<p> This research project will examine the facets of call and which facets are apparent as a struggle for women of the African Diaspora in discerning their call and how spiritual formation and direction influence the health and wellness of these women as they journey through their call. Respondents will consist of women of the African Diaspora enrolled in seminaries in New York City and the northeastern part of the United States. </p><p> An objective is to record the narratives of the respondents as present and future leaders and to describe and analyze the content and structure of the narratives. The central theme of this study is call from a womanist perspective and the influence of spiritual formation on call. To address this issue an interdisciplinary approach is utilized to recognize the study's respondents as a distinct group within twenty-first century ministry confines. </p>

<p> For many years, churches have known that young people have not found the corporate worship of their congregations meaningful. To churches' credit, they have both acknowledged the problem and tried many different solutions to fix it. Unfortunately, most solutions lose steam after changes to the style of the corporate worship service. This dissertation suggests that the problem is not the style of music or the formality of the liturgy, but rather the inability of congregations to help young people anticipate an encounter with God in worship. After examining John Wesley's understanding of religious experience and worship as well as the historical shifts in liturgical practice of American Methodism, I use qualitative research methods to detail the experience of corporate worship for teenagers in three United Methodist congregations. Then, leaning heavily on the work of Howard Thurman, I propose a theology of magnitude that suggests that the Church is the normative home for the anticipated encounter of God. Finally, I propose five strategic turns necessary to return magnitude (the significance which comes from the anticipation of an encounter with God) to worship in United Methodist congregations.</p>

<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> This mixed-methods study investigated the transformative learning that occurred in the alumni of the 22-lesson Christian discipleship process called the Immersion Experience by Aphesis Group Ministries. Quantitative data was collected from a survey sent out to the 850 alumni. Deep interviews were conducted with 16 participants who had the additional prerequisite of being raised in a religiously confused home of origin. The transformative learning was examined through the theoretical framework of Mezirow's transformative learning theory. An additional lens was resistance to change. Argyris and Schon's theory of action developed the concept of double-loop learning. Their theory was extended by Kegan and Lahey's immunity-to-change perspective. The final lens was a synthesis of Brown's development of wholehearted living, Bowlby's Attachment Theory, positive psychology, and virtue ethics. This has been summarized as living wholeheartedly with virtue. The Immersion Experience seeks to help professing Christians evaluate their inner lives and discern the discrepancies between their espoused Christian beliefs (what they say they believe) and their theories-in-use (what they actually live out) in the attempt to bring them into alignment. The intent is to help believers be able to practically live out their Christian commitment each day of their lives.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Counseling and Educational Psychology of the School of Education, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 6, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-10, Section: A, page: 3765. Advisers: Jeffrey Daniels; Phil Carspecken.

The main subject of the dissertation Non-Religious Spirituality in the Postmodern Era, subtitled Spirituality and the New Paradigm, is an analysis of non-religious spirituality within the context of the new possibilities revealed by the science of the new paradigm, which are changing the way we view reality and man's place within the universe. The study presents a possible system for classifying contemporary approaches to spirituality, and subsequently outlines a theoretical model for a new discipline enabling the comprehensive study of spirituality within broader interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary contexts. For this newly proposed scientific discipline, the paper suggests the name spirituology. Spirituality, which was discarded by the Cartesian-Newtonian world view is experiencing a renaissance. Spirituality is a comprehensive and multifaceted phenomenon whose definition is still being shaped in contemporary discourse. Although the actual term comes from Christian theology, it is today understood as religiously neutral. It did not fully establish itself in society until the end of the 20th century in relation to the secularization and privatization of religion, when it replaced the previously used term "religiosity", which is strongly associated with the institution of religion. Within the...

This qualitative study examines the social, spiritual and political role the Black Oneness Churches play in Black communities. It also provides an anti-colonial examination of the Afro-Caribbean Oneness churches to understand how it functioned in the formation and defense of the emerging Black communities for the period 1960-1980. This project is based on qualitative interviews and focus groups conducted with Black Clergy and Black women in the Oneness church of the Greater Toronto area. This study is based on the following four objectives: 1. Understanding the central importance of the Black Oneness Pentecostal Church post 1960 to Black communities. 2. Providing a voice for those of the Black Church that are currently underrepresented in academic scholarship. 3. Examining how the Black Church responds to allegations of its own complicities in colonial practices. 4. Engage spirituality as a legitimate location and space from which to know and resist colonization. The study also introduces an emerging framework entitled: Whiteness as Theology. This framework is a critique of the theological discourse of Whiteness and the enduring relevance of the Black Church in a pluralistic Afro-Christian culture. The data collected reveal that while the Black Church operated as a social welfare institution that assisted thousands of new black immigrants, the inception of the church was political and in protest to racism. Hence, the Black Church is a product of white racism, migration and colonization. The paradox of the Black Church lies in its complicity in colonization while also creating religious forms of resistance. For example, the inception of the Afro-Caribbean Oneness Church was an anti-colonial response to the racism in the White Church. But 40 years later, the insidious nature of colonization has weaved through the church and “prosperity theology” as an impetus of colonialism has reshaped the social justice role of Black Churches.

This qualitative study examines the social, spiritual and political role the Black Oneness Churches play in Black communities. It also provides an anti-colonial examination of the Afro-Caribbean Oneness churches to understand how it functioned in the formation and defense of the emerging Black communities for the period 1960-1980. This project is based on qualitative interviews and focus groups conducted with Black Clergy and Black women in the Oneness church of the Greater Toronto area. This study is based on the following four objectives: 1. Understanding the central importance of the Black Oneness Pentecostal Church post 1960 to Black communities. 2. Providing a voice for those of the Black Church that are currently underrepresented in academic scholarship. 3. Examining how the Black Church responds to allegations of its own complicities in colonial practices. 4. Engage spirituality as a legitimate location and space from which to know and resist colonization. The study also introduces an emerging framework entitled: Whiteness as Theology. This framework is a critique of the theological discourse of Whiteness and the enduring relevance of the Black Church in a pluralistic Afro-Christian culture. The data collected reveal that while the Black Church operated as a social welfare institution that assisted thousands of new black immigrants, the inception of the church was political and in protest to racism. Hence, the Black Church is a product of white racism, migration and colonization. The paradox of the Black Church lies in its complicity in colonization while also creating religious forms of resistance. For example, the inception of the Afro-Caribbean Oneness Church was an anti-colonial response to the racism in the White Church. But 40 years later, the insidious nature of colonization has weaved through the church and “prosperity theology” as an impetus of colonialism has reshaped the social justice role of Black Churches.