This study focuses on the issue of Pastoral Care and Counselling to the parishioners under Church discipline in the North Western Diocese (NWD) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT). The dissertation is concerned with the understanding of Church discipline in the Old Testament, New Testament, from the Early Church up to the present day. The study focuses especially on the history and the practice of Church discipline in the North Western Diocese. The main body of this study is in chapters four and five. Chapter four discusses the danger and the blessings for a parishioner who is under Church discipline. Chapter five discusses the avenues by which to care for and counsel parishioners who are under Church discipline. It is the writer's understanding that the methodology used on how to care for and counsel parishioners under Church discipline can be applied to all parishioners in the Diocese. It is the emphasis of the researcher of this dissertation that there is inadequate care of souls due to lack of training and discipline in the Church. We need discipline in order to challenge our defense patterns of behaviour in the understanding ourselves and others and in knowing and learning to be responsible Christian people. The study calls the Church of the North Western Diocese to rethink the whole issue of how to practise Church discipline in such a way that parishioners are not judged, but comforted by caring and counselling. It is the writer's understanding that the Church has kept discipline because it maintains that God's grace is not cheap. Grace is not a licence to sin. The true aim of Church discipline is to help the sinner to restore his or her relationship 11 with Christ and the Church. To do this, parishioners under Church discipline are urged to repent of their sin and live in fellowship with God. If parishioners under Church discipline refuse to repent they have to carry the fate for their sin. There is no mercy without repentance. It is the writer's belief that the healthy practice of pastoral care and counselling in the North Western Diocese will depend upon the regaining of a balance and the interaction between healing, sustaining, guiding and reconciling models. Through this understanding, pastoral care becomes a Christian response to humanity's need. Therefore one can conclude that pastoral care and counselling can balance and heal the effect of Church discipline. Although this study focuses on the North Western Diocese (NWD), the questions and problems concerning the issue of Church discipline and the way to approach it might be similar in many Churches in Tanzania and also in Africa. Unless otherwise indicated, scriptural quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION (NRSV), copyright @ 1989 by the Division of Christians Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

This thesis examines the historical and theological development, and ultimate failure, of the unity process between the three Lutheran Churches in Namibia, and places it in the socio-political and economic context of the turbulent history of the country. The focus is particularly on the period between 1972 and 1993 which witnessed a crucial phase in the struggle for a United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia. This took place against the background of heightened anti-apartheid political activity and international mediation for Namibian independence, which was achieved in 1990. The increasing involvement of the two Black Lutheran Churches in the liberation struggle was matched by the growing alienation and isolation of the White Lutheran Church. The three Lutheran Churches eventually failed in their deliberations between 1972 and 1993 either to unite or even to form a federation, and managed only to achieve a superficial working relationship. The failure ofthe process was shaped by various factors. These included issues of political and ethnic differences between the three Churches, concerns over the future common ownership of each Church's property, differentials in salaries, the external influence of Lutheran Churches elsewhere in the world (not least through their funding), and the question of what form the leadership structure should take in a unified Church. The leaders of the three Lutheran Churches lived and operated as theologians in somewhat different religious cultures that were the product of the several Lutheran missionary societies that had originally founded the three Lutheran Churches in Namibia. The abnormal socio-political and economic context of Namibia during colonialism (1884-1990), and the new challenges after independence, created a situation where religious and secular activities became inseparable. Inevitably, the priorities and questions confronting Lutheran Church leaders and people were concerned more with issues such as social justice, freedom, self-determination, political participation and sheer survival than with the question of church unity. The challenge for the Lutheran Churches of Namibia still remains for them to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ holistically and to spread the message of unity for all Namibians irrespective of differences of race, colour, gender and geographical region. / Thesis (M.A.)- University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Thesis (MEd) -- University of South Australia, 1994

Thesis (MA)--University of South Australia, 1995

Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, 1988. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [139]-145).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Western Theological Seminary, 1987. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-89).

Thesis (S.T.M.)--Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 185-190).

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-61).

Thesis (M. Div.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-65).