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Seventh-Day Adventist Mission

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Jesus' Approach To People Through "Teaching And Healing" On The Faith Of People In Jesus Christ And On Their Relationship To The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Armin Danz

Master's Theses

The problem underlying this study is the slow but steady decline in membership in the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Numerous missionary efforts in the past have not been able to change this trend. However, an approach that summarizes the work of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew has not been followed: Namely that Jesus taught people about the Kingdom of God and healed them through prayer. Both church historical sources and modern research suggest that wherever the biblical example of Jesus was followed closely it had a positive influence on the growth of churches. …

From The Editor, Robert Danielson

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

Journal In Entirety

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Health Of An Established Urban Church To Develop A Strategic Plan For Growth, Alfonse Javed

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The health of a church is solely dependent on the health of its leadership. The more the leadership becomes imitators of Christ (Ephesians 5:1-2), the more the church resembles the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). This work seeks to determine the kind of healthy church leadership, which generates a healthy church culture for multiplying disciples. The purpose of this study is to assess the health of an established urban church in midtown Manhattan, and to evaluate the perception that one large church is more effective than multiple churches in order to discover an evangelistic approach that may help this and …

Fostering Self-Efficacy For Biblical Learning And Doctrinal Awareness With Micro-Teaching In A Brief Course On Bible Study, Robin K. Henson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Self-efficacy for biblical learning was explored in the context of a small group experience focused on how to study the Bible. After first developing a new instrument to measure self-efficacy for biblical learning in a pilot study, ten church attendees participated in a seven-week course designed around the hermeneutical principles of understanding a Scripture passage in textual and historical context, placing the passage in the grand story of God, and relating it to relevant doctrine. The small group process employed micro-teaching as a mechanism to facilitate challenge and mastery experience in learning. Micro-teaching places the student in the role of …

Reframing And [Re]Presenting Evangelism In Oral Cultures : A Case Study Of The Harare West (Mumc) Vabvuwi Choir In Zimbabwe, Irene M. Kabete

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

‘The Open Letter To The Evangelical Church’ And Its Discontents: The Online Politics Of Asian American Evangelicals, 2013-2016, Justin K. H. Tse

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Recent treatments of Asian American evangelicals tend to focus on a shift of attention from their identity-based attempts to found autonomous congregrations to online self-publications. I evaluate this new trend by considering two episodes in Asian American evangelical self-publication: the 'open letter to the evangelical church' in 2013 and the Killjoy Prophets initiative from 2014-2016 when their leader Suey Park disappeared from the Internet. I argue that while Asian American evangelical online self-publication is intended to reform evangelicalism, its discursive nature leads to debates among Asian American evangelicals about whether the cyber-discourse about them is adequately representational. This sobering analysis …

Youth Decline In Church Growth And Attendance, Marion Diane Jones

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Youth attendance in the church has declined in the recent past. The reason for their decline is that they no longer find a church to be socially and spiritually relevant to their lives. The paper seeks to provide a solution to the problem through spiritual formation and increasing the depth of youth programs so that they can remain socially relevant to the lives of the young people. This will be done by encouraging youth people to know who Jesus is and how to have a personal relationship with him through faith.

American God Story: Creating Shared Cultural Context With Popular Television, Timothy Joseph Rosenberger

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Believers increasingly encounter a stark divide between their cultural contexts and those of the people they seek to evangelize. This divide is particularly pronounced in popular culture where the television, movies, music, and books that appeal to Christians often are radically different than those that appeal to mainstream Americans. Without a shared cultural language, and a shared network of cultural touch points, it can be challenging to form meaningful connection between, and amongst, church members and unchurched community members. This study pioneers an intervention in which church members, and unchurched community members, come together to view popular television episodes and …

Exodus/Bay Shore: How An Idea Became A Reality, Freda Elliott Baker

West Islip (New York) Church of Christ Audio Collection

Freda Eliott Baker recounts the story of the ExodusBayshore church plant.

A Phenomenological Understanding Of A Calling With Implications For Pastoral And Vocational Education, Thomas R. Connors

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the experiences of calling for seasoned pastors. Guiding the research were four related sub-questions: (a) How do seasoned pastors describe their initial experiences of calling? (b) How do they describe the ways in which they have critically reflected on their experiences of calling ? (c) How do seasoned pastors describe their subsequent actions that have resulted from their calling? (d) HAnd, how do seasoned pastors describe the development of their calling? A purposeful sampling of 11 pastors who have for six or more years functioned as a full-time pastor were engaged …

Racism In Southeast Texas Churches: A Plan For Reconciliation And Healing Among Its Church Community, William James Carter

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A cursory look at many churches in the United States will show many local Churches are segregated by ethnicity and people groups. When this is done, it gives the appearance that the Church is broken because certain groups choose not to celebrate with others of different ethnicities. The problem is that there is a considerable reality to the appearance. With that, it is the intent of this project to examine the reasons for the divide. In order to determine the reasons, a survey will be provided, and classes taught examining the reasons for the divides. Additionally, this project will seek …

Eradicating Recidivism: Evangelism For African American Men Impacted By Mass Incarceration, Anthony Mark Berry

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The Prison Industrial Complex impacts 2.3 million people, affects the poor, and the nation's minority family's ability to retain a sense of unity. These data impact community health with the absence of the father figures, lack of power to gain viable income, and in some cases, the right to vote. The issue decimates African American young men. This topic is needed because the research suggests a cyclic nature of excavation of human capital by incarceration and is depleting communities of capital by jailing wage earners from the Black community. Voting capital is dwindling in some states where felony crimes remove …

The De Haan Family, James C. Schaap

The Voice

No abstract provided.

Dordt Choir Sings In Dordrecht, Lydia Marcus

The Voice

No abstract provided.

Genesis 10 & 11: A Theological And Geographical Framework For The Mission Of Paul, Jackson Scott Richardson

Masters Theses

The aim of this thesis is to offer a holistic solution to the purpose problem. Current scholarship has yet to provide a perspective that accounts for both the theological perspectives of Paul’s missional work and geographical plans of Paul’s missionary journeys. By establishing the Table of Nations and the Tower of Babel as a common factor from which Paul’s theological perspectives and geographical decision making derive, this study will build a foundation from which future work can gain insight into Pauline thought and encourage a renewed emphasis on understanding Genesis 10 and 11 when considering biblical study of the New …

A Mixed Methods Approach To The Implementation Of Simple Church At Greenhouse Community Church, Jeff Michael Wheeland

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The majority of Evangelical Churches in America are declining. The majority of Christian and Missionary Alliances churches in America are also declining. Greenhouse Community Church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Houston, Texas was in decline. Greenhouse Community Church lacked a simple discipleship plan. Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger wrote Simple Church and discovered after conducting research that vibrant, growing churches in America had a simple discipleship plan, whereas declining and plateaued churches had a complex plan or no plan at all. A mixed methods approach of both quantitative and qualitative research was applied to the congregation at Greenhouse …

A Strategy For Building Healthy Local Churches In Jordan, Kwang Hu Hwang

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Evangelical churches in Jordan have faced many challenges in maintaining healthy churches under the Islamic government. The churches in Jordan are not only important for local people, but also for people in the Middle East in fulfilling the Great Commission. This is because many Jordanians visit various Arab countries to have a job and a numerous number of Gulf countries’ people travel to Jordan. The purpose of this thesis is to create a strategy with this context to build healthy local churches in Jordan that can then be involved in fulfilling the Great Commission actively for the local and Arab …

The Amish Goodie Gang Of The 1950s: A Story Of Changing Identity And Spiritual Renewal, Chris A. Stoltzfus

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Revivals of the 1950s and 60s spawned a movement of spiritual and practical change within the Amish community of Lancaster County, PA. Out of those changes came an unusual Amish gang called the Goodies. They were thus named because of refusing to engage with their old friends in the Amish tradition of Rumspringa. This article describes the beginnings of the Goodie gang and the consequential divisions that sprung out of this movement, including four new Amish-Mennonite congregations in Lancaster County. In conclusion, the paper reflects on some mission activity spawned by those within the Goodie gang in the years following.

Reviews, Arden C. Autry Phd, Christopher G. Foster, Jennifer Greig-Berens, John Austin Helm, Thad R. Horner, Wonsuk Ma, Sandra Richardson, R. Samuel Thorpe, Jeffrey Voth, Ruth Whiteford

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

No abstract provided.

