Many local churches in Britain have adopted a neighbourhood paradigm, in which the neighbourhood is seen as the primary locus of mission and ministry. Social change increasingly calls that paradigm into question. This thesis engages in a reflective conversation between the sociological context of neighbourhood churches in the United Kingdom and theological themes which resource the self-understanding of such churches. Beginning with action research, and then through a review of literature from ecclesial sources, the neighbourhood paradigm is explored and then critiqued. The critique comes particularly through the sociology of individualization. Alternative models of church are explored as they begin to address these issues. The action research, analysis of the neighbourhood paradigm, and the study of individualization all point to ambivalence and hybridity as key experiences in late modernity. Theological reflection on individualization and ambivalence develops an understanding of Christian freedom which can engage with ambivalence and social change. This provides a theological resource for relating to the sociological context of local churches. This resource recognizes the essentially mixed and hybrid nature of contemporary lives and contemporary neighbourhoods, and provides a foundation for a renewed hybrid paradigm for neighbourhood ministry.

This document is a supplementary text to "An Empirical Power Analysis of Quasi-Exact Tests for the Rasch Model: Measurement Invariance in Small Samples" by Koller, Maier, & Hatzinger (to be published in Methodology, ISSN-L 1614-1881), which covers all technical details regarding the simulation and its results. First, the simulation scenarios and the introduction of differential item functioning (DIF) are described. Next, the different populations' distributions that were investigated are discussed, and finally, actual type-I-error rates and empirical power are displayed for all simulated scenarios. (authors' abstract) / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics

This study acknowledges the fact that compassionate witnesses working with traumatised clients suffer from secondary traumatisation. Weingarten (2000, 2001, 2003) and Figley (1995) are some of the authors on this subject. The study is based within the Zimbabwean context, which is going through a period of transition involving political and economic factors. Survivors of political violence seek assistance from counselling agencies like CONNECT and Mopane Trust. Mopane Trust chose to specialise in this work through counselling and research. This study explores how Mopane Trust trauma counsellors cope with secondary trauma. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Pastoral Therapy)

This research project sought to find out more about how clergy experience preparing to move jobs in the Church of England. This is important and timely for several reasons. First, there has been limited theoretical and empirical attention paid to the process and tasks of preparing for a career transition. Second, clergy are contemplating job moves in a dynamic institutional context which is affecting how they perceive and construct their future career trajectory. Third, I set out to investigate clergy as members of a workforce facing some of the same issues and concerns as those in other occupations rather than viewing them as being in any way special by virtue of their ordained status. The study is framed by career theories which attend to transition, turnover and the determinants and antecedents of career and job mobility. A total of 31 clergy from three Church of England dioceses were interviewed as part of a qualitative study. A social constructivist method was adopted and thematic analysis applied to the data with attention being paid to the reflexive research process. The findings indicate that a religious context is an important site for enhancing our understanding of the complex relationship between individual agency, structural constraints and the antecedents to preparing to move jobs. Following structural changes to how clergy are recruited, selected and appointed to posts participants are found to be experiencing cognitive dissonance as they anticipate a move. This is explained by a shift in the delegation of authority to individual clergy and the erosion of strategic ambiguity as a mode of communication between different parties. These are changes which undermine value systems rooted in history, tradition, custom and practice and calling which clergy rate highly. The study identifies facets of calling and vocation which clergy correlate with preparing to move jobs rather than an original call to ministry.

Very little is known in the UK about how parental church-based ministry impacts the lives of their children. Clergy children themselves have rarely, if ever, been afforded the opportunity to formally express their views and opinions on this crucial aspect of their lives, to the extent that they have been described as a ‘lost voice’ in the Church. This thesis seeks to fill this gap in our knowledge with a combination of extensive literature reviews, data obtained from a Pilot Study using the social network system Facebook, and semi-structured interviews with six adult clergy children from different denominational backgrounds who are now ministers in their own right, and by so doing help raise their profile in the Christian community. Taken together, the data confirms that the church-based ministry of clergy parents does impact their children’s lives and that if responses are any indication, other clergy children too, are able to make their views and insights known if asked. In other words, their voices need no longer be “lost,” but can be heard. In so doing they offer a fresh perspective on the practice of church-based ministry. Based on these findings the thesis proceeds to outline the theological and practical implications for the practice of ministry with a call to affirm the importance of a person’s story in the task of theological reflection; to recognise the contribution of children’s insights to faith and practice, and the values on which pastoral care should be based as outlined by the participants themselves. It concludes by proposing that further research is required in order to ascertain the full extent on how church-based ministry impacts the lives of clergy children, a topic which in the UK still remains a largely unexplored aspect of Church life and practice.

The Kingdom of God is wherever the Triune God is worshipped as Lord. It exists beyond time and place, but breaks into our time and place wherever creation worships the Triune God as Lord. The local church, in its present time and geographical place, is the microcosm of the Kingdom of God. As such, the local church contains within it all the resources necessary for the Kingdom of God to be established. Therefore, the local church is called to lead creation to worship the Triune God as Lord. It does this by fulfilling three specific works as specified in Scripture: the work of evangelism; the work of discipleship and the work of reconciliation. The modern day church must start a revolution to discover afresh these works and become what Scripture describes as the ecclesia of the hodos: the local church extending the Kingdom of God. / Systematic Theology & Theological Ethics / M.Th. (Systematic Theology)

In the „coloured‟ community of Scottsville in the Western Cape, the historical legacy of political violence and abuse, combined with the current social hierarchies of violence, control and abuse, have serious consequences for Scottsville‟s young people. These traumas and the associated discourses create a culture of fear, distrust, hopelessness, humiliation and silence amongst the majority of the young people. I have employed feminist-poststructuralist analyses in order to grasp the complex nature of the challenges of „coloured‟ poverty. Foucault‟s analyses of power relations also offered this research ways to critique pastoral power. Because of Foucault‟s analyses, I became aware that „coloured‟ people‟s experience of poverty and invisibility could not be separated from my own experience of the power of privilege and visibility. The operation of unjust power relations in the „coloured‟ community therefore compelled me to use my education and privileges to work for the restitution of the voices and of relational and physical possibilities in the lives of „coloured‟ young people. What started out as a research project became a cross-cultural journey of reparation and of my own humanisation. I argue that the praxis of embodied solidarity with the „other‟ is the challenge that poverty ultimately poses to people of privilege and to the ways in which theology defines itself. In doing the work of reparation I was supported by the relational theme of solidarity with the marginalised provided by a feminist theology of praxis. The knowledges of the women in the community in particular served as resources of faith. The research methodologies I used in this research combined the practices of narrative therapy, creative writing, mentoring and drama. The purpose of these methodologies was to invite young people into various meaning-making processes which enabled them to become the agents of their own lives and of a culture of possibility. Derrida‟s work on deconstruction and the aporia provided this research with a framework for the theory of possibility. Through the methodologies of networking and advocacy, other people have joined us in going beyond the physical and relational limitations of poverty to create possibilities for the young people and their schools. / Practical theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

German text / Die vorliegende Arbeit versucht die Bedeutung des Begriffs Autokybernetik im theologischen Umfeld zu ergründen und ihre Auswirkung in Bezug auf die Persönlichkeit junger Leiter im kirchlichen Rahmen. Der Blick fällt besonders auf Leiter in der Entwicklungsstufe der sog. Emerging Adulthood (18 bis 28 Jahren). Durch die zunehmend gesellschaftlich geforderte Selbstorganisation und Selbstorientierung mit vielen Entscheidungszwängen kommt der Selbststeuerung im Leben des jungen Leiters eine besondere Bedeutung zu. Im ersten Teil der Arbeit werden die Grundlagen zur Autokybernetik innerhalb der Praktischen Theologie gelegt. In einem zweiten Teil werden Faktoren der Autokybernetik anhand verschiedener Modelle erfasst und gebündelt. In einem dritten, empirischen Teil, sollen die ermittelten Faktoren in der Praxis überprüft werden. Dabei steht die Relevanz von Autokybernetik in der Praxis junger Leiter im Mittelpunkt. Es soll festgestellt werden, inwieweit junge Leiter diese Selbststeuerung bereits umsetzen und mit welchem Erfolg sie das tun. / The study tries to clarify the meaning of “auto-cybernetics” in the theological environment and to explore its impact in relation to the personality of young leaders in the church context. The view is especially noticeable in the stage of development of the so-called Emerging Adulthood (18-28 years). Due to the increasing self-organization and self-orientation required by the society with many constraints self-regulation becomes more and more important to the life of young leaders. In the first part of the work the fundamentals of auto-cybernetics within the Practical Theology are stated. In a second part factors of the auto-cybernetics are seized and bundled using different models. In a third empirical part the identified factors are to be tested in practice. The relevance of auto-cybernetics in the practice of young leaders is in the centre. It will be determine how young leaders do practice this self-regulation and in which extension. / Practical Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)

This thesis explores the role of constituent congregations of Church World Service (CWS) in the process of resettling refugees in the U.S. It is based upon case studies built around a series of interviews conducted with members of three congregations who sponsored African families for resettlement in Minnesota. Reflecting upon the experiences of those interviewed, the discourse considers the efficacy of refugee resettlement as a means for Christian congregations to extend hospitality to strangers. The thesis explores the broader theme of Christian hospitality as a particular activity of the church. Hospitality is approached using the scriptural theme of welcoming the stranger as it is taken up by contemporary theologians. Christine Pohl, author of Making Room, is regarded as a leading authority on hospitality. Much of her research is based on the work of Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities. This thesis suggests that Pohl’s treatment lacks both a usable definition of hospitality and a sufficient theological framework in which to locate it. In redressing these omissions, Pohl’s work is examined in light of Vanier in order to establish an understanding of what comprises a particularly Christian approach to hospitality. Finally, the thesis proposes that as hospitality is understood as an act instituted by the person of Christ and imbued by the Holy Spirit, it is to be considered an act constitutive of the Church itself. Therefore it is an act necessary to the life of the Church as the Body of Christ. While contemporary research engages with hospitality as such an act, little work has been undertaken how it can be applied at the congregational level. CWS’s model of refugee sponsorship provides congregations with the tangible means by which they may offer hospitality to strangers.

This study is an exercise in understanding both doctrinally and pastorally the nature of knowledge of God for persons with intellectual disabilities. Its central question is: “How might one know the Word of God without words?” At present, no extended theological systematical consideration has taken place of this question, and confusion arguably exists in the church and wider disability circles as to if/how persons with high support needs, such as intellectual disability, should be afforded pastoral care. This study addresses this need in dialogue with Karl Barth’s theological insights, and by developing an account of knowledge of God for persons with intellectual disabilities that is at once theologically informed and pastorally effective. In the last thirty years theological reflection considered in light of the situation of disability has seen tremendous growth and change, as the discipline has budded and blossomed. In particular, theologians of disability have reflected on the significance of disability in relation to the Christian doctrines of creation, anthropology, Christology, the imago Dei, ecclesiology and eschatology, amongst others, with rich and varied results. Similarly, this project suggests that consideration of the doctrine of revelation and the discipline of pastoral care in light of the situation of intellectual disability will yield unique and valuable outcomes for the disability community, but also for the wider church. Karl Barth will be the primary dialogue partner in these preparatory, theological stages. His thought regarding the incarnation of the Word in various forms, perhaps surprisingly, opens new avenues for our reflection. By engaging Barth’s theological anthropology as well as his theology of co-humanity of being with others in encounter, this project aims to demonstrate that knowledge of God is possible for all persons of all abilities.