Dampak Pelaksanaan Persekutuan Doa dan Khotbah Variatif Terhadap Pertumbuhan Iman Jemaat

This research departs from experiences and facts in the field that an interesting and varied sermon needs to be endeavored to attract listeners' interest in worship and for the growth of faith. Apart from that, it is also felt the importance of conducting scheduled prayer meetings with various careful preparations to reap the results among the congregations. The research was conducted at the Indonesian Presbyterian Missi Church (GPMI) Sola Fide Suka Dame congregation, Pancur Batu, with 30 samples selected from all the existing congregations. The method used is quantitative with data and facts from existing events. To collect data, a questionnaire was distributed with structured statements and given a score (scoring). The results showed that the preacher's creativity with various types of sermons (varied) contributed to the growth of the congregation's faith. Likewise, the prayer fellowship had a significant influence on the growth of the congregation's faith.Keywords: worship; varied sermons; prayer meeting; faith growth Abstrak: Penelitian ini berangkat dari pengalaman dan fakta di lapangan bahwa khotbah yang menarik perlu diupayakan untuk menarik minat pendengar dalam ibadah serta demi pertumbuhan iman. Di samping itu juga dirasa pentingnya pelaksanaan persekutuan doa secara terjadwal dengan berbagai persiapan yang matang guna menuai hasil diantara jemaat. Penelitian dilakukan di Gereja Presbyterian Missi Indonesia (GPMI) Jemaat Sola Fide Suka Dame, Pancur Batu, dengan 30 orang sampel yang dipilih dari seluruh jemaat yang ada. Metode yang digunakan adalah kuantitatif dengan data serta fakta dari kejadian yang pernah ada. Angket disebar kepada responden yang ditentukan secara acak dari komunitas Persekutuan Doa. Hasil menunjukkan bahwa adanya kreatifitas pengkhotbah dengan berbagai jenis khotbah (variatif) memberikan kontribusi kepada pertumbuhan iman jemaat. Demikian juga persekutuan doa memberikan pengaruh yang signifikan terhadap pertumbuhan iman jemaat. Persekutuan Doa merupakan bagian pelayanan yang penting untuk dipertahankan dalam gereja. Demikian juga memberikan khotbah bervariasi patut diupayakan gereja demi pertumbuhan iman jemaat.Kata Kunci: ibadah; khotbah variatif; persekutuan doa; pertumbuhan iman

Praying through the pandemic: Religion, uncertainty, and care

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Roma Pentecostal converts in England continued to meet for religious gatherings and communal prayer, either outdoors or in private homes of church members, despite measures put in place by the British government that limited the number of social contacts between individuals and at times forbade visiting other households. Among the members of the Life and Light church are many who belong to one of the high-risk categories for complications from Covid-19. Why would converts take part in activities that involved increased risk of virus transmission and increase their possibility of getting ill? This paper draws on informal online and in-person conversations with Roma that took place during the summer and autumn of 2020 and reflects on religion and communal prayer as a strategy of coping with the heightened uncertainty brought by the pandemic. It argues that participating in religious meetings where people jointly pray for others, both those who present and those who are absent, is an intangible form of care that helps to forge, shape, and maintain social relationships and creates a sense of belonging and continuity. In addition, praying is an embodied expression of one’s relationship to a transcendental entity, Jesus, and of placing oneself into the caring hands of God and Jesus. Lastly, the Church provides material support for members who are in a difficult financial situation. Participating in Church activities like prayer meetings is an expression of belonging to a religious collectivity and can help gain access to this material help in situations when access to state-provided care and material support is limited or absent, thus opening for church members the possibility of tangible forms of care. The paper looks at the role of religion in dealing with the uncertainty that Roma migrants experience when dealing with the state and going about their everyday lives and the upheaval and increased uncertainty brought by the pandemic.

