Christianity Commons^™

Finding Life: An Organic Model Of Renewal For Existing Churches, Thomas E. Rester Jr.

Doctor of Ministry

Statistics reveal most existing mainline churches are small, declining, and unable to minister effectively in their current environment. Rising stress is the result for these congregations. For mission and ministry to continue in many of these places, the stress must become an opportunity to release a deeper organic understanding of identity and ministry within the fluid postmodern context.

Chapter 2 presents biblical materials from the book of Acts. Focusing on Acts 15, we discover that in a moment of fil"eat stress and confusion, the church was able to e change and evolve to find new life in the midst of …

Transforming Inmate Character Within A Correctional Setting By Experiencing Spiritual Formation Through The Conventional Relationship With God, Ron D. Borden

Doctor of Ministry

Historically, the correctional system was concerned with locking up criminals and keeping them off the streets. Society's safety was, and still is, of primary importance. Unfortunately, most felons complete their sentencing and are released back into the community with the same belief systems and character traits that brought them to prison. Christian programming within the correctional setting is succeeding only at changing surface behavior, not genuine character transformation. This results in recidivism rates that are identical to those of non-Christian imnates. In order to address this problem, I propose that spiritual formation focused upon a covenantal relationship with Jesus Christ …

Communicating For Influence: Christian Proclamation From The Margins, Brian A. Ross

Doctor of Ministry

It is my opinion that North American Christianity needs to re-consider how it communicates to young adults about following after the person of Jesus Christ. The Church should seek to understand the present cultural milieu and the implications of influencing from below. Established Christianity formerly held a position of prestige and relative power. Due to cultural and epistemological shifts this is no longer the situation. The message of Christ is still relevant in the new millennium, but the standard approaches to communicating and thus influencing others in this new world are at times no longer relevant. Much of organized Christianity …

Religion And Reconciliation In Bosnia And Herzegovina, Tania Wettach

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Erasing The Past: Destruction And Preservation Of Cultural Heritage In Former Yugoslavia: Part 1, Igor Ordev

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

The Russian Orthodox Church: Its Glory & Its Shame: Sergei Haeckel Memorial Lecture, Paul Oestreicher

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Stan & Turcescu's "Religion And Politics In Post-Communist Romania" - Book Review, Ines Angeli Murzaku

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Froese's "The Plot To Kill God: Findings From The Soviet Experiment In Secularization" - Book Review, Dr. Joseph A. Loya O.S.A.

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Stories From Thirty Years Of "Celebration Of Discipline", Howard R. Macy

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

A chapel talk given at George Fox University on the 30th anniversary of Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline.

A Proposal For Creating A Master Of Divinity Specialization In Stewardship And An Ma In Stewardship And Development Program, John R. Frank

Doctor of Ministry

Critics and research indicate that inadequate leadership in stewardship education has led to inaccurate teaching, wrong attitudes, and a lack of generosity in the Christian church and parachurch ministries. This teaching has led tnany churches and parachurch organizations to etnphasize fundraising rather than the steward's spiritual journey and relationship with God. The dissertation addresses the need for a new look at stewardship, the theology of stewardship, and how stewardship is presented to the local church and parachurch.

The thesis of this project is that in order to itnprove stewardship in the Christian church, leadership must teach cotnprehensive, biblical stewardship with …

A Project To Foster Spiritual Formation In Online Classrooms, Robert Vaughan

Doctor of Ministry

Online programs are a growing phenomenon in adult education. Many Christian colleges and universities use this method to meet the educational needs of non-traditional students. A drawback of online education is the challenge to address the spiritual needs of students in a virtual environment. This project will propose an approach for fostering spiritual formation in asynchronous, adult online educational programs.

Section 2 will demonstrate the problem of fostering spiritual formation in online environments including the following issues: the demographics of the project, an organizational analysis of the project, and historical timelines of online adult education.

Section 3 will explore how …

Atonement In Hosea And The Prodigal Son: Relationality As Personhood And The Being Of God, Steve Sherwood

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Excerpt from Introduction: "My project will provide a survey of traditional atonement metaphors, with a particular emphasis upon contrasting penal substitution with a covenantal relational understanding of the atonement, and will then posit that a covenantal relational approach is ideal for resonance with a postmodern audience.

I will seek to determine whether any single biblical metaphor or cluster of metaphors provides an interpretive matrix for all discussion of the atonement in a way that is both biblically faithful and conceptually accessible to a postmodern world. I contend that atonement discussions in typical evangelical contexts may be both biblically insufficient and …

Prostitutes, Prodigals And The Story Of God's Embrace, Steve Sherwood

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Excerpt: "This book has been stewing inside of me for a long time. When I was sixteen years old, I sat in a living room in Round Rock, Texas at a Young Life meeting and heard a college kid tell the story of Hosea and Gomer and then say, "God loves us like that." I'd never heard anything like that and I now know that Hosea was not a story regularly told in Young Life. I have no idea why my Young Life leader chose it. Regardless, that image has stuck in my head for almost thirty years.

Other experiences …

Atonement In Hosea And The Prodigal Son: Relationality As Personhood And The Being Of God, Stephen Sherwood

Seminary Masters Theses

My project will provide a survey of traditional atonement metaphors, with a particular emphasis upon contrasting penal substitution with a covenantal relational understanding of the atonement, and will then posit that a covenantal relational approach is ideal for resonance with a postmodem audience.

