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God Our Neighbor: Discerning Our Calling By Discovering God's Life In Our Neighborhood, Wayne D. Beason Ii

DMin Project Theses

This April 2023 Doctor of Ministry project thesis at Lipscomb University presents the results of research completed with congregants and neighbors of Parkside Church of Christ in Dearborn Heights, MI. The research question driving this project is: How might a congregation’s missional identity be reshaped by attentiveness to God’s activity among their neighbors? The missional activity of the Holy Spirit makes God’s future accessible in the present both within and beyond the church; thus, the Spirit is discernible in the particularity of a neighborhood. For this reason, the local neighborhood functions as an arena of the Spirit’s activity, a source …

Constructing A Theological Framework That Revitalizes The Missional Nature Of Churches Of Christ In South Australia, Mark Daniel Riessen

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This thesis addresses the need for a theological framework that revitalizes the missional nature of Churches of Christ in South Australia. The problem identified within this ministry context was a lack of clear theological principles that informed a common understanding of identity for missional engagement. The purpose of the project was to create a study guide that informs common theological commitments and grounds congregations for missional vitality. A research and development team made up of seven Church of Christ ministers from different backgrounds was assembled to design a curriculum that addressed the problem. Through eight two-hour sessions over four months …

The Effectiveness Of Theological Education To Grow Disciples In The Unorganized Territory, Chung Yin Mak

Dissertations DIS

Problem

In the past three decades, China has imposed serious restrictions on theological education in the Unorganized Territory (UT). The Adventist Church has endeavored to address this challenge by seeking various means of equipping its leaders through both formal and informal theological education. This study is needed because these attempts have never been reviewed in light of advancing the church’s mission especially in the area of discipleship.

Methods

Duce and Cameron (2013, 16-143) proposed the use of questionnaires, participant observation, interviews, focus groups, and documentary analysis in order to conduct theological research. Multiple research methods were utilized (Creswell 2014, 16; …

Training Faithful Disciples To Meet The Challenges Of The Church In The World: Applying Bonhoeffer’S Seminary Vision To Hybrid Education, Myra L. Watkins

The Asbury Journal

This article will first examine Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s philosophy and practice of theological education to train faithful ministers of the gospel for the service of the Church. Particular attention will be given to Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together which he wrote while directing one of the underground seminaries for the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany. Second, this article will explore Paul House’s argument for a personal, incarnational, rather than a distance learning, approach. Using a small seminary for a global family of churches, Every Nation, as a case study, this article will present relational discipleship as a central, …

Non-Christian, Japanese College Students’ Perspectives Of Engaging With God Through The Participatory Components Of Christian Worship, Jacqueline Leigh Bencke

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study seeks to examine the extent to which non-Christian college students in Japan perceive their engagement with the biblical God while participating in daily chapel services at Kyūshū Lutheran College. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, analyzing survey and focus group data to explore whether a relationship exists between students’ participation in chapel committee activities and their perceived spiritual engagement. Responses to Lynn Underwood’s Daily Spiritual Experience Survey, the Centrality of Religiosity Scale, and the Centrality of Buddhist Religiosity Scale are combined to create a general spiritual profile of respondents. Worship leaders and missionaries who are in positions of …

Book Review: Motus Dei: The Movement Of God To Disciple The Nations Edited By Warrick Farah, David H. Campbell

Great Commission Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Development In Mission: A Guide For Transforming Global Poverty And Ourselves By Monty Lynn, Rob Gailey, And Derran Reese, Nathaniel Veltman

Great Commission Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Turning Points In The Expansion Of Christianity: From Pentecost To The Present By Alice Ott, David Thiessen

Great Commission Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Jericho: A Case Study For 21st Century Urban Evangelism, Gideon Petersen

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

No abstract provided.

Engaging Millennials In Missions, Annell Adams James

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The millennial members of the Power of God Church have shown a lack of interest in participating in the local church's mission ministry. This lack of interest has caused the Missions Department and the church concern because fulfilling the mission of God is the mission of the church. The mission statement of the church is the focus of the ministry programs. Suppose the mission department creates a missions training program designed to focus on a technological learning style in which millennials thrive. Could it attract, involve, and engage millennials in future mission trips while educating them? It is this question …

An Analysis And Comparison Of The Missional Doctrinal Hermemeutics Of Kevin J. Vanhoozer And Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, With Emphasis On Their Notions Of God, Eschatology, And Mission, Elmer Guzman

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

This is a dissertation abstract by Elmer Guzman.

The Continuity Mindset For Christian Mission, Jack T. Davison

Great Commission Research Journal

Missionaries from the Global North regularly serve as trainers for Christians in the Global South. From personal experience, missionaries are regularly seen as being qualified to do this work simply because of their position. Rather than missionaries assuming they are competent purely on the basis of their titles, I believe they should instead practice the Continuity Mindset for Christian Mission, a mindset that emphasizes the continuity of one’s identity and ministry in one’s home culture with one’s identity and ministry in the host culture. This practice includes elements of vulnerable mission, nonresidential mission, tentmaking, cultural intelligence, and authentic leadership. I …

The Contribution Of Paul Hiebert To Folk Religion: A Missiological Study Among The Dendis Of Northeast Benin, Michée Badé

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

Completed in September 2022 with the department of Practical and Missional Theology of the University of the Free State, South Africa.

How To Engage Voluntary Spirit Possession Rituals In Mission: The Case Of The Dendi Adorcism Ritual, Michée Badé

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

Missionaries face unique challenges when confronted with spirit possession rituals. Because not all spirit possessions are regarded as negative in some cultures, some spirit possessions are sought through adorcism rituals. Such spirit possessions are considered advantageous for the individual or the community. Contrasted with exorcism which is to expel or bind troublesome or uninvited entities, adorcism creates or strengthens beneficial ties between the possessed person and the spirits (Openshaw 2020:6).

This article seeks to show that the practice of adorcism rituals, as is the case among the Dendi people in the northern part of Benin, presents a unique challenge to …

Liturgy And Musical Inculturation In A Post-Apartheid South African Catholicism, Austin Chinagorom Okigbo

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

There is a developing trend within mainstream South African Churches to incorporate styles of traditional African music and cultural elements in liturgical functions. This is happening in places where such ideas were hitherto unwelcome because mission churches witnessed the denigration of indigenous African cultures by Europeans during the eras of both colonialism and apartheid. Inculturation Theology underscores the current drive for liturgical transformation. It comprises a part of Black Theology in South Africa, which developed as an intellectual framework for liberation during the time of the anti-apartheid struggles. Using the ethnographic study of the cultural mass at Emmanuel Cathedral in …

The Congregation As Hermeneutic Of The Gospel : Investigating Lesslie Newbigin's Answer To Questions About The Credibility Of The Gospel In A Pluralistic World, Shawn P. Behan

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Calvin Theological Journal (Vol 56 No 2 - November 2021), Calvin Theological Seminary

Calvin Theological Journal

From the Editor: Karin Maag - 229 / Articles: Wholehearted Commitment to Sound Pastoral Theology and Care: What Martin Bucer and John Calvin Can Teach Today’s Pastors by Stéphan van der Watt - 231 / A Variety of Voices: Reformed Theologians on the Theory of Evolution by Gijsbert van den Brink and Harry Cook - 265 /  Short Studies: The English-language Reception of K. H. Miskotte by Collin Cornell - 293 / The Scandal of Sheer Grace: When Mercy Offends by James K. A. Smith - 309 / Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Look Back after Thirty Years …

Exploring Missional Partnership Practices Between The Littleton Church Of Christ And Her Peruvian Missionary Partners Through Dwelling In The Word, Justin L. Thompson

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This Doctor of Ministry thesis presents the results of a project in which twelve individuals from two churches on two continents (North and South America) came together via video conference to explore missional partnership practices. These two churches connected through a common missionary and utilized a spiritual discipline called Dwelling in the Word to cultivate relationships, thereby creating a pathway to shared discovery of partnership practices. The problem I identify at the beginning regards transactional partnership, which commonly propels churches toward relationships that treat the other as unequal partners through unilateral, top-down interactions. In response, I present a perichoresis-inspired …

A Comparative Study On Church Health Between Churches Led By Bi-Vocational Pastors And Those Led By Full-Time Pastors In Faith Ministries Church In Zimbabwe, Christopher Chisale

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Towards A Pentecostal Conscientizing Praxis Of Mass Culture Engagement: Contrasting Pneumatologies Of Amos Yong And Simon Chan, Monte Lee Rice

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

This essay notes promises and problems with Pentecostal cultural engagement through its dualistic “spiritual warfare” cosmology. I propose a promising foray by forging Amos Yong’s and Simon Chan’s theologies of cultural engagement. For both employ their Asian particularities towards addressing cultural phenomena in manners that distinguish their contrasting yet I shall argue, complementary pneumatologically themed theologies of culture. Yet neither have engaged methodological disciplines of cultural analysis and critique. In response this essay suggests a Pentecostal conscientizing praxis of mass culture engagement, in conversation with Amos Yong and Simon Chan. This essay concludes by suggesting need for discerning possible prophetic …

De-Colonizing Western Missions: A Theological Method Toward Faithful, Christian Expansion, Katina V. Clerge

Masters of Theological Studies

The heritage of the modern missions movement (beginning in the late eighteenth century) is rooted in Western colonialism. It is the argument of this thesis that the practices of colonization have been inadvertently transferred into the praxis of short-term mission trips (which have become a key vessel through which missionary activity in the United States is conducted). The stance of mission trips implementing the practices of Western colonization is argued based on their assimilation and partnership throughout colonization, with examples that evidence these practices are engaged modernly. I have termed the implementation of colonial practices in modern missions as “neocolonial …

The Impact Of Theology On The Development Of Cultural Intelligence Among College Students At An Evangelical Liberal Arts University, Esther Damodar Jadhav

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Traversing A Tightrope Between Ecumenism And Exclusivism, Retief Müller

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

During the first few decades of the 20th century, the Nkhoma mission of the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa became involved in an ecumenical venture that was initiated by the Church of Scotland’s Blantyre mission, and the Free Church of Scotland’s Livingstonia mission in central Africa. Geographically sandwiched between these two Scots missions in Nyasaland (presently Malawi) was Nkhoma in the central region of the country. During a period of history when the DRC in South Africa had begun to regressively disengage from ecumenical entanglements in order to focus on its developing discourse of Afrikaner Christian nationalism, this venture …

Missionary Training Best Practices : Equipping Church Members To Be Effective Missionaries In Their Own Contexts, Todd Wilson

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews And Books Received

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

Journal In Entirety

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

Church Planting, Humanitarian Services, And Christian Holiness In Central India : A Study Of The Life And Mission Of Ernest And Phebe Ward, Shivraj Kumar Mahendra

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

History Of Contextualization, Youssry Guirguis

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Larry Hart, Mark E Roberts, Sally Shelton, Jeffