Communication Commons^™

Effective Leader Development Within A Church-Planting Organization For A Changing And Chaotic World, Jeremy Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A challenge in cross-cultural church planting is developing leaders. Cross-cultural church-planting organizations like Latin American Mission (LAM; pseudonym) that lack a leadership development strategy struggle to form lasting leaders, sending missionaries with Biblical training but not leader development training. Additionally, developing leaders in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment creates specific challenges that missionaries must address. The purpose of this qualitative, Delphi method study was to investigate the leadership development perceptions and experiences among existing LAM missionaries in the regions of Latin America (Colombia, Cuba, Mexico City, Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador) to provide suggestions for improving effective leadership …

How Properly Contextualized Christianity Could Benefit Japan, Benjamin Highsmith

Honors Theses

This thesis aims to ask the question “how could Christianity, if properly contextualized, benefit Japan?” It does so through the use of academic sources, interviews, and personal observations. Topics covered include Japanese culture, its perception of Christianity, and the lifestyles of Japanese Christians. This thesis uses cultural concepts to explain how Christianity and Japanese culture might find themselves at odds, but also explains how Christianity could work in unison with Japanese culture in order to benefit Japanese society as a whole, defending its argument using Biblical concepts intertwined with Japanese values.

I Was Looking For God: A Study Of Wehrmacht Personnel And Their Personal Relationships With Religion, Christopher Bishop

Master's Theses

The Wehrmacht was Germany’s fighting force in the field during World War II. Its brutality and discriminatory practices rivaled that of the Nazi paramilitary and police units dispatched alongside them in newly conquered areas during this conflict. Coming from a society that was not at all unfamiliar with Christianity, some within the Wehrmacht related to Christianity in some form and attempted to use it to either justify actions or make sense of the world around them.

While considerable scholarship exists on the Nazi Party’s relationship to Christianity as a convenient propaganda tool for both soldier and civilian alike, the historiography …

The Method Is The Message: Communicating For Individual Behavior Change Toward Disciple Multiplication, Jeffrey Keith Mcdaniel

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this ethnographically informed, comparative embedded case study was to understand the lack of disciple-making movements for congregations at three evangelical churches representing the East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast of the United States. The theories guiding this study were Latour’s actor–network theory and Bandura’s social cognitive theory as they provide a theoretical framework to understand the influence of culture on the creation of meaning followed by the influence of meaning on individual behavior. The primary research question that guided this study asked, How can a church organization communicate to increase disciple multiplication? To answer this question, a …

“It's So Normal, And … Meaningful.” Playing With Narrative, Artifacts, And Cultural Difference In Florence, Dheepa Sundaram, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This article considers how player interactions with religious and ethnic markers, create

a globalized game space in the mobile game Florence (2018). Florence is a multiaward-

winning interactive novella game with story-integrated minigames that weave

play experiences into the narrative. The game, in part, explores love, loss, and

rejuvenation as relatable experiences. Simultaneously, the game produces a unique

experience for each player, as they can refract the game narrative through their own

cultural, identitarian lens. The game assumes the shared cultural space of the player,

the player-character (PC), and the non-player-character (NPC) while blurring the

boundaries between each of these …

Keeping Culture: An Evaluation Of Organizational Culture In The Multisite Church, Michael John Grayston

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to explore the attendee perception of organizational culture, including the communication pathways, vision, and mission in the three common multisite church models: the local franchise model, the national franchise model, and the live teaching model. The study evaluated the attendee perception of the methods and strategies used by the multisite church to create and keep one unique culture in spite of their method, proximity, or demographics. The researcher attempted to evaluate these methods through a survey and face-to-face interviews with multisite church leaders from six different churches representing three different models. The …

Development Of Mass Communication Strategies For Church Growth: Engaging American Culture, Abby Hines

Senior Honors Theses

In this analysis, methods of mass communication employed by the church throughout its history will be reviewed. The context for this church study is specifically within American culture. Strategies for the most effective form of mass communication have evolved drastically within the past few years. For the church to properly engage in culture, it must understand the communication strategies that have intentionally or unintentionally been utilized throughout its history. An effective method of mass communication for the church is proposed.

A Global Church In The Local Parish: Fostering Intercultural Competency For Indonesian Catholic Ministry In The United States, Janice Kristanti

School of Theology and Seminary Graduate Papers/Theses

No abstract provided.

War Of The Worlds: Music And Cosmological Battles In The Balinese Cremation Procession, Michael B. Bakan

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Abstract

This article explores processional action as a form of cosmological intervention in Hindu-Balinese cremation processions, focusing on the multiple and intersecting functions of a particular type of Balinese instrumental music ensemble: the gamelan beleganjur. It explores the alternately “enlivening and protective aspects” (DeVale 1990, 62) that underlie the use of beleganjur music in the ngaben, or cremation ritual, showing how beleganjur’s sonic power and rhythmic drive serve to combat malevolent spirit beings, strengthen and inspire processional participants in their efforts to meet challenging ritual obligations, and grant courage to the souls of deceased individuals embarking on their …

Technology At Every Moment, Justin Vander Werff

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"We interact with technology every day, every minute, pretty much every second. And on rare occasions, we may stop to ponder how technology is affecting our lives and relationships."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­how technology affects the way people relate to each other from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/technology-at-every-moment/

Swimming In Static, Sahalie Saecker Hashim

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this novel, two young adults exist simultaneously in separate worlds. Torn apart by perception, culture, and socioeconomic differences, these individuals come to learn what it means to see the world, and understand one another through extraordinary experiences.

Hamas Controlled Televised News Media: Counter- Peace, Allen Gnanam

Allen Gnanam

The hegemonic force of Hamas censored televised news media in Gaza, can not be fully comprehended and appreciated without recognizing the role of propaganda, censorship, and the historical context of the middle east. These 3 interrelated dimensions will be analyzed using functionalism, the mass society theory, the dominant ideology framework, the critical criminology framework, and the symbolic interactionist framework. Through censorship, Hamas news media outlets were able to unilaterally inject culturally relevant propaganda, into the minds of children and citizens. The hypodermic syringe model can be applied to the state controlled news media situation in Gaza, as the people of …

Making Friends To Last A Lifetime: An Ethnographic Study Of Parasocial Relationships And Soap Opera Characters, Emmalee Elizabeth Haight Pryor

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to build theory about parasocial relationships and to examine what affect, if any, religion had on parasocial relationships. Using qualitative methods, the researcher watched the show three times with five women followed by an in-depth interview. The women chosen were LDS stay-at-home moms who had watched a soap opera for at least a year.
From this data came several surprising findings about religion and soap opera viewing. The women said they did not feel guilty about the content of the shows, rather the time required to watch. This guilt was alleviated by structuring their …

A Model Of Interpersonal Christian Prayer, E. James Baesler

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

A model of interpersonal Christian prayer (ICP) was created based on a review and synthesis of traditional and social scientific prayer literatures. The ICP model accounts for global theoretical constructs such as active and receptive types of prayer and includes a subcategory of receptive prayer called radically Divine communication. The ICP model describes prayer progressions, specifically the developmental and cyclical nature of prayer. A list of 12 research questions based on the ICP model are provided. Two specific suggestions for future research dealing with the relational quality of prayer and intercultural receptive types of prayer are outlined.

Television: Medium Rare, Clifford G. Christians

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.