I will seek to determine whether any single biblical metaphor or cluster of metaphors provides an interpretive matrix for all discussion of the atonement in a way that is both biblically faithful and conceptually accessible to a postmodem world. I contend that atonement discussions in typical evangelical contexts may be both biblically insufficient and culturally inadequate and …

Where Are The Twenty-Year-Olds? Tools For The Church To Connect And Retain A Generation, Lars Rood

Doctor of Ministry

A generation of young people are losing their connection to the church today. Research by the Barna Group shows that "61 % of students who were active in church during their teenage years disengaged during their twenties."1 Many churches struggle to adequately connect with and retain the twenty-something generation. This inability to connect stems from changing culture, technology, new worldviews, and a lack of formal training in institutes of higher education. Raised with the Internet, instant messaging, cell phones, and hundreds of television channels, this generation is undoubtedly well informed. Yet many churches no longer speak their language. I believe …

Postmodern Trinitarian Philosophy: A Multiperspectival Approach, John Barry King Jr

Doctor of Ministry

To fulfill its missional imperative, the 21st Century, Western Church must engage a postmodem culture. To facilitate such engagement the following manuscript will relate Trinitarian theology to postmodem philosophy by using a Trinitarian grammar known as multiperspectivalism. In particular, multiperspectivalism will be used to integrate Trinitarian theology with the three loci of postmodem philosophy: non-foundational epistemology, socially constructive linguistics, and holistic relational ontology. As these various loci imply, postmodemism is characterized by a movement toward relationality in epistemology, linguistics, and ontology. It is precisely this emphasis on relationality that produces the resonance between postmodem philosophy and Trinitarian theology.

After outlining …

Russian Children At Risk, Mark R. Elliott

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Worldview: The Missing Dimension Of Evangelism In Post-Communist Society, Sergei Golovin

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

For a while Christians considered the Soviet Union to be a great potential mission field; nevertheless when the door for missions opened wide, it happened unexpectedly. Despite thousands of missionaries and millions of dollars invested immediately in spreading the gospel in the post-communist world, after a short-term tide, church growth declined back to pre-perestroika level. The research made during that period demonstrated that the so-called awakening had nothing to do with the biblical concept of repentance (i.e. a radical change of a person’s worldview). An explanatory model of the worldview transformation dynamics in post-communist society is developed as an attempt …

Baptist Union Council Meets In Moscow, William Yoder

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Bremer's "Kreuz Und Kreml: Kleine Geschichte Der Orthodoxen Kirche In Russland" - Book Review, William R. Russell

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam Archpriest Vitaly Borovoy (1916-2008), Paul Mojzes

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Shade Of The Oak Tree: The Recent Growth Of Johannine Studies, Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

The recent growth within Johannine studies has developed as a result of several factors. First, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls led to an appreciation of the Jewishness of John’s origin. Second, new approaches to John’s composition have emerged, followed by a larger set of inquiries as to the Johannine tradition’s relation to parallel traditions. This has been accompanied by a fourth interest: the history of the Johannine situation. Fifth, new literary studies have posed new horizons for interpretation, and sixth, theories continue to abound on the identity of the Beloved Disciple. A seventh development involves new ways of …

Religious Education Initiatives In Russia: Update And Commentary, Dr. Joseph A. Loya O.S.A.

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Slovak Churches And Education After The Fall Of Communism, Dana Hanesova

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The author of the study focuses on the complexity of the education provided by churches in Slovakia. At first, she analyses the most important factors that have been influencing the present situation in this area (the historical, legal and educational background as well as the religious structure of the population). Then she presents the main residuals from the past that need to be sorted out with the help of the churches, including the progressive education of the younger generation. Some statistical information about church schools in Slovakia is provided. Special attention is paid to the evangelical churches and their Department …

The Response Of The New Testament Church To Material Needs And Materialism, Pavel Hanes

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The New Testament church responded to materialism both in philosophical and ethical ways, stressing the spiritual side of poverty or wealth. The answer she was giving to this problem was based on the Old Testament approach to the poor who were not only poor in property but were also poor before the Lord (i.e. humble, godly and obedient). In modern times it is important to reiterate this message because the modern church tends to be preoccupied with the material side of the problem while the core of the problem is spiritual.

“Has not God chosen those who are poor in …

The Beginning Of Bulgarian Printing (On The Occasion Of Its 500th Anniversary), Archimandrite Pavel Stefanov

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Book Notes (Short Book Reviews From Glaube In Der 2.Welt [Faith In The 2 World]), Walter Sawatsky

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Orthodox Religiosity Among Elite University Students In Russia And Its Relationship To Their Political Views, Irina Papkova

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Doing More With Life: Connecting Christian Higher Education To A Call To Service (Book Review), David M. Johnstone

Publications from Student Life & Spiritual Life

No abstract provided.

Offering Hope: Ministry With The Chronically Ill, Marti Gates Lundy

Doctor of Ministry

One of every two individuals in the United States suffers from chronic illness. While these numbers are staggering, studies indicate that they will continue to rise. The problem exists that the local church is not fully equipped to address the desire and need for wholeness and community felt by the millions of individuals living with chronic conditions. These individuals suffer alone and the contemporary church has failed to minister effectively with them. With proper grounding in a biblical understanding of God's role in illness and suffering, a foundation in the role of pastoral care throughout Church history, and by looking …