Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 2002. / "Publication number AAT 3045770 "

<p> This ministry model project will equip families in creating a Christian home environment built on biblical principles for the student ministry of Gray United Methodist Church in Gray, Georgia. The researcher will facilitate this project with a minimum of ten families participating in a six-week program evaluating the results of infusing biblical teaching into the home setting through prayer, Bible study, family activities and worship. The model will consist of daily family home sessions, weekly group training, practical application and worship. The classroom praxis of mixed methodology will include sermons, videos, in home activities, journaling group discussions and individual assessments. </p>

<p> This research utilized qualitative methods to explore how students and faculty perceive the contextual engagement of the PhD program at three select theological institutions in the Majority World. This research has value, as such engagement is both an explicit and implicit value of doctoral programs located in the Majority World. Over the last decade, the number of PhD programs established to serve the church in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East and the number of students in them has risen rapidly. The research is descriptive in nature and not an attempt to evaluate the level of success or merit of such programs. Rather, it assumed that each program engages its context and sought to identify common themes as well as areas of convergence and divergence as indicated by faculty and student stakeholders. </p><p> The study consisted of thirty-six interviews. Sets of six faulty members and six doctoral students at each of three seminaries located in the Majority World were asked to share from their experiences in the doctoral program. The participating schools were Africa International University in Nairobi, Kenya; South Asian Institute for Advanced Christian Studies in Bangalore, India and Seminario Teol&oacute;gico Centroamericano, Guatemala City, Guatemala. The study asked participants to describe how the PhD program engages the context including classroom teaching and learning tasks, course outputs, including dissertations, and other non-formal aspects of the doctoral experience. </p><p> The findings revealed three primary categories of contextual engagement described by the faculty and students across the three contexts. The participants first described how the intentional design of the programs including explicit and implicit components of the curriculum engage the context. Secondly, students and faculty addressed issues of worldview and cultural values. Contextual insiders provide a depth of understanding not available outside of the context. Intracultural critique ensures contextually engaged aspects are improved through peer interactions. Finally, student and faculty participants found adult learning practices very helpful to overcome conditioned dependency on traditional education models. Participants perceived these practices as particularly helpful for engaging the local context.</p>

<p> The church provides a loving community dedicated to leading people to Jesus, educates them to Christ-like maturity, encourages believers to use their God-given gifts in the world, and provides a safe atmosphere where God's people can exalt Almighty God. However, the Church must learn to assimilate fallen brothers and sisters who repent of their sins back into the life and ministry of the church. This study provides solid theological and conceptual principles for church discipline, the necessity of confronting sin, and the redemptive process of restoring people into the family of God. It teaches church communities the elements of restoration and the positive effects forgiveness makes on individuals and the Church community. This project aims to give the church a practical guide to assimilate believers back into the life and ministry of the church. </p><p> The project reviews secular scholarly literature to discover the elements of forgiveness from a psychological perspective and examines the effects of forgiveness upon a person's brain, body, and behaviors and focuses on the elements of conflict resolution, apologies, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Furthermore, the research presents five motives for forgiveness, defines the five social institutions, and relates forgiveness to occasions when people break folkways and morays. </p><p> Through two seminars, participants learned the elements of restoration. Survey results from the pretest and post-test revealed that people believe in a biblical restoration process, but do not practice the principles of restoration.</p>

<p> As people groups have immigrated to the United States, churches have struggled to keep up with the demands of discipleship. Culture, language, and communication have proved to be formidable challenges, particularly when the written materials used to disciple people are construed with an inherent American bias. This research project sought to address this ministry problem by utilizing the concept of cultural transposition. By having a multicultural work group transpose a portion of American-based discipleship materials, this project attempted to determine whether the transposed materials are more understandable to a multicultural church congregation than the original. The study also analyzed the interactions among the transposition group to identify common problems that culture groups experience in understanding American-based materials. </p>

