Congregational Studies

Since the 1970s, North American mainline denominations have monitored and measured the markers of congregational vitality in an effort to halt if not reverse denominational decline. The Vital Congregations Initiative of The United Methodist Church (UMC) serves as an illustration of the metrics of vitality, exposing the limitations of a quantitative approach to evangelism and congregational health. Viewed in the context of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter, it becomes clear that congregational vitality requires healing and transformation, not simply church growth. A congregation must recognize its own woundedness as the body of Christ to receive the transformative healing offered by the Great Physician. Only then might this healing congregation offer Good News to a world hurting from corporate and social sin. This article, therefore, offers the idea of healing congregations as a corrective to the metrics of congregational vitality that has taken root within North American mainline Protestantism.
https://journals.sfu.ca/witness/index.php/witness/article/view/59

_Singing the Congregation: How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community_ examines how the widespread adoption of a pop-rock-style congregational music shapes the way evangelical Christians understand worship. The book demonstrates that participatory worship music performances have brought into being new religious social constellations (“modes of congregating”). Through detailed ethnographic accounts of five of these modes—concert, conference, church, public, and networked congregations—this book seeks to reinvigorate the analytic categories of “congregation” and “congregational music.” Drawing from theoretical models in ethnomusicology, congregational studies, and contemporary ecclesiology, the congregation is re-conceived as a fluid, contingent social constellation that is actively performed into being through communal practice—in this case, the musically-structured participatory activity known as “worship.” By extension, “congregational music-making”  is recast as a participatory religious musical practice capable of weaving together a religious community inside and outside local institutional churches. Congregational music-making is not only a means of expressing local concerns and constituting the local religious community; it is also a potent way to identify with far-flung individuals, institutions, and networks that comprise this global religious community. The unique congregations explored in each chapter include but extend far beyond local churches, revealing widespread conflicts over religious authority and far-ranging implications for how evangelicals position themselves relative to other groups in North America and beyond.


The introduction sets out the book’s scope, argument, and goals, places the musical repertoire and religious community in historical and cultural context, and frames the study in relationship to recent scholarship in ethnomusicology, evangelical studies, and congregational music studies. It defines contemporary worship music in North American and global perspectives and discusses its relationship to closely related Christian popular music genres. The chapter then situates the rise of contemporary worship music in relationship to widespread conflicts over shifts in evangelical worship practices known as the “worship wars,” the development of the Christian music recording industry, the adoption of new technologies within congregational worship, and the influence of pentecostal-charismatic Christian practices. Finally, in describing the book’s research methods, I explore the challenges faced navigating distance and proximity in the field as a result of my own religious upbringing as an evangelical and my complex relationship to communities in my study.

Contemporary worship songs have been the subject of criticism over their lyrical quality. Objective assessment of the veracity of the criticisms has been difficult to achieve. This research seeks to address this issue by performing a textual analysis of the most popular hymns of the 19th and 20th centuries and contemporary popular worship songs and comparing the results. The research concludes that although there are differences in the lyrical content they are not crucial and that both contemporary worship songs and traditional hymns should find a home in congregational song.

"This book presents the first comprehensive introduction to congregational studies in the UK. Through a series of innovative essays, it explores the difference that the increasingly post-Christian nature of British society is making to life in Christian congregations, and compares this to the very different scenario which exists in the USA.

Contributions from leading scholars in the field include rich case studies of local communities and theoretical analyses which reflect on issues of method and develop broader understandings. Congregational studies is revealed as a rich and growing field of interest to scholars across many disciplines and to those involved in congregational life."

