Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Forming Saints In A Digital Context, Mark R. Teasdale

Great Commission Research Journal

Biblical and scholarly sources agree on the importance of forming Christians to seek after holy living to make them more effective evangelists, such that the ministries of evangelism and spiritual formation are intertwined. They also agree that one of the primary roles of the church is to provide for this formation. However, the practices for doing this have been complicated by the heavy move toward digital ministry because of COVID-19. Congregations can continue this formational work even in highly digital contexts by helping Christians tell their story through lifelogging, providing rituals and disciplines to sanctify time and physical spaces, and …

Priestly Formation And Sexual Abuse In The Roman Catholic Church: In Dialogue With The Nigerian Church, Simonmary Asese Aihiokhai

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

Reading the signs of the times today cannot be done legitimately without a critical look at the current sex abuse crisis perpetuated by the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. To deny the fact that the Church has a crisis on its hands is to trivialize the pain and sorrow experienced by all in the Church, and most especially by the victims of the crisis. This work provides an x-ray vision of some of the factors shaping this crisis and boldly offers some interventions that can help the Church to navigate its way out of the crisis. There is an …

Through The Lens Of The Cross: Cruciformity As A Model For Teaching Ministry, Benjamin D. Pickett

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

As the contemporary church travels deeper into the postmodern era, modern methods of education and catechesis have remained. In this paper, a foundational set of principles drawn from Michael Gorman’s analysis of Pauline spirituality—known as “cruciformity”—is examined and presented as a lens to inform and support the teaching ministry in churches. Gorman’s thought provides a fresh way to understand the central theme of Paul’s correspondence to the first century churches.

The paper begins with a brief explanation of the current conditions regarding the adult education ministry of churches and then examines Gorman’s cruciform patterns of faith, love, power, and hope, …

The Initiation Of Growth-Focused Relationships Involving Healthy Accountability, Stephen L. Shaffer

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

This paper summarizes a Doctor of Ministry project thesis conducted in 2011 that introduced healthy accountability within growth-focused relationships to shape an emergent spiritual growth culture at the Carbondale Church of Christ. The theological basis for the intervention (1) uses Romans 12 to establish the Christian community, not the individual, as the ultimate vision of fully realized human life and (2) asserts that spiritual growth, following Alasdair MacIntyre’s definition of a practice, must involve virtues such that the means of growth are reflective of the desired ends of growth. The positive results demonstrate the effectiveness of healthy accountability, illuminate participants' …