Harvest

The second event of the book—a paddy harvest—is presented in Chapter 4. Such an event encapsulates within it a number of dynamics, between landowners and workers, between members of the agricultural unions and others, and between the Comrade and the rest of the village. The examination of the minutiae of one particular harvest lays bare these dynamics and the importance of the legacy of a violent land reform movement in the 1980s that effected radical change. Such an analysis of the division of labor during a harvest allows for some new conclusions to be gained about cooperation and solidarity that emerge despite deep caste and class divisions. The account also shows how prayer meetings in the evenings for the holy month of Ramzan that happened to coincide with the harvest one year allowed for public and social expression of these newly forged solidarities.

Space-planning solutions of the Quaker meetings house in Russia

Quakers are a Protestant trend in Christianity that was formed in England during the English bourgeois revolution. The peculiarities of this direction include the fact that Quakers hold prayer meetings for communion with God not in churches, but in fact, in ordinary rooms called Quaker Meeting Houses. At present, there is practically no research on the development of space-planning solutions for Quaker meetings houses, including developments in the design of engineering equipment for such types of buildings. Information was collected and analyzed on the need to design specific premises for comfortable holding of Quaker prayer meetings. The analysis was carried out according to the following criteria: the total area of the objects of the Quaker prayer meeting; availability of basic meeting rooms; availability of auxiliary premises; necessary engineering equipment; architectural and urban planning appearance of the building (including the building facades); urban planning situation, taking into account the improvement of territories. There were developed block- layout diagrams of premises for various functional purposes, a variant of space-planning solutions of a house for holding prayer meetings of Quakers in Russia, a draft proposal for its architectural appearance, as well as options for various systems of engineering equipment of buildings to ensure high comfort requirements.

Official letters as a source from the history of the Protestant movement on Ukrainian lands (1905–1917)

The purpose of the research is to analyze the official letters of the authorities as a source on the history of the Protestant movement in Ukraine in 1905–1917. The following scientific tasks are envisaged: source analysis of official letters, determination of types of available source information, introduction of new documents into scientific circulation and provision of their characteristics for the purpose of further scientific retrospective. The methodology is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. During the writing of the article the method of system source analysis, archival heuristics, descriptive method and method of analysis and synthesis were used. The textual method made it possible to study the structure of the text, given the specificity of its presentation. The novelty of the research is the introduction into scientific circulation of new sources, determining their scientific relevance and expanding the boundaries of research in aspects of the issue. An analysis of documents revealing the peculiarities of conducting services and prayer meetings by religious communities of the Protestant movement, the rules of transition to non-Orthodox faiths and the principles of implementing political decisions on Protestants as an opposition to the government. The processed sources have a great informative potential on the government's policy towards the religious opposition, various aspects of the activities of certain areas of the Protestant movement, and the sources provide an opportunity to study in detail the phenomenon of Protestant movement popularity in Ukraine during the study period. The introduction of official letters into scientific circulation as a source for covering the history of the Protestant movement will contribute to an objective study of the peculiarities of its manifestation and the policy of the authorities. The scientific value of the article is due to the formulation and study of current sources on the history of the Protestant movement in Ukraine.

«Khatam-ash» ritual: research experience and perspectives in the local Islamic context of the Tyumen Region

The author uses the results of previous studies and experience of his own field research to problematize the study of the «Khatam-ash» ritual as a part of the local Islamic context in the Tyumen Region. A. Shahab was fol-lowed in understanding of the local Islamic context (Con-Text in loco) as a complex of meanings and practices that was formed as a result of previous hermeneutic interactions with the Revelation to the Prophet Muhammad. The «Khatam-ash» ritual is understood as a prescription/script (written or not) that includes sacrifice (depending on the occasion), uttering of Niyyah, recitation of Qur’an, collective supplication, giving of Sadaqah, and a collec-tive meal. Fieldwork materials gathered by the author in towns and rural settlements of the Tyumen Region in the second decade of the 2000s served as the main sources for the article. The author also analyzed publications by historians, ethnographers and social anthropologists, who studied similar phenomena in Russian, Central Asian, and North African regions. We conclude that Khatam-ash is the main ritual that makes up the local Tatarian Is-lamic context in the Tyumen Region. This prescription underlies most of the home collective prayer meetings to commemorate one's passing away or to wish for the happiness of the living ones. The local people are familiar with this ritual since early childhood, because, through its ceremonies, they get acquainted with and constantly witness manifestations of Islam among their dear and close ones. Khatam-ash is the most affordable and com-fortable way to satisfy the existential needs of the people who consider themselves Muslims, but who do not know how to behave in mosques and doubt if they have a right to attend a mosque. Through Khatam-ash, Tatars main-tain and establish relations with their relatives. In the long term perspective, the author considers a detailed de-scription and comparison of regional and local features of the performance of the ritual.

The (Apparently) Idyllic Years

This chapter traces the years 1962 to 1968, when Rachel Saint, representing the Summer Institute of Linguistics, was the only full-time missionary among the Waorani and when the Guequitaidi (Guequita’s bunch), the name given Dayomæ’s kinship group, responded to the Christian message with miraculous openness. Evangelicals in the US were told that the Guequitaidi held prayer meetings and had received copies of the Gospel of Mark, translated by Saint and Dayomæ (though no one could read) and that some had volunteered to go as missionaries to the Piyæmoidi (downriver Waorani), who were their sworn enemies. In 1966 Saint took two Wao men to the Congress on World Evangelism in Berlin, where they captured the imaginations of delegates and the press. In 1968 Wao missionaries found their Piyæmoidi enemies. That contact and the discovery of oil in Amazonian Ecuador would forever change missionary work among the Waorani.

The Handwritten Hymnbook (1958–1974)

During the Cultural Revolution, organizations and individuals of all stripes came under attack in a chaotic age characterized by the widespread breakdown of social relationships. As “old” art, music, and literature were criticized and replaced by “new” politically orthodox works, clandestine communities formed to preserve and produce alternative forms of culture. The silent prayer meetings of the True Jesus Church are akin to other covert cultural activities such as groups dedicated to reading banned literature, listening to Western music, and creating art. Charismatic experience played a key role in sustaining the life of the True Jesus Church underground because it could occur within informal, intimate settings. The church experienced an inversion of gendered power, as top male leaders were arrested and elderly women became key figures in sustaining the community’s religious life.

CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE BAPTIST MOVEMENT’S DIVISION IN UKRAINE

The article analyzes the causes and consequences of the split in the evangelical-Baptist environment in the 1960s; found that one of the main causes of the split in the bosom of evangelical Baptist Christians was the destructive influence of state authorities on religion in general, and Christian denominations in particular when initiated by state bodies of the union of Protestant religious communities under the auspices of the All-Union Baptist Council Church for organization under control of special services bodies; it has been proved that the conflicts between the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada and the Council of Churches were artificial. The confrontations among the believers were mainly provoked by SSC agents and secret services, and were only in the hands of the Communist Party regime, which helped him control events, pacify some and repress others; it is proved that under the influence of the movement for the independence of the church from the state headed by «initiators», the regime has been operating since the second half of the 1960s. gradually began to ease the pressure on officially registered communities of evangelical Baptist Christians. Prayer meetings began to be attended by teens, and ordinary members and members of other congregations were allowed to preach. As a result of these changes and some easing of tensions between the church and the government, many believers and congregations began to return to the official union governed by the ACEBC, without wishing further confrontation; it is shown that the internal church events of the 60's of the twentieth century, which were provoked by the SSC special services and led to the split of the EBC community, reflected on the position and activities of the EBC Church and in the period of independence of Ukraine, the higher leadership of the split community (the ACEBC and the Church Council) and could not reconcile and unite in a united union. This significantly weakens their spiritual position in today's globalized world, where cohesion and competitiveness play an important role.