<p> This study explores the factors that affect the conversion trajectories of post-immersion missionaries. The data has been culled from focus group interviews and subjected to analysis from the perspectives of social philosophy, sociology, religious conversion theory, and Catholic Social Teaching. It follows the practical theological method known as &ldquo;shared Christian praxis.&rdquo; </p><p> It details the impediments to the subsequent deepening of conversion in the societal, ecclesial, interpersonal, familial, and intrapersonal spheres, namely, post-immersion depression, culture shock, feelings of guilt regarding one&rsquo;s own relatively luxurious living conditions, blaming God for the obstinate pervasiveness of extreme poverty and political injustices, and communication difficulties between the missionaries and their non-missionary family members and friends.</p><p> It concludes that the aforementioned discouraging factors can be effectively countered via attention, during the post-immersion stage, to the missionaries&rsquo; expressed needs to continue to meet regularly with their respective missionary communities, to deprivatize their visions of spiritual conversion, to live a less opulent lifestyle, to participate in hands-on community service projects in conjunction with local poor people, to continue attempting to contribute to the reign of God locally, and to speak publically about their missionary experiences. It also finds that guided prayer methods, communal liturgies, mentorship, debriefing retreats for the missionaries and their families, ongoing study of the Bible and Catholic Social Doctrine, and long-term commitment to the missions, can be efficacious tools in the promotion of the consolidation and deepening of conversion and the prevention of backsliding.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Claremont School of Theology, 2007. / (UMI)AAI3268420. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-05, Section: A, page: 2004. Adviser: Elizabeth Conde-Frazier.

<p>The context of this project was Arise Church in Spokane, Washington. The problem is Arise members are not reaching out into the community. The purpose is to train participants in Spirit-led prayer to prepare them for outreach. The central question explored was: Can training in Spirit-led prayer increase motivation and empower participants for outreach? The training occurred in a home fellowship group. The method of research employed was a qualitative case study. Data was collected using pre and post training surveys, interviews, and journals. The results were participants had increased knowledge, skill, and confidence in Spirit-led prayer. </p>

<p> A tremendous opportunity exists for church and business leaders to work together to bridge an ever-widening gap in both dialogue and understanding of the needs of believers on the front-lines of workplace service. Church leaders are anointed and responsible for equipping believers for ministry in all spheres of life, including service in the marketplace (Eph. 4:13). Church and business professionals need each other; however, due to realities such as the sacred-secular divide and unbiblical working definitions of "ministry" and "vocation," countless numbers of believers have a bifurcated, compartmentalized view of life and vocation. Research reveals that the vast majority of believers do not view their work as an expression of worship to God and service to others. </p><p> Phase one of this project involves research in the form of fifteen interviews with church and business leaders to understand their worldviews so as to better appreciate the factors contributing to the gap. Phase two involves the creation of a Workplace Roundtable Curriculum informed by the interviews and then piloted with church and business leaders at three Roundtable discussions. </p><p> The interviews and Roundtables yielded rich and thoughtful discussions about "whole-life discipleship" and revealed that participants believe workplace discussions are productive and worthwhile. These discussions help facilitate a greater understanding of the sacred-secular divide and its negative, damaging effects on believers, as well as a deeper appreciation of the biblical meaning of "ministry" and "vocation."</p>

<p> Theological education has not widely utilized the PBL approach and there is very little research examining the utility of PBL in theological education. Lectures are currently the preferred teaching method in theological education, however, it is recognized that there is a need for a more holistic approach. As theological education is used in both Western and Eastern cultures it is important to consider the possible influence of cultural background on the response to a PBL approach. Cultural differences in the response to PBL have received little attention in PBL research to date. This study utilized in-depth phenomenological interviews and questionnaires to explore, describe and analyze the lived experience of tertiary nursing and theological students, their facilitators and expert educators. Participants from both Eastern andWestern cultural backgrounds were studied and the nursing students were included to provide a comparison group from a profession that has successfully utilized PBL for some time and that is similarly focused on equipping students to respond to the needs of others.</p>