that this segregation is by design. This chapter presents a historical context of race relations within the Churches of Christ. Specifically, this chapter relies on primary sources to highlight this Christian denomination's doctrine that is steeped in racist ideology. Finally, this chapter concludes with suggested strategies towards racial reconciliation within the contemporary denomination.

Pentecost Past or Present

Charismatic elements were suppressed among colonial Australian Churches of Christ (Disciples) only to re-emerge a century later. Understandings of the work of the Holy Spirit were contested in Churches of Christ in Australia, Britain, and America, as the denomination struggled to account for the work of the Holy Spirit in contemporary times due to its foundational opposition to creeds, distrust of experientialism, and insistence on a rational common sense reading of the New Testament. This article examines Australian Churches of Christ responses to charismatic phenomena via several previously unexamined texts against the background of nineteenth-century revivalism, twentieth-century Pentecostalism, and the charismatic movement of the 1960s and ’70s. It finds that a church that once suppressed the story of an advocate of Holy Spirit baptism came to accommodate the language of renewal.