With church attendance falling, church leaders are searching for methods to reverse that trend. Benchmarking the practices of successful churches offers one such avenue. This article points to issues of internal and external fit which should be considered before those benchmarked best practices are implemented by church leaders.

My project is to refresh the spiritual leadership of Mission Leaders in St Vincent’s Health Australia, a Catholic health care ministry in order to best serve the mission of the healing ministry of Jesus. I have investigated contemporary Trinitarian theology to analyse the possibilities it holds to transform Mission Leader practice. I have found that it is the relational ontology of the Trinity, in particular three aspects; embodying the kingdom, building community and enabling transformation which hold the possibility of bringing forth the best opportunities for change.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an evangelical religion. From a beginning in western New York in 1830, it grew into a world-wide organization which numbered more than a million and a half members by 1960. Those largely responsible for this growth have been the Church members who have volunteered two to three years of their time to missionary service. In 1960 there were approximately 7,000 of these missionaries working in different areas of the world. Of this number, almost 1,800 were serving in Europe, where with the exception of the personnel of the United States government groups, they probably constituted the largest single group of organized Americans living abroad. This study will trace the history of Mormon missionary work in France up to 1960. The French Mission encompasses most of the French-speaking areas of western Europe, and at various times during its history included all of France, the Channel Islands, and those parts of SWitzerland and Belgium where French is the predominate language. Also included in this study is a brief description of Mormon proselyting among the French-speaking Waldenses people of northern Italy. This was included because for many years Italy has been, at least nominally, assigned to the French Mission. Though missionaries have not proselyted in Italy for more than 100 years, there are a handful of Mormons living in that country. In this thesis, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is frequently referred to either as "the Church" or "the Mormon Church." This is done to avoid the repetition of its longer official name. Also, the Mormon missionaries are termed simply "the missionaries" or "the elders," the title elder being an office or degree of the Mormon priesthood to which all male missionaries belong. There are two remaining terms which need clarification. They are "branch" and "ward." In Mormon usage the branch is a small congregation of believers presided over by a branch president and two counselors. The ward is a somewhat larger congregation presided over by a bishop and two counselors. In the writing of this thesis a number of people have been instrumental in aiding the author by advice or in research materials. A particular debt of gratitude is owed to Professor S. George Ellsworth, chairman of the writer's graduate committee, for his valuable counsel and assistance. Appreciation is also expressed to the other members of the committee, Professors Leonard J. Arrington and Douglas D. Alder, for their helpful suggestions and encouragement. For their cooperation in allowing access to the historical data and records on the French Mission, the writer owes a special thanks to the staff of the Church Historian's Office of the Mormon Church. The author is also sincerely grateful to those who have read and criticized this thesis, and especially to his wife, Connie, who helped more than words can express by her patient encouragement.

This thesis is a feasibility study for a crewed mission to a Near Earth Asteroid (NEA). An alternate dual-launch architecture is proposed and analyzed against a more established architecture. Instead of a rendezvous in a low-Earth parking orbit, the new architecture performs the rendezvous while the two spacecraft are on an Earth-escape trajectory to the destination NEA. After selecting a target asteroid, 2000 SG344, each architecture will have its best mission compared to the best mission of the other architecture. Using the new architecture, a mission is created to the chosen NEA, 2000 SG344. A back-up Orion MPCV and a Habitation Module are launched first on a cargo configuration SLS. A crew of two astronauts is launched two hours later in the primary Orion MPCV by a crewed configuration SLS. Both of these launches are on an Earth-escape trajectory and begin rendezvous after two full days in outer space. The completed spacecraft journeys the rest of the trip to the NEA. For a period of eight days, the spacecraft remains in a tight control sphere near the asteroid by using a control algorithm and the rendezvous thrusters. The astronauts have this period to perform their EVAs and accomplish their mission objectives at the NEA. The spacecraft then departs the NEA and returns to Earth. The entire mission is 134 days and requires 2.054 km/s of Delta-v maneuvers to complete. An analysis of multiple Lambert's methods is also done due to their extensive use in this thesis. Many of the most popular Lambert algorithms are compared by evaluating each on its accuracy, speed, and singularities. The best Lambert method to use for the orbital analysis in this paper is Battin's method because it is accurate, quick, and robust for all cases that will be observed.

This dissertation investigates the question: are mission critical occupations more favored than other occupations in performance appraisals in pay pools? While many types of bias in performance appraisals occur, such as gender or race, occupational bias--favoring or showing preference for one occupation over another in performance appraisals and subsequent ratings-- has not been fully examined. There is a lack of empirical evidence that addresses occupational bias in performance appraisal and ratings in the Federal civil service sector, and more specifically the Department of Defense. The importance of occupational bias in performance appraisals is seen in the cost to organization and taxpayer, the degradation to fairness and trust in the workplace, and the erosion of organizational values. The methodology used to address this dissertation's hypothesis is a quantitative-qualitative inquiry that investigates performance ratings of the engineering occupational series within three Department of Defense (DOD) engineering agencies. The methodology is comprised of three parts: quantitative analysis of pay pool rating data and qualitative analysis of archived documents and expert interviews. Each part of the methodology is intended to be mutually supportive. The quantitative analysis yields a null finding of the hypothesis based on two findings. First, indicators of occupational bias were not found using differences of average occupational performance ratings between engineers and other occupations in three DOD engineering organizations. Second, Fiscal Year 2008 engineer occupational series performance ratings in three Department of Defense engineering agencies did not show statistically significant differences when compared to occupations such as personnel management specialists and accountants. This may be due to privacy act limitations in the data set used. Anecdotal evidence of preferences for mission critical occupations in performance appraisals and ratings was found to support the hypothesis. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study was to look at mission driven school district leadership in Massachusetts public schools and attempt to identify any relationship, or lack thereof, between district mission statements and student achievement. In this study, 288 Massachusetts public school districts are ranked according to their 2011 high school graduation rate and their 2011 tenth grade Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) results. From the 288 districts, a sample of the top thirty and the bottom thirty were selected. All district wide mission statements were obtained from the websites of the top 30 and bottom 30 school districts with a 100% return rate. The mission statements were then coded using Bebell and Stemler's 2011 coding rubric. Bebell and Stemler's coding rubric contains 11 themes with 42 subcategories. The 11 themes are: academic/cognitive, social development, emotional development, civic development, physical development, vocational preparation, integrate into local community, integrate into global community, integrate into spiritual community, safe nurturing environment, and challenging environment. The 42 subcategories are indicators composed of key words and phrases for each of the eleven themes in Bebell and Stemler's 2011 coding rubric. Results from the present study found the academic/cognitive theme occurred more than any other theme in both the top and bottom public school districts in Massachusetts. Statistical differences did appear for two of Bebell and Stemler's themes: civic development and vocational preparation. The civic development theme was correlated with the top 30 school districts, while the vocational theme was correlated with the bottom 30 school districts. Subcategories of the civic theme include productive, responsible, contributing members of society involved in public service and character education, while vocational subcategories include competition in the workforce and marketable skills. This study is limited in size and scope and more research is suggested. This study is unique because it is the first time that mission driven leadership in Massachusetts school districts is being analyzed to see if there is a connection with student achievement. The present study would be of interest to policy makers and practitioners who are interested in mission driven leadership and student achievement.

No description available.

This thesis examines the role of Melodi Ya Tshwane Christian Youth Ministry (MyT CYM) in the context of what is increasingly observable environmental crisis with a view of developing a contextual approach to ecological mission. The research does not focus primarily on the environmental crisis itself except to note that its scope incorporates not only environmental issues, but has some important implications for social justice as well. The research recognises the role that MyT CYM must play as part of their contribution towards addressing the environmental crisis. Such a role is based not on a pragmatic response to the situation, but flows from the missional nature and theology of the church. Therefore, the missional church has an obligation to address this issue, through Christian mission that takes seriously the biblical call to care and preserve the integrity of creation. Finally, this research aims to assist MyT CYM to understand the theological basis for contextual action towards developing an appropriate ecological mission. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th.(with Specialisation in Urban Ministry)

Cette thèse s’intéresse à la configuration des rapports qui existent entre la France, la Roumanie et la Serbie, réunies autour du Banat pendant la Grande Guerre. La perspective épistémologique est orientée par l’histoire de la Première guerre mondiale sous tous ses aspects: diplomatiques, militaires, culturels, discursifs, de la mémoire etc. Notre cadre d’analyse vise d’abord l’histoire régionale de la Grande Guerre parce que le territoire du Banat se relève à la fois comme une donnée des pourparlers diplomatiques et comme une réalité à l’issue de la guerre, comme un objet à réclamer par les Roumains et par les Serbes au nom du droit de propriété et comme un sujet à débattre en présence de l’aréopage de la paix. Tous ces traits sont étudiés en fonction de rapports diplomatiques, politico-militaires et de propagande de la Roumanie et de la Serbie (du Royaume des Serbes, Croates et Slovènes) avec la France, Paris étant la capitale du « Grand Allié » et le lieu vers lequel se livrent les attentes et les espérances de la réalisation de leur union nationale. / The aim of this thesis is to configure the relationships that have been established between France, Romania and Serbia on Banat during the First World War. Epistemological perspective is guided by the history of world conflict in all its aspects: diplomatic, military, cultural, discursive, memoirs, etc. Our analysis framework first aims the history of the great war, since the territory of Banat appears at the same time as a source of diplomatic negotiations and as a reality at the end of the conflict, as a territory claimed by the Romanians and Serbs on behalf of the right of ownership and as a topic of discussion within the peace forum. All these characteristics are studied regarding the diplomatic, political and military relations of Romania and Serbia (Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) with France, Paris being the capital of the "Great Ally” and the place that awaits the expectations and hopes of achieving their national union.

L'objectif de cette thèse, en collaboration avec une équipe de biologistes de Marbec, est de développer un système robotisé semi-autonome pour l’observation des espèces marines. Pour cela, ce système devra effectuer les protocoles biologistes connus ainsi que de nouveaux protocoles tout en démontrant son efficacité par rapport à un plongeur. Pour réaliser correctement les protocoles, nous avons développé les lois de commande associées ainsi qu'un système de gestion de mission pour permettre la construction, la validation formelle et l'exécution d'une telle mission. Enfin, pour répondre à la problématique de faisabilité de l'observation par un robot, nous avons mené les expérimentations à Mayotte. / The goal of this thesis, in collaboration with a biologists team of Marbec, is to develop a semi-autonomous robotic system for marine species observation. For this, this system will have to perform the known biologist protocols as well as new protocols while proving its effectiveness compared to a diver. To achieve the protocols, we have developed the associated control laws and a mission management system to allow the construction, the formal validation and the execution of a mission. Finally, to answer the problem of feasibility of observation by a robot, we conducted the experiments in Mayotte.