Risk aversion (the antonym is risk preference) is about how much an individual or organization dislikes risk. Given the enormous challenges facing British Christianity, and especially the Church of England, a question that has persistently arisen for me is: Is the prevailing culture of risk aversion within the Church unnecessarily bringing about her decline in both health and number? Are we as a church blind to our own risk aversion in some areas, and thus invest our talents wisely and profitably? In so doing are we in fact being unintentionally reckless. Author experience, bias and perception shapers. My own perceptions of culture in the Church of England have been shaped by daily school chapel in the liberal catholic tradition for ten years, lay involvement as a student and financial professional in evangelical churches by immersion and variety, theological study at Wycliffe hall, a curacy at St Aldates Oxford, several years as vicar of a multi­cultural inner­city parish in Peckham, and five years working with the Oxford centre for Christian apologetics and Wycliffe Hall as a Missioner and tutor, and planting a new Minster church and community on a farm in Buckinghamshire. Questions of Culture for the British Church. It was perhaps the " African " Peckham which threw my own British cultural biases and assumptions into their starkest relief and forced me to ask whether instincts or impressions I had as a leader and a pastor were as truly scriptural as I had assumed. I was invited to view the Church of England, of which I was a lifetime member and now a vicar, through the eyes of Africans, Caribbeans, Eastern Europeans and an ethnic mix from social groups D and E. And by this I do not mean the 'church' as the body of Christ, but rather the specific outworking of this organic and mysterious body in her Anglican garb and culture. Leading a congregation of approximately 40 cultures, in a densely populated area of London with over 200 first languages spoken in schools, opened my eyes to the bureaucracy and organisational culture of the Church of England as exotic, strange, foreign, at times imperialistic and suspicious of other cultural ways of operating. So much can be learned from the unspoken signals, signs and reflexes of an human organisation, the methods of communication, the use of power, respect, authority, and praise. Types of behaviour that are encouraged, efforts rewarded and people promoted or held back speaks volumes as to the operant culture. As Kate Fox's fascinating and popular read 'watching the English' has shown, when one turns the tools of anthropology upon one's own culture it is amazing what we find. It takes a form of courage to view ourselves and the church to which we belong and operate through these other eyes and ask the challenging questions. These are kind questions, wanting to understand the reasons why 'we do things this way'. In this paper I would like to ask some questions about the culture of risk in the Church of England, and the way in which this inhibits our ability as a church to respond to the enormous challenges we face.

This Powerpoint was prepared to inform, encourage and inspire the Lay Preachers, and Ministers of the EFKS in East Manukau Sub-District, to reflect deeply and meditate on II Samuel 18:33, in light of preaching a Sermon with the need to find a New Testament text.

Harvest Thanksgiving rests at the junction of liturgy, nature and memory. From the late-nineteenth century it was a major event on Nonconformist church calendars, drawing crowds well beyond regular attendance. Yet it was the Nonconformist churches’ uneasy relationship with icons, visual display and imagery of all sorts that made the spectacular displays of fruit and vegetables associated with Harvest Thanksgiving so memorable, so marvellously out of the ordinary. Photographs were taken and treasured and these offer a glimpse into a rich and peculiar world of food and display that is at once consonant and disconsonant with Nonconformity’s professed and assumed theological stances on the use of imagery. In this time of celebration and thanksgiving, of spectacle and transformation, how were Nonconformist prohibitions on display, materiality and excess so extravagantly overcome? How was the divide between the sacred and profane so colourfully rearranged? This article explores the histor...

NOTE: this PhD was re-worked, with deleted chapters and new chapters in my book _The Subversive Evangelical_. There is much new and different material.

Megachurch pastors—as local and international celebrities—have been a growing phenomenon since the 1960s, when megachurches began to proliferate across North America. Why are these leaders and their large congregations so popular in an age of increasing “religious nones”? Commentators in both popular and academic literature often resort to characterizing the leadership with stereotypes of manipulative opportunists along the lines of Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry (1927) or narrow characterizations of savvy entrepreneurs who thrive in a competitive religious economy. Similarly, writers assume megachurch attendees are a passive audience, or even dupes.

This dissertation challenges the Elmer Gantry stereotype and the religious economic perspectives by examining one particular megachurch pastor named Bruxy Cavey in the context of his “irreligious” megachurch community called The Meeting House. It argues that charismatic leadership, not calculated management and branding techniques, best explains the rapid growth of this megachurch as well as the deep commitments many people make to it. While the concept of “charisma” is often used equivocally, in the tradition of Max Weber I contend that charismatic authority is best understood not only as an extraordinary individual quality but as a form of cultural authority that arises when traditional and institutional forms have lost their plausibility and people experience uncertainty, dissatisfaction, or distress. People attribute exemplary powers to someone who offers them a way out, and intellectually and emotionally bond with the visionary and their vision.

This charismatic authority I portray as a dramatic production, what I call a “dramatic web” that draws followers into its scene and script, offering some resolution to their worries. The complex, compelling nature of this drama is best understood in the context of Wendy Griswold’s “cultural diamond,” which proposes four elements in the analysis of a cultural object: the cultural object itself, its creators, its receivers, and the social world that encapsulates them all. I investigate the four elements as part of a “charismatic diamond”: the cultural object is the “dramatic web” of Cavey’s church, marketed as “a church for people who aren’t into church”; the creators are Cavey and his staff, who employ a variety of media to generate and disseminate the drama; the social world is a Canadian culture ambivalent about religion and which stigmatizes right-wing evangelicals; the receivers are various concentric circles of audience who participate in the subculture of the church to varying degrees.

Following the dramaturgical themes of Erving Goffman, I investigate the “dramatic web” of The Meeting House in two parts—as a deconstructive, satirical project displayed on Sunday mornings and then as a re-constructive, romantic adventure that is exemplified in weekday Home Churches. For the first, I show Cavey deliberately takes “role distance” from the stereotype of a right-wing evangelical pastor, using satire to deconstruct the mores of North American evangelical culture and create an “alienating effect” in his audience. The negatively oriented opening acts create a space in which a new script can be constructed, and I demonstrate next Cavey’s two core romantic narratives that champion “relationship, not religion”—a script that is to be enacted through their weekday Home Churches. Not all attendees are caught up in this dramatic web to the same degree, however, as attendees select elements from it for their own purposes, some embracing and identifying with the whole script, while others take pieces from it to arrange into a more eclectic religious life. The final chapter explores moments of “dramaturgical trouble,” including the question of what happens when Cavey retires, dies, or is deposed. In other words, how might this religious performance come to an end? I offer a typology of possible endings and their sequels—three scenarios of charismatic succession I developed from Weber’s writing on the routinization of charisma.

The dissertation concludes by suggesting that, contrary to predictions of the megachurches demise, if megachurches indeed are a compelling drama co-produced by leader and follower that brings meaning, purpose, and joy to followers’ lives in the midst of cultural tension, megachurches are not just a passing fad or vulnerable personality cult, but a viable and likely enduring North American religious institution.

A study of how worship style can and has affected musical literacy in many denominations throughout Australia. Presents some reasons and solutions for congregational illiteracy and non- participation in worship music using Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, socratic reasoning and quotes from contemporary musicians and musicologists.

The introductory chapter begins with an anecdotal account of the dramatic growth in worship attendance at GBC taking place among the members of the Pacesetter generation. The assertion is made that the issues identified relate to the subject of assimilation. After this term is defined and explained, the thesis that “GBC is not adequately prepared to assimilate Pacesetters” is introduced. An improvement in GBC’s ability to assimilate Pacesetters is identified as the aim of this study. Chapter one summarises responses to a survey conducted among Pacesetters to assess GBC’s efforts in assimilating them. Observations are augmented by explanations of the church’s current practices. Consideration is given to the strengths and weaknesses of GBC’s approach. Chapter two provides an overview of the ways in which the Pacesetter “peer personality” may come to bear on GBC’s effectiveness at assimilation. The content of this chapter is drawn extensively from sociological analyses of the Pacesetter generation and wider social trends. Chapter three responds to the desire of Pacesetters for “authentic” community and the capitulation of evangelical churches to the culture of individualism by providing a theological vision of the individual-in-community. Two primary themes are knit together: 1) a trinitarian model of human nature and ecclesiology; 2) an overview of the significance of both individual and covenant community within God’s redemptive program. Informed by the foundation articulated in the previous chapter, chapter four outlines a theology of assimilation. The conventional definition of assimilation is countered by a revised definition rooted in the framework of this chapter. The implications of this new definition are explored. Chapter Five completes this study by outlining an assimilation strategy for GBC. This chapter includes reflections upon strategic developments that already have been implemented, and proposes additional steps to be taken over the course of the next two years.

Every year the EFKS prays for the past, present and future.  The importance of these services, cannot be underestimated.  They encourage new hope, new growth and above all new life!  Here is my effort to encapsulate Hannah's journey from death to life, which I hope encourages all of us, that only in God's Spirit, through Christ Jesus, His Son, we already have life abundantly, right here, right now...It's just that we needed it revealed to us!...Ia manuia le 2016 Samoa, Nu'u Sila, atoa ma le lalolagi atoa, i le faatasi mai o le tatou Tapa'au i le Lagi i Luga!...Chuuhuu!

In this paper I offer critical attention to the notion of atmosphere in relation to music. By exploring the concept through the case study of the Closed Brethren worship services, I argue that atmosphere may provide analytical tools to explore the ineffable in ecclesial practices. Music, just as atmosphere, commonly occupies a realm of ineffability and undermines notions such as inside and outside, subject and object. For this reason I present music as a means of knowing the atmosphere. The first part of this paper points to the limits of an understanding of atmosphere as a constellation of things, as proposed by Gernot Böhme. In contrast to this, Hermann Schmitz conceptualises atmosphere as half-thing which suggests movement. By expanding on this point, I argue that it is not solely an effect of music to trigger movement but that music itself is movement. Hence I propose to methodologically approach atmospheres as movements. Consequently, in the second part of this paper I closely analyse two motions as they cohere in Closed Brethren worship services: first, becoming (Deleuze and Guattari), a movement on the level of the individual worshiper; secondly, territorialisation (Deleuze and Guattari), a movement of the atmosphere towards its solidification. Here music as atmosphere is not a system of moral signification but a generative power affording intimate processes of divine encounter, whilst producing affective denominational difference.

The Visible Representative of God in the Congregational Christian Church Samoa is the Faifeau.  This Thesis challenges this heresy so that the Triune God can once again rightly take the place which the current paradigm of the Faifeau has bastardised!  There is only One God!  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Son!  Only if as Faifeau we are "Fa'avalevalea" can we truly see this and begin to place Le Atua rightly back to His place of Prominence for His Glory!  For His Glory Alone.  Freely I received His Wisdom.  Freely I share my Greatest Achievement Academically so far!  Shalom and Soifua ma Ia Manuia!  Peace!

PhD Kings College, London.
An exploration of new parochialism of the end of C19th which combines research into a specific missionary , Thomas Gaster, with the Church Missionary Society, in India. Then an examination of missionary evangelicalism and its fusion with the parish which led to a unique engagement of mission and church-planting. Including a history of All Saints Peckham and some modern reflections on Victorian Church growth.

Conflict affects clergy’s response to the call. Unresolved conflict negatively influences their decision to remain in full-time pastoral ministry. This contributes to a shortage of clergy in the Roman Catholic Church but to a lesser extent the Protestant church, as it faces a distribution or displacement challenge. This shortage of clergy poses a risk to the continued existence of the church as clergy equip congregants to live the faith and transmit it to the next generation. The purpose of this study was to discover what factors are involved in responding to the call to full-time pastoral ministry. A practical theological grounded theory approach was used to discover the properties of the category conflict. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and data coded using Glaser and Strauss’ grounded theory methodology in order to determine a basic social psychological process, namely responding to the call. The category of conflict includes properties such immaturity in dealing with conflict, conflict due to miscommunication, congregational conflict, dealing with favoritism, conflict with leadership, and managing conflict or leaving due to conflict. Osmer’s descriptive-empirical model was used to view the category conflict from a practical theological perspective. The results of this study indicate three responses to the call by clergy who left full-time pastoral ministry: not being called in the first place, a dual call (being bi-vocational or it was ‘seasonal’), and being called but leaving anyway due to, among other factors, conflict. Possibilities for equipping clergy in conflict management are considered.

The Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) had a strong missionary DNA since the planting of the church. This missionary focus and fervour, however, ebbed and flowed during the history of the church. Saayman described that the mission upsurges in the DRC in four waves or ‘periods of extraordinary mission endeavour’. The current research aimed to develop this theory through a literature study on the sociopolitical context and the developments in the ecclesiology and missiology of the DRC since the planting of the church up to 2013.
The research found strong evidence to define a fifth wave. The fifth wave was influenced by contextual changes (e.g. a secularising, a more integrated multicultural society and the realisation of the needs of the poor) and loss of influence and money by the DRC. Furthermore, the growth in the church’s missional identity can be seen in the following aspects: the influence of theologians like Lesslie Newbigin and David Bosch; a belief that mission is not something the church does but something the church is; a shift from a Christocentric theology to a Trinitarian theology; a holistic view of salvation; a commitment to the local context of the congregation and a focus on bringing healing to their local communities; and lastly, the success of the Gestuurde Gemeentes network and, more recently, the Mission Shaped Ministry training.

Keywords: Dutch Reformed Church; Congregational studies; Missional church; Missional ecclesiology; Missional identity; Wave of mission.

In 1910, the Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Free churches opened a school in Rushford, Minnesota, and six years later moved the school northwest to Minneapolis. The trend toward liberal theology had reached a climax at the beginning of the twentieth century, prompting these churches to open their own school based upon their evangelical convictions. For them, the challenges and costs of opening and operating a school outweighed the benefits of a twenty-five-year affiliation with Chicago Theological Seminary

"Guest explores how evangelical congregations have appropriated the values and media of contemporary culture in the propagation of a Christian message, and how this process has shaped evangelical identity.


He builds on an ethnographic study of St Michael-le-Belfrey church in York - a recognized leader in charismatic renewal and evangelical innovation since the 1960's.


Guest shows how a persistent tradition of cultural engagement may generate growth, while at the same time bringing about significant changes in the structure and function of the evangelical congregation, and in the social construction of Christian identity itself."

Can a musical repertoire be historically and culturally determinant in a specific society and time and than almost completely leave no traces nowadays? This is what happened to the musical oratorio production in Baroque and late XVIII century Florence. The Roman genre of the oratorio gained attention in all principal Italian centers during the XVII century, flourishing in Florence, both for musical and cultural affinity. In the Tuscan capital, where the Catholic Church had created a parastate inside the Medici Gran-Duchy (and later the Lorena dominion), every Florentine man was affiliated to a lay company or close to a confraternity where the musical production had a prominent role in the community life.

In the case of the oratorio, a real competition was engaged between institutions based on the quality of music and the execution and magnificence of the apparatus of the sacred dramatic production, in particular by the Congregation of the Oratory of San Filippo Neri. This widespread success, later in the XVIII century, entered also the word of the academies and theatres, transforming the oratorio production from a popular and free public entrance to a bourgeois and paying audience, allowing Florence to become one of the first Italian cities hosting the oratorio production in theatres.

Starting from the “case studies” dedicated to the Florentine oratorio by Italian Musicologists Domenico Alaleona and Guido Pasquetti at the beginning of the XX century, and later developed  by John Walter Hill, the present paper aims at giving new light to this phenomena in its entirety.
Thanks to a doctoral research carried out in the Florentine archives, many new documents were brought to light, bringing attention to the musical production of unknown religious confraternities and religious orders, such as the Confraternity of Gesù Salvadore and the Servi di Maria (Servants of Mary).

This paper was presented at the 2014 annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. It is a version of the concluding chapter of Seeing Religion book project, an edited volume I am working on with Routledge UK. The paper/chapter draws together insights from the book project.

In a qualitative study recently carried out by the author amongst ministers in a Circuit of
Dutch Reformed Congregations in a suburban context in the Western Cape, South Africa,
respondents were asked whether they sensed a ‘shift of view’ concerning the role of leadership
during the past 20 years in their respective congregations. The research results paint a picture
of ‘the end of leadership’ at least in some form. One can also sense a ‘shift of power’ over the
past two decades in these local congregations, indicating the changing dynamics of leadership.
There seems to be a shift of power from the individual leader to the team, the group and the
network. The aim of this paper is, firstly, to present some of the empirical results and then
to reflect on the underlying reasons for this shift of power by giving a description of some
broader philosophical and sociological perspectives influencing this state of affairs. This will
be followed by a description of, and reflection on, theological developments on the Trinity
and power that might help to understand the ‘end of leadership’ in some ways. The paper
concludes with some thoughts on the role of power and leadership processes at work in local
faith communities.

In the midst of the decline of mainline denominations and the rise of the “nones” in the U.S. something surprising is happening.[i]  Church planting is booming.  According to Stetzer and Travis, the number of new churches started annually jumped from approximately 1500 in the late 1900s to 4000 by 2006.[ii]  Such a spike is not only the greatest surge in church planting in the last century but Warren Bird claims it has yielded such a flurry of planting that the number of churches opened annually has outpaced church closures—a much more discussed and visible reality.[iii]  This rising phenomenon calls for sociological study, not only to describe and explain its occurrence, but also to understand the factors influencing the vitality of these new congregations. 

This essay contributes to this needed area of study by seeking to bring insights from organizational and religious ecology perspectives to understanding the influences upon the vitality of new congregations and their networks.  An organizational ecology approach “focuses on the influences of the characteristics of organizations and of the demography and ecology of the populations in which they operate.” [iv]  Thus it explores not only the impact of internal factors such as the church’s attributes, but also of external ones, such as the existence and characteristics of other churches.  Animating this study, then, is the question: What are the most relevant ecological factors impacting the vitality of new congregations and church planting initiatives in the U.S.?

In the final section, I employ the most relevant theories toward an analysis of Churches for the Sake of Others (C4SO), a new church planting initiative on the West Coast of the United States.  Based on the factors identified as pertinent to new congregations generally, I highlight some of the features of C4SO that promise to be either liabilities or assets.

[i] Mark Chaves, “All Creatures Great and Small: Megachurches in Context,” Review of Religious Research, 47(4) (2006), 329-346; Michael Hout and Claude Fischer, “Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Politics and Generations,” American Sociological Review, 67(2)(2002), 165-190.
[ii] Ed Stetzer and Dave Travis, “Who Starts New Churches?: State of Church Planting USA” (Leadership Network, 2011), 2.
[iii] Warren Bird, Warren, “More Churches Opened Than Closed in 2006,” Rev Magazine (August 2007), 68.
[iv] Michael Hannan, “Ecologies of Organizations: Diversity and Identity,” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(1) (2005), 54.

We are busy celebrating 500 years of reformation and one of the basic convictions of the reformers was that we know to (W)whom we belong. During the student uprisings that we experienced in 2015 and 2016, it became clear that the notion of ‘belonging’ was deeply contested. Students still experience that black people are socially, economically and psychologically abused by the white systems, including university campuses. In empirical research conducted in 2016 with colleagues from five other faculties, these feelings and experiences of exclusion, of not belonging and of injustice among theology students and even some lecturers, were confirmed. This led to the basic research question focused on the subject field for which I am responsible at the Faculty of Theology: how do we work together as lecturers and students to help create such spaces of human dignity in the training of students who are busy preparing for ministry practice in a postcolonial African context in which they experience belonging? This article endeavours to provide an answer to this question.
Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The empirical part of the research was conducted by colleagues from five different faculties including Arts and Science, Engineering, Law, Education and Theology. In that sense, the research was not only intradisciplinary but also interdisciplinary.

Congregational singing is a participatory vocal practice undertaken by Christians across a wide range of denominations, yet the specific qualities and active capacities of the congregational voice have yet to be investigated. Drawing on recent musicological and philosophical perspectives on voice, I theorize the congregational voice as an active practice, illuminating its abilities to do something in worship through sound.

Taking Brian Kane’s model of the voice as a circulation of content (logos), sound (echos), and source (topos), I explore how these categories are redefined through an active-based theorization of congregational singing. I argue that topos must be expanded to include the multiplicity of congregant voices and bodies, even when the sound of each voice is obscured or even intentionally hidden: as a result, congregational singing fundamentally transforms the commonly perceived correlation between echos and topos. In addition, I broaden the definition of logos to include musical content, shedding new light on discussions of musical genre in Christian worship by grounding them in the voice. As a result, I assert that music’s place within the voice is at the boundaries of sound and content, without being reducible to either. By examining the reformulations of logos, echos and topos that result through congregational singing practice, I present a new methodological framework for analyzing communal voicing, both within the congregation and beyond.

At times in Christian churches in North America, pastors and clergy are asked to resign from their positions.  While there are certainly honorable reasons for doing so (such as in the case of persistent false doctrine, or if the pastor has a scandalous and immoral life), there are also reasons that may not be as honorable.  In addressing pastoral retention in congregations, however, rather than addressing the question in a man-centered approach, the question should begin by a God-centered approach according to Holy Scripture.  This paper addresses whether or not it pleases God according to Holy Scripture, and also according to the Lutheran Confessions as the correct understanding of Holy Scripture, for a congregation to ask their pastor to resign from his divine call.