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Recovering Spiritual Direction In The Protestant Tradition, Morris Dirks
Recovering Spiritual Direction In The Protestant Tradition, Morris Dirks
Doctor of Ministry
The purpose of this dissertation is to foster a commitment to the development of spiritual direction in the ongoing care of pastors within the Protestant tradition. The need to recover this practice, once well established in the church, is made obvious by the increasing challenges faced in ministry and the spiritual and emotional impact now experienced by pastors. More and more leaders are losing their way as a result of the unchecked stress fostered by the overwhelming expectations, whether real or perceived, which are placed on them. Pastoral responsibilities have been significantly compounded by the increasing programmatic and executive functions …
The Art Of The Public Grovel: Sexual Scandal And The Rise Of Public Confession, Susan Wise Bauer
The Art Of The Public Grovel: Sexual Scandal And The Rise Of Public Confession, Susan Wise Bauer
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
Between 1969 and 2002, three American politicians (Edward Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton) and three ordained clergymen (Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and Cardinal Bernard Law) made public confessions of wrongdoing to national audiences. These public confessions reveal that Protestant religious culture, particularly the neoevangelical culture of the twentieth century, had changed the expectations of many who did not consider themselves within neoevangelicalism's sphere of influence. By tracing the historical development of public confession from its medieval roots to its use in twentieth-century entertainment programming, this dissertation shows that Protestant confessional practice affected both secular American political discourse and American …
Relational And Incarnational Leadership: A Flattening Of The Congregational Hierarchy And A Shared Journey Of Faith, Timothy D. Ozment
Relational And Incarnational Leadership: A Flattening Of The Congregational Hierarchy And A Shared Journey Of Faith, Timothy D. Ozment
Doctor of Ministry
The problem addressed in this paper is: How can mainline congregational leadership move a church forward toward health in a postmodern world wherein the mainline Church as a whole is in such serious decline? This problem will be addressed by proposing a model of pastoral leadership that lives relationally and incarnationally with the congregation, flattens the hierarchy, and nurtures key lay leaders who are empowered to: answer their personal call, cultivate intentional relationships, and nurture the congregation into a missional and incarnationally focused living organism. Pastoral leadership, as we will argue, is, therefore, primarily living incarnationally and relationally with a …