Abstract:
New Apostolic Reformation is the nomenclature for a contemporary Christian ecclesial phenomenon, distinct from traditionally known practices, which has been noticed especially since the 1990s throughout the world. In the Brazilian reality of the 21st century, the Christian Community Church Family of Faith in Viamão/RS, of which I am the senior pastor and one of the founders, identifies itself as one of the new apostolic churches, belonging to the movement of the New Apostolic Reformation, having been implanted based on the assumptions of the Christian Apostolic Network, a network of Brazilian churches linked to the New Apostolic Reformation. This thesis proposes an attempt to elucidate the practical theology of the New Apostolic Reformation partially or completely through the case study of the implantation and functioning of the Christian Community Church Family of Faith in Viamão/RS. After introducing the participant-narrative and bibliographic methodological proposal that will format this case study, the thesis will be composed of four main development chapters. In the first chapter, the case gains substance through the fundamental description of my ministerial trajectory in a narrated way, which shaped the Christian worldview that led to belonging to the proposed ecclesial movement to be here elucidated. The second chapter deals with a predominantly bibliographical approach that underlies the New Apostolic Reformation among its main interlocutors. The third chapter describes the implantation of the local church of the case study together with the description of the ecclesial operational system that characterizes the New Apostolic Reformation through cell based churches. The fourth chapter presents the functional characteristics of a new apostolic church, through the case of the Family of Faith, in its varied functioning dynamics, in the attempt to also elucidate the liturgy and the ecclesial culture of the churches linked to the New Apostolic Reformation. The thesis has Peter Wagner as the main theorist of the description of the ecclesial movement and Joel Comiskey as the main theorist of the proposal of the operating system, with the contribution of other authors for the elaboration of the case study in the search to elucidate the practical theology of the New Apostolic Reformation. The narrative-participant and case-study aspect make the thesis original and verifiable in the socio-cultural and ecclesiastical context that it proposes to explain.