2019 Denominational Survey Results, Calvin University

CRCNA Denominational Survey Results

As part of the denominational ministry plan, Our Journey 2020, the CRCNA has contracted with Calvin College’s Social Research Center to administer a denominational survey every year. The results from the 2019 survey have now been compiled.

All CRC-affiliated adults and older youth are welcome to respond to this survey every year as they are led. In order to ensure a healthy number of responses to the survey every year, however, CRC leaders have randomly assigned every CRC church to one of five “cohorts.” Each cohort includes about 20 percent of all active congregations, and each congregation will be asked …

Complete Issue

Journal of Applied Christian Leadership

No abstract provided.

Eldercare In China: Lessons From The Trenches - One Organization's Experience Planning, Training, And Consulting To Open A Continuing Care Retirement Community In Beijing, Mark A. Steele

Doctor of Ministry

The need for not for profit organizations to develop new paradigms to care for the elderly is increasingly important, given the challenges of a rapidly aging population across the globe; and particularly in China. Concerns related to this growing age wave are compounded by political and social shifts within society. Over the past few decades, China has experienced immense demographic shifts and changes in terms of long-term care needs for older adults. For example, a recent report by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics published that there was an estimated 185 million people over the age of 60 (Shobert, Senior …

The Importance Of Research, Monte Sahlin, Erich Baumgartner

Journal of Applied Christian Leadership

No abstract provided.

Developing Civically Engaged, Justice Oriented Churches Right From The Start - A Hispanic Pentecostal Perspective, Elizabeth D. Rios

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Most church planting training programs train pastors in typical church operations systems as well as how to build their teams with a strong mission. However, often their training is vague and even non-existent in the area of biblical justice and advocacy, an area of pressing need in the changing face of the United States. We are more racially divided than ever, and we struggle with a myriad of socio-economic issues that need to be addressed at the root level. Those who are called to plant churches must therefore understand that unlike any other time in history, church planting today requires …

Flashpoint: The Church And Law Enforcement In Poor Black And White Communities, Samuel K. Atchison

Journal of Hate Studies

This paper seeks to “connect-the-dots,” linking recent police shootings of African Americans, including several in suburban communities, with emerging research linking the migration to the suburbs of poor, mostly black and Latino urban dwellers with “suburban poverty” and crime. Also discussed are the increase in poverty, crime and incarceration among whites in rural communities. Contrary to popular belief, poor white communities contain the fastest growing segment of the U.S. prison population. Poor whites are also the victims of police violence more often than blacks. As one civil rights leader has written, “While African-Americans are at disproportionate risk from the structural …

A Missiology Of With: The Catalyst For Missionary Effectiveness In The 21st Century, Jennifer Williamson

Doctor of Ministry

The world is a very a different place than it was a century ago, and while the modern missionary movement has slightly evolved through time, many of the accepted standards and approaches are predicated on realities that no longer exist. Global connectivity, the ease of travel, and shift of the global center of Christianity mean that practices which may have been effective even fifty years ago are becoming outdated and fruitless. Nevertheless, mission agencies continue to employ these archaic practices, burning-out missionaries, alienating nationals, and wasting Kingdom resources.

This dissertation proposes cross-cultural collaboration as the needed paradigm for missionary effectiveness …

Contextual Intelligence: One Intelligence To Serve Them All, Michael Adam Beck

Doctor of Ministry

The purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of Contextual Intelligence (CI) and suggest a Contextual Intelligence Framework (CIF) for its cultivation in local churches. This will be accomplished by learning from both practitioners of pioneer ministry and inherited congregations, as well as researching the literature. While possessing CI has been shown to be a critical competency for leaders across multiple fields, it is yet to be explored theologically or assessed for practical application ecclesiologically. Amid symptoms of decline, a new breed of leaders first identified by the Church of England as “pioneers,” are planting “fresh expressions of …

Preserving Our History To Help Us Understand The Past And Present: Launching Phase Ii, Outstanding Black Women Of Yalobusha County; From The Ole Miss Classroom To The Yalobusha Community, Dottie Chapman Reed, Jessica Wilkerson

About the Project

Articles from North Mississippi Herald, August 22, 2019, describe the benefit of, and plans for, and oral history project to capture the stories of Black families in Yalobusha County.