Holton Lee's mission is "... empowering and resourcing people, particularly carers and disabled people through creativity, environmental awareness and spirituality". We are a voluntary sector charity with longstanding Christian roots committed to be inclusive, non-discriminatory and provide equal opportunity. Our "research and development" need and question was "How can Holton Lee best establish and embed an informed, authentic spirituality within its praxis?" We first had to design an appropriate research approach with which to consider the new academic fields of spirituality and spirituality at work or organisational context. Since spirituality is understood through the lens of praxis, we started our Participative Action Research in the only place we could, the "here and now" of our current practice, committed to build affirmatively on the existing vision, mission and ethos with the fifty-seven year old roots of The Then, through The Now of the research process, for the sake of The Tomorrow. As researcher/worker 1st person ethnographer I worked with five 2nd person co-researchers in the organisation. We functioned as an informed reading group with mutual shared responsibility throughout our four year non-linear, cyclical iterative lived inquiry and process in which we were committed to resolve emerging conflict. We had monthly meetings and several half day events/workshops designed to facilitate 3rd person awareness/consciousness raising and dissemination within the organisation, which enabled us, as insiders, to become more fully informed and self-critical, and to guard against projection, manipulation, biases or prejudices. We were engaged in a bottom-up process of experiential and embodied learning rather than attempting to find a party line to impose top-down theory, doing to others as objects. Completing all the stages of the Leaming, Pastoral, Hermeneutical and Action Research cycles along with the Discernment Process, and Heuristic Approach resulted in the creation of further action, empowerment, liberation and the creation of knowledge, as we integrated intervening impacts and development which informed and shaped subsequent steps and future cycles. Data was continually cycled and re-cycled as we were able to be responsive, learning on the run, with enhanced understanding. The parallel process of on-going reflection and discernment helped us as we formulated more informed plans for action. In this way our practice was changed. As a Case Study we relied on extensive literature review in order not to be isolated but rather find interconnected solutions with research and action outcomes as by-products of our process to insure informed action. Second and third person interviews and writing contributed to the writing up of our story. Fruitful dialogue between critical reflection and participative engagement enabled spirituality to be woven throughout the organisation. The adequacy or worthwhileness of our participative research project was determined by the degree to which transformation and emancipation was achieved and lived out. Thus the research process, which connected power and knowledge, did contribute to the flourishing of those involved in our community of practice with the fruit and outcome of deep, connected and embodied triple loop learning, change, transformation and empowerment at individual, group and organisational levels with shared power and voice. As result of identifying and correcting gaps between the vision/theory and practice, our organisational system changed from a hierarchical to flat structure and deeper and more sound foundations were laid as theory and practice continually informed each other with resultant generalisable and transferable grounded living theoretical underpinnings extrapolated. A Personal Growth and Spirituality Statement and Policy and Job Description were written along with the development of a Basic Model of inclusive praxis as well as a Model for Understanding and Developing Spirituality Praxis. Guidelines and principles were identified to help Holton Lee and others understand how to appropriate spirituality praxis within their own local contexts, environments and milieu with consideration for our global home/community.

This research explores leadership development in the Church of God Mission International (CGMi), Nigeria, from its beginnings in 1968 to date, and the leadership challenges of the future of the Church. The thesis examines the charisms of leadership in Benson Idahosa’s life as the founder of the movement, and subsequent developments – its expansion and emergence as a major Pentecostal denomination. A biographical narrative of Benson Idahosa’s ministry along with a historiographical account of CGMi, up to the present time of transition from a charismatic missional movement to a more settled institutional denomination. This narrative raises the primary research question: Can the charism of the founder be continued in CGMi as a more settled Church? The thesis is an interdisciplinary study that brings together Church leadership, missiology and Pentecostal studies with the sociology of routinization in order to explore the importance, aspirations and reality of leadership in a mission movement turned settled Church. This analysis reveals a leadership tension situated in the struggle between charismatic and institutional emphases. The sociology of routinization is used to interpret the current state of CGMi as a Church in transition, reflected in the changing nature of leadership. It is argued that a more settled institutional approach to leadership is currently steering CGMi, which may divert the Church from its original charismatic and missional emphasis. The thesis offers a challenge to the sociological inevitability of routinization, by exploring a theological approach to leadership renewal guided by the charism of the founder. The concept of leadership renewal provides a framework for discernment by distinguishing between the essential and non-essential elements of the founder’s charism. This also requires discernment about the transmission or non-transmission of those elements in order to meet the contemporary demands of the Church, while preserving the original essence of the movement. It is argued that a theology of leadership renewal is needed in order to provide a corrective measure to the pressures of institutionalisation, through a charismatic emphasis on leadership development. The aim of the thesis, therefore, is to propose a theology of leadership renewal, fit for the future of the Church, in which the charismatic and institutional dimensions work cooperatively, and without collapsing the tension that exists between them.

As a mother tenderly: using mothering as a metaphor and analogy for parish ministry. The thesis sets out to use maternal imagery as a way of articulating the practice of parish ministry in the Church of England. The aim is to find a language which can affirm and encourage many aspects of good practice that are in danger of being over looked because they are neither well articulated nor valued. The ministry of a parish priest is a relational activity: characterised by care. It is because the priest has a responsibility to care for those entrusted to her that she engages in priestly activity. In doing so she is sharing in the collective ministry of the church in which she has a pivotal and public role. The church is to be a community in which people grow up in Christ and come to maturity of faith. In order to explore the relational activity of a parish priest the imagery of mothering is used. The changing place of women in society has made it more difficult to use gendered images and thus it is necessary to discuss whether mothering is an essentially female activity. After acknowledging the complexity of the gendered language and the reality that most women arrive at mothering through a specifically female bodily experience, the thesis goes on to state that the practice of mothering is not instinctual but learnt. It involves learning through a relationship with a particular child and what is learnt are human ways of being and doing which are not gender specific. As the child is a growing developing human being the relationship and activity needs to be adaptable and contingent, requiring concrete thinking. Sara Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking offers a philosophical understanding of mothering as a practice shaped by three demands which are all good and often conflict. Using her understanding of mothering and drawing on Hanah Arendt’s categories of human activity the thesis explores the practice of mothering. The thesis then uses this understanding of mothering as a way of reflecting on the practice of parish ministry. As a relational activity parish ministry needs to value particularity and concrete contingent responsiveness. Intersubjective relationships need to be maintained and the virtues cultivated that guard against the temptations to intrusive or domineering styles of care on the one hand or passive abnegation of responsibility on the other. Parish ministry cannot be understood in terms of tangible productivity so different ways of understanding success and evaluating priorities need to be articulated. The thesis suggests ways of thinking about and describing aspects of parish ministry that highlight the kinds of practices that enable people to flourish. The use of maternal imagery is not intended to suggest that women have a better access to these ways of being and doing, nor that congregations are like children. Mothering at its best seeks to create the relationships and spaces in which people grow up and flourish. Times of dependency are part of that but maturity and reciprocal relationships of interdependence is the goal.

In this thesis I offer a theological analysis of biomedical efforts to extend the healthy human lifespan by attenuating the aging process, situating this project within the Christian quest to holiness. The potential of even modestly extended life spans has profound social, familial, political, economic, religious, and environmental implications, and warrants considerable theological reflection, hitherto largely absent from contemporary ethical discussion. Hence, I critique the biomedical attempt to extend human life via aging retardation by considering the historical attitudes towards one’s aging body and longevity within the Christian tradition, paying particular attention to shifts in attitude regarding aging and decay, and by examining the Christian discipline of fasting as practiced by the Desert Fathers, who believed that an attenuated rate of aging was one physiological outcome (among others) subsumed under a larger moral project of character transformation. While the concept of a normative lifespan as derived from Scripture is highly tenuous, a relationship between finitude and a wisdom that recognizes one’s bodily limits does emerge. While key figures in the history of the Church have acknowledged both the difficulties of earthly life and the promise of bodily resurrection leading to a general ambivalence concerning the length of life and its extension, such attitudes were challenged by Francis Bacon and mirrored during the theological upheavals of the Great Awakenings in America. Drawing upon the work of Charles Taylor and Thomas R. Cole, I discuss the theological shifts whereby spiritual growth was segregated from physical aging via an increasingly instrumental stance towards aging and its mutability, increasing one’s fear of death. In the remainder of the thesis I examine St. Antony’s ascetic regime which enabled him to ‘remake’ his body as part of reordering and refining his soul to be the leader of his body, a regime which entailed an attenuated rate of aging. Drawing upon Karl Barth’s christological anthropology who locates the unity and order of soul and body in the person of Jesus Christ, I demonstrate how current attempts to retard aging exacerbate the ‘disorder’ and segregation of body and soul, described as ‘sloth’ and ‘care,’ negating the role of the body and its limitedness in the formation of one’s soul, and failing to mitigate the fear of death occasioned by such a disorder. Finally, I situate the Christian discipline of fasting as an alternative to life extension within the context of the practices of faith communities, understood minimally as baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Despite its importance, surrender as a Christian spiritual practice has, to date, been largely ignored and misrepresented. To restore the authentic positive meaning and value of Christian surrender in the context of contemporary life, this study, as a practical theological project, conducts an interdisciplinary critical dialogue between spiritual/theological literature and theories of psychology so as to present a theological redescription of surrender. To facilitate this critical interdisciplinary dialogue, the first two chapters of this dissertation retrieve and examine spiritual/theological and psychological descriptions of surrender individually. Then, the similarities and differences between the two groups of literature are critically compared and contrasted. Finally, on the basis of the previous examination, a redescription of surrender is presented. The key findings in this study confirm that surrender is a fundamental human relational longing and practice rooted in the relationality of God. Surrender not only plays crucial roles in establishing, maintaining and deepening human relationships with God, others, and one's own self, but also becomes an effective epistemological mode of Christian spirituality in which believers are able to become faithfully, humbly and courageously opened to God, transcending ordinary boundaries of human experience. In the final chapter, focusing on the relational nature of surrender, surrender and its roles are redescribed in terms of the four relational contexts: (a) Relationship with God; (b) Inner relationship; (c) Interpersonal relationship; and (d) Relationship with Reality (or Surrender to experience).

This thesis investigates the conceptual use of discernment in First Corinthians. As a motif, discernment spans many issues in the epistle while forming a key element in Paul’s understanding of the eschatological people of God in Christ and his expectations for them to emerge through the renewing process of the Gospel into their new identity. This identity has its type in the Wilderness Tradition of Israel, with the literary influences of 2TJ Wisdom and the OT scriptures undergirding Paul’s conceptualization in an intertextual matrix. Paul develops the motif through an open, subtle intertextuality that does not rely primarily on overt citation, but reflects a conceptual/theological movement from text/history/type to existential situation/antitype in the new covenant community being formed in the first century context of Pauline communities. Discernment does not recur in random, discrete units, but builds throughout the epistle in consistent applications that contribute in significant ways to the development of the Corinthian community. Part I analyses the Pauline groundwork for wisdom exercised through discernment as a foundational necessity for the ἐκκλησία of Corinth. Part II demonstrates the importance of discernment for the community as it functions within society, with respect to internal and external relationships. Part III studies aspects of discernment in the community gathered for worship, with discernment forming a basis for interactions of the worshipping community. Part IV concludes the study. These aspects are tracked in order through the epistle to follow Paul’s coherent use of the motif even as he addresses the occasional nature of varied issues in the Corinthian community. This study moves the discussion away from a strong focus on the dysfunctional aspect of Corinthian schism toward a more positive theology for and about the community. It also expands on limited or fragmented approaches to issues of judgement/discernment to argue for an additional coherent thread in Paul’s thought. Paul maintains a highly hopeful view for this community as an emerging people of realized eschatological fulfilment, empowered to function at a high level of spiritual wisdom as a manifestation of the body of Christ.

Text in Afrikaans / Binne die tradisionele christelike westerse samelewing waarin ons leef is daar diskoerse en meta-narratiewe wat dikteer wat van ons as huweliksmaats verwag word. Ons is dikwels onbewus van hoe hierdie verwagtinge, rolle en eise wat aan ons gestel word, deur verskillende diskoerse en stories tot stand gekom het. Die spesifieke lewenstorie en omstandlghede van die indiwidu(e) word meestal in die proses geignoreer, byvoorbeeld die saamleef met 'n huweliksmaat wat "gediagnoseer" is as iemand met 'n "bipolêre gemoedsversteuring", bring noodwendig omstandighede mee wat vir die meeste mense onuithoudbaar mag wees. Hierdie studie vertel die storie van 'n persoon wie daarin kon slaag om ten spyte van hierdie "omstandighede", sy storie so te kon herskryf dat hy steeds met hierdie persoon suksesvol binne die huwelik kan saamleef. Die studie fokus op 'n persoon, wie se lewe op grond van die christelike narratief leef, se belewing van die saamleef met 'n persoon met 'n "bipolere gemoedsversteuring". Die algemene doel van die studie was om aan die deelnemer 'n geleentheid te skep om sy belewinge in die saamleef van 'n persoon met 'n "bipolêre gemoedsversteuring" te kon deel. 'n Spesifieke fokus is geplaas om die rol wat christelike spiritualiteit speel in die verwerking en hantering daarvan, te beskryf. Daar is ook aan die persoon geleentheid gegee om op grond van sy belewlnge en verstaan van christenskap, aanbevelings te maak aan die professlone!e gemeenskap, die geloofsgemeenskap en aan huweliksmaats wat met soortgelyke omstandighede meet saamleef. Die navorslng is vanuit 'n postmoderne diskoers-oogpunt aangepak en op 'n kwalitatiewe wyse uitgevoer by wyse van 'n gevallestudle. Die deelnemer se storie is deur middel van sosiale konstruksieteorie en 'n narratiewe terapeutiese benadering, gedekonstrueer. Dit was duidelik vanuit die studie dat die funksie wat mense se spirituele oortuiginge en hul belewing daarvan in hul lewens verrig, in berekening gebring moet word in die terapeutiese proses. Wanneer kliënte belangrike besluite moet neem, moet die invloed van geloofsoortuiginge in die besluitnemingsproses in berekening gebring word. / Practical Theology / M. Th. - (Pastoral Theology)

The central issue of this study revolves around the necessity of the church to understand its essence in order to maintain a healthy balance between its identity and its relevance. The point of departure of this thesis is based on the supposition that in its attempt to remain relevant, the possibility exists that the church may in the process loose its identity. Yet on the other hand, the possibility exists that in its attempt to preserve its identity, the church may become irrelevant. While the point of departure of this study is based on the above premise, it is also postulated that it is essential for the church to reconsider the essence of its being, in order to fully appreciate the irrefutable meaning of church. Balance between identity and relevance seems nonexistent within the church unless the church understands the fundamental nature and real meaning of itself. In the Prolegomena, introductory remarks analyse the hypothesis as stated above, followed by an explanation of the research problem, a stimulus, the methodology applied, the purpose of the thesis, a chapter defining the terminology applied and a brief explanation of the close relationship between identity and relevance to other areas relative to the church as indicated in point 3 below. Within the thesis it is argued that the essence of the church is an attribute that every member of the church universal must necessarily partake of in order to belong thereto. Historical indications are employed whereby deductions can be made by which the essence, identity and relevance of the church may be demarcated. Discussions include: the origin and nature of the church; the current academic debate about the person of Jesus; the relationship between the kingdom and the church, and the implied current crisis of the church. The thesis closes with the formulation of the conclusion based on this research, namely that in order for the church to maintain a healthy balance between identity and relevance, theologians and church leaders - although situated in a variety of differing contexts - need to acquire a fresh understanding of the essence of the church and who constitutes the church / Systematic Theology & Theological Ethics / D. Th. (Systematic Theology)

We find ourselves, as interpreters and listeners, living, discerning, prioritizing, asking, and answering questions in and through particular communal and theological traditions. As the discerning and prioritizing process is inevitable, we suggest to move the question about prioritizing from the context of ‘privileged access or interpretation' to the context of the ‘preferences' of the believing communities. We imply by this ‘relocation' the interdependent relationships between believing communities and their beliefs and practices. We propose, following Maturana's epistemology, three steps to argue about the dynamic and interdependent relationships among believers, communities, and their beliefs and practices. We affirm, first, that whenever we engage in the discerning process we have before us two paths of explanations. These two paths place the believers in a central place in their task for deciding for one of the options. The recognition about the interpreters' active participation suggests the crucial role of the believers and their preferences. The crucial point in the process of discerning and deciding for one of the paths is the type of believing communities that we would like to promote and conserve. We suggest, second, that the proposal of answers and the acceptation of those answers as explanations imply the active participation of both interpreters and listeners. We propose the interdependence relationships between our existence in particular believing communities and those questions and answers that we prioritize, ignore, and conserve. We claim, third, that in language or in and through our dialogical spaces we distinguish and coordinate the many and possible dimensions of our existence and relationships. As believers, in and through the contexts of our believing communities we discern, prioritize, and conserve the accents of our beliefs and practices. We stress the crucial role of the preferences as the believing communities prioritize and conserve the ‘nature' and ‘course' of their particular communities.

The central issue of this study revolves around the necessity of the church to understand its essence in order to maintain a healthy balance between its identity and its relevance. The point of departure of this thesis is based on the supposition that in its attempt to remain relevant, the possibility exists that the church may in the process loose its identity. Yet on the other hand, the possibility exists that in its attempt to preserve its identity, the church may become irrelevant. While the point of departure of this study is based on the above premise, it is also postulated that it is essential for the church to reconsider the essence of its being, in order to fully appreciate the irrefutable meaning of church. Balance between identity and relevance seems nonexistent within the church unless the church understands the fundamental nature and real meaning of itself. In the Prolegomena, introductory remarks analyse the hypothesis as stated above, followed by an explanation of the research problem, a stimulus, the methodology applied, the purpose of the thesis, a chapter defining the terminology applied and a brief explanation of the close relationship between identity and relevance to other areas relative to the church as indicated in point 3 below. Within the thesis it is argued that the essence of the church is an attribute that every member of the church universal must necessarily partake of in order to belong thereto. Historical indications are employed whereby deductions can be made by which the essence, identity and relevance of the church may be demarcated. Discussions include: the origin and nature of the church; the current academic debate about the person of Jesus; the relationship between the kingdom and the church, and the implied current crisis of the church. The thesis closes with the formulation of the conclusion based on this research, namely that in order for the church to maintain a healthy balance between identity and relevance, theologians and church leaders - although situated in a variety of differing contexts - need to acquire a fresh understanding of the essence of the church and who constitutes the church / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D. Th. (Systematic Theology)