Welcome to the Table

Description: The culture in North America is shifting out from under the Christian church. This book demonstrates how this shift is calling for change in the church and the art of Jesus proclamation. On the one hand, the church is losing its place of influence within greater society, but on the other hand, this post-Christian citizenry are more open (less anxious) when faced with many Christian expressions. One particular hope for the church, as it discovers a new life within post-Christendom, will be found in historically grounded, liturgical worship. Welcome to the Table was written by a churchman who is also a citizen of post-Christian culture. It provides a thoughtful discussion of the place of liturgical worship within the culture shift, addressing it thematically and providing specific and practical suggestions for the administration of ancient forms. Endorsements: ""The world has changed. You feel it in pluralistic approaches concerning all things divine, polarizing political opinions, and pervasive mistrust for anything institutional. No longer have evangelical Christianity's modern maps provided the post-Christian culture a reliable direction to experience faith, hope, and love. Tony Kriz provides a compass pointing 'true north' that honors the apostolic tradition of the early church and yet speaks the language of this emerging culture. -Tony Baron author of The Cross and the Towel and The Art of Servant Leadership ""Tony Kriz has thought deeply about the intersection of secular urban culture and liturgical spirituality. More than just thinking, he lives it better than anyone I know. Based on a couple decades of experience in several cities of the world, and using Anglican eucharistic worship as his grid, in Welcome to the Table Tony makes a genuinely unique contribution to the current, popular literature on urban ministry."" -Todd Hunter author of Giving Church Another Chance ""In this compelling book, Tony Kriz issues an impassioned plea to do more than engage in liturgical worship. He invites us into liturgical life-a life enriched by the symbiotic parities of mystery and meaning, formality and freedom, structure and spontaneity, antiquity and emergence, stasis and service, collectivism and individuality, solemnity and jubilance. Kriz offers a way for the church to be the church to a generation of people that has abandoned ecclesial cultures of the recent past but still hungers for the Bread of Life."" -Charles J. Conniry Jr. author of Soaring in the Spirit: Rediscovering Mystery in the Christian Life ""Tony Kriz engages the missional realities of North American, urban, post-modern culture with a frankness and vigor fed by real data about real people and by a love for the ancient rites and principles of worship preserved in Anglican liturgy."" -George Hemingway Priest-in-Residence St. Catherine of Alexandria Episcopal Church ""I am a pastor at a liturgical church. I am often asked by people of all sorts, 'why liturgy? What does it matter'? This current and insightful work of Tony Kriz examines the compelling nature of ancient liturgy, the beauty that draws our culture and the proclamation of the Gospel that happens through worship in the Anglican tradition. Tony offers a true churchman's understanding of God's work through the sacraments and how he can woo a post-Christian culture with the song of liturgy. I recommend this book wholeheartedly to the curious, and especially to the hungry."" -Trish Nelson Christ Church Anglican Overland Park, Kansas