Christianity Commons^™

There Is A Place For You And Your Little Ones: Homiletics And Liturgy In View Of Pregnancy Loss, Joseph Michael Baumgarten

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

Baumgarten, Joseph M. There is a Place for You and Your Little Ones: Homiletics and Liturgy in View of Pregnancy Loss. Doctor of Ministry. Major Applied Project, Concordia Seminary, 2022. 81 pp.

Pregnancy loss and the grief that follows is more common than most people think. However, there is a gap in resources, discussion, and care for those who have experienced such losses. This is true in wider culture as well as in the church. While there are a few resources available, they are limited. This project addresses the church’s ability to provide proper recognition of pregnancy loss, the validation …

Hospitality: Areas That Are Effective In Creating A Desire For A Visitor To Connect To Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Brent M. Hartwig

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

This major applied project explores hospitality offered by the local congregation. Biblical hospitality is implicitly and explicitly commanded in scripture. Balancing the Missio Dei and two kinds of righteousness will keep us on the straight and narrow theologically when pursuing hospitality.

When churches offer hospitality, we are feeding, clothing, visiting, providing, and welcoming our neighbor. Our Redeemer wants to continue serving the community as a family-oriented, mission focused, hospitable congregation. We are doing the feeding, clothing, and providing through many efforts in the community. We are active with the local homeless shelter and crisis center. For the MAP, we wanted …

Behind The Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces A New America, Larry Vogel

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

The dissertation examines membership data for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) from the mid-1970s to the present. It considers the analysis of LCMS decline by two scholars, George Hawley and Ryan MacPherson, who independently proposed that LCMS membership decline was internal in causation due to diminished birthrates and fewer young families. While acknowledging the reality of such internal decline, this dissertation argues that the lack of external growth is a greater cause for LCMS decline. Its lack of external growth is due primarily to the racial and ethnic homogeneity of the LCMS and its failure effectively to evangelize the increasingly …

Embodied Superintendence: The Person Of The Preacher In Lutheran Homiletics Especially In Relation To Cultural Identity, Dennis Matyas

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Over the past several decades, the greater homiletical academy has progressed from questions of authority to dialogics to identity, both of the preacher and of the hearers. Within this timeframe, modern Lutheran homiletics has stayed relatively silent on considerations of the person of the preacher, opting instead for certain foundational homiletical truths including the efficacy of the Word of God, the proclamation of justification, and the authority of the Ministerium. After recovering the consideration of the person of the preacher as a foundational Lutheran homiletic, this work explores the formational significance of the preacher’s cultural identity by offering a theoretical …

Positive Factors Related To The Decision To Study For The Office Of The Ministry By Men Of The Lutheran Synod Of Nicaragua (Iglesia Luterana Sínodo De Nicaragua/Lutheran Church—Canada), Edmund Auger

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

Auger, Edmund D. “Positive Factors Related to the Decision to Study for the Office of the Ministry by Men of The Lutheran Synod of Nicaragua (Iglesia Luterana Sínodo de Nicaragua / Lutheran Church—Canada).” Doctor of Ministry. Major Applied Project, Concordia Seminary, 2023. 128 pages.

The Lutheran Church throughout the world needs a continuing supply of men to serve as faithful pastors in the public ministry of the Gospel. The identification and spiritual formation of candidates for Word and Sacrament ministry is critical for the young national church body, Iglesia Luterana Sínodo de Nicaragua (Lutheran Synod of Nicaragua).

This project is …

Cultivating Reproductive Small Group Leaders Within Southwest Church, Springboro, Ohio, Roger D. Hendricks

Doctor of Ministry Theses

ABSTRACT

This project was designed to address an ongoing challenge within the Southwest Church (SWC) in Springboro, Ohio. The specific challenge that SWC leaders have faced throughout the twenty-five-year history of the church is to continually increase the number of small group options within a growing congregation. Small groups have been identified as the primary vehicle for SWC members to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. This congregational emphasis has led to the good dilemma of having more individuals willing to participate than lead weekly small groups. In the past few years, SWC leaders have identified the need for the …

Recovering A Missional Ecclesiology: A Framework For Reviving Congregational Mission Within The Baptist Union Of Victoria, Gayle Hill

Doctor of Ministry Theses

ABSTRACT This project is an intervention to develop a theological and theoretical framework

that will become the foundation for a future curriculum for recovering a missional ecclesiology for the pastors of the Baptist Union of Victoria (BUV). Despite mission being central to the overall vision of the BUV, declining numbers, the post-COVID context in Victoria, and an overarching post-Christian and pluralistic context have significantly challenged the centrality and functioning of mission across our denomination. The impetus of this project was the observation that our churches were floundering rather than flourishing in the missional space. Many chronic and acute provocations were …

The Voice Of One Crying In The Wilderness, Megan Kenyon

MFA in Visual Art

I am a Midwestern, Christian, and feminist artist. I make work about the beautiful, broken, and absurd ways in which American evangelical culture influences lives, especially women’s lives. I’m dragging everything into the light by deconstructing and critiquing the world in which I live, move, and have my being. I do this by harnessing prophetic imagination and incarnational space to shine a light on how patriarchy infects evangelical Christian theology and practice. Using prophetic imagination through photographic self-portraiture and text (my own and found texts using the Bible), I seek to make plain the effects of white, Christian patriarchy on …

Is This Our Story? Is This Our Song?: Discovering The Formational Experiences Of Black Christians In Predominantly White Churches, Christopher Lynn Shields Ii

DMin Project Theses

This project explores the formative stories of Black Christians in Predominantly White churches. What has become of the Ministry of Reconciliation widely adopted in evangelical circles? What are the experiences of Black Christians in predominantly White Churches, many of whom have mirrored racialization in America? This project focuses on the synthesis of these two horizons and offers a critique, call, and creative reflection for readers of this project.

Chapter one serves as an introduction to the work and provides context of the researcher. Chapter two will theologically reflect on the ministry of reconciliation by considering its relationship to justice and …

Review Of C. S. Lewis And The Crisis Of A Christian, Stephen Beard

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of Gregory S. Cootsona, C. S. Lewis and the Crisis of a Christian (Louisville, 2014). 169 pages. $16.00. ISBN 9780664239404.

Review Of C. S. Lewis: Revelation And The Christ, Austin Freeman

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of P. H. Brazier. C. S. Lewis: Revelation and the Christ (Eugene, OR, 2012). Book 1: C. S. Lewis: Revelation, Conversion, and Apologetics. 316 pages. $25.20. ISBN 978- 1610977180. Book 2: C. S. Lewis—The Work of Christ Revealed. 320 pages. $31.50. ISBN 9781610977197. Book 3.1: C. S. Lewis—On the Christ of a Religious Economy: I. Creation and Sub-Creation. 318 pages. $32.13. ISBN 9781610977203. Book 3.2: C. S. Lewis—On the Christ of a Religious Economy: II. Knowing Salvation. 344 pages. $38.00. ISBN 9781620329825. Book 4: C. S. Lewis—An Annotated Bibliography and Resource. 208 pages. $16.20. ISBN 9781610979061.

“The Weight Of Glory”: C. S. Lewis’ Most Pathetic Sermon 89 Toby F. Coley, Toby F. Coley

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

No abstract provided.

The Charterhouse Antiphonal Fragment, Kathleen E. Kennedy, Anna H. H. De Bakker

Manuscript Studies

An item included within the collection of manuscript leaves known as Ghent, University Library, MS BHSL.HS.3020 can now be identified as a fragment of the sole surviving English Carthusian antiphonal, and the third extant historiated English antiphonal. Specific features of the chant identify the use as Carthusian, and the illumination localizes the antiphonal’s production to London in the early Tudor period, making it likely that the volume was made for the London Charterhouse.

Review Of Pursuing An Earthy Spirituality: C. S. Lewis And Incarnational Faith, Joel D. Heck

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of Gary S. Selby, Pursuing an Earthy Spirituality: C. S. Lewis and Incarnational Faith (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2019). 216 pages. $22.00. ISBN 9780830852369.

Review Of How To Be A Christian: Reflections And Essays, Kevin Belmonte

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of C. S. Lewis, How to Be a Christian: Reflections and Essays (New York: HarperOne, 2018). xvi + 186 pages. $22.99. ISBN 9780062849939.

Review Of C. S. Lewis’ Little Book Of Wisdom: Meditations On Faith, Life, Love, And Literature, Torri Frye

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of C. S. Lewis, C. S. Lewis’ Little Book of Wisdom: Meditations on Faith, Life, Love, and Literature, compiled by Andrea Kirk Assaf and Kelly Anne Leathy (Charlottesville, Virginia: Hampton Roads Publishing, 2018). 383 pages. $15.95. ISBN 9781571748454.

Review Of Symbol Or Substance? A Dialogue On The Eucharist With C. S. Lewis, Billy Graham, And J. R. R. Tolkien, Jennifer Neyhart

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of Peter Kreeft, Symbol or Substance? A Dialogue on the Eucharist with C. S. Lewis, Billy Graham, and J. R. R. Tolkien (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2019). 232 pages. $16.95. ISBN 9781621642756.

Review Of “St. Clive:” An Eastern Orthodox Author Looks Back At C. S. Lewis, Gale Watkins

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of C. J. S. Hayward, “St. Clive:” An Eastern Orthodox Author Looks Back at C. S. Lewis (Wheaton, Illinois: C. J. S. Hayward Publications, 2000-19). 381 pages. $49.99. ISBN 9781794669956.

“Further Up And Further In”: Roads, Pilgrim’S Regress And Sehnsucht On Earth And In Heaven, Lauren Spohn

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

No abstract provided.

Review Of Sunbeams And Bottles: The Theology, Thought, And Reading Of C. S. Lewis, Charlie W. Starr

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Review of James Prothero. Sunbeams and Bottles: The Theology, Thought, and Reading of C. S. Lewis. (Hamden, CT: Winged Lion Press, 2022). 442 pages. $22.99. ISBN 9781935688327.