Christian ministry in the context of "Christian countercult movement"

Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is considered by some Christian denominations to be derived from the apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bishops. Those of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East traditions maintain that a bishop's orders are neither regular nor valid without consecration through apostolic succession. These traditions do not always consider the episcopal consecrations of all of the other traditions as valid.

This series was seen originally as that of the bishops of a particular see founded by one or more of the apostles. According to historian Justo L. González, apostolic succession is generally understood today as meaning a series of bishops, regardless of see, each consecrated by other bishops, themselves consecrated similarly in a succession going back to the apostles. According to the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, "apostolic succession" means more than a mere transmission of powers. It is succession in a church which witnesses to the apostolic faith, in communion with the other churches, witnesses of the same apostolic faith. The "see (cathedra) plays an important role in inserting the bishop into the heart of ecclesial apostolicity", but once ordained, the bishop becomes in his church the guarantor of apostolicity and becomes a successor of the apostles.

The ministry of Jesus, in the canonical gospels, begins with his baptism near the River Jordan by John the Baptist, and ends in Jerusalem in Judea, following the Last Supper with his disciples. The Gospel of Luke states that Jesus was "about 30 years of age" at the start of his ministry. A chronology of Jesus typically sets the date of the start of his ministry at around AD 27–29 and the end in the range AD 30–36.

Jesus' early Galilean ministry begins when after his baptism, he goes back to Galilee from his temptation in the Judaean Desert. In this early period, he preaches around Galilee and recruits his first disciples who begin to travel with him and eventually form the core of the early Church as it is believed that the apostles dispersed from Jerusalem to found the apostolic sees. The major Galilean ministry which begins in Matthew 8 includes the commissioning of the Twelve Apostles, and covers most of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee. The final Galilean ministry begins after the beheading of John the Baptist as Jesus prepares to go to Jerusalem.

Mendicant orders are primarily certain Catholic religious orders that have vowed for their male members a lifestyle of poverty, traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching, evangelization, and ministry, especially to less wealthy individuals. At their foundation these orders rejected the previously established monastic model, which prescribed living in one stable, isolated community where members worked at a trade and owned property in common, including land, buildings and other wealth. By contrast, the mendicants avoided owning property, did not work at a trade, and embraced a poor, often itinerant lifestyle. They depended for their survival on the goodwill of the people to whom they preached. The members of these orders are not called monks but friars.

The term "mendicant" is also used with reference to some non-Christian religions to denote holy persons committed to an ascetic lifestyle, which may include members of religious orders and individual holy persons.

A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, in academics, or mostly in Christian ministry.

The English word is taken from Latin: seminarium, translated as 'seed-bed', an image taken from the Council of Trent document Cum adolescentium aetas, 'Since the age of adolescence' which called for the first modern seminaries.

Connexionalism, also spelled connectionalism, is the theological understanding and foundation of Methodist ecclesiastical polity, as practised in the Methodist Church in Britain, Ireland, Caribbean and the Americas, United Methodist Church, Global Methodist Church, Free Methodist Church, African Methodist Episcopal and Episcopal Zion churches, Bible Methodist Connection of Churches, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, and many of the countries where Methodism was established by missionaries sent out from these churches. It refers to the way in which Methodist churches and other institutions are connected and work together to support one another, share resources, and carry out mission and ministry. The United Methodist Church defines connection as the principle that "all leaders and congregations are connected in a network of loyalties and commitments that support, yet supersede, local concerns." Accordingly, the primary decision-making bodies in Methodism are conferences, which serve to gather together representatives of various levels of church hierarchy.

In the United Methodist Church, Global Methodist Church and Free Methodist Church, where bishops provide church leadership, connexionalism is a variation of episcopal polity. Many Methodist churches, such as the British Methodist Church, do not have bishops. In world Methodism, a given connexion (that is, denomination) is usually autonomous.

Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan–Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles Wesley. More broadly it refers to the theological system inferred from the various sermons (e.g. the Forty-four Sermons), theological treatises, letters, journals, diaries, hymns, and other spiritual writings of the Wesleys and their contemporary coadjutors such as John William Fletcher, Methodism's systematic theologian.

In 1736, the Wesley brothers travelled to the Georgia colony in America as Christian missionaries; they left rather disheartened at what they saw. Both of them subsequently had "religious experiences", especially John in 1738, being greatly influenced by the Moravian Christians. They began to organize a renewal movement within the Church of England to focus on personal faith and holiness, putting emphasis on the importance of growth in grace after the New Birth. Unique to Wesleyan Methodism is its definition of sin: a "voluntary transgression of a known law of God." Methodist doctrine teaches that the life of a Christian subsequent to the New Birth should be characterized by holiness, living victoriously over sin. Calling it "the grand depositum" of the Methodist faith, John Wesley taught that the propagation of the doctrine of entire sanctification—the work of grace that enables Christians to be made perfect in love and be made free from the carnal nature—was the reason that God raised up the Methodists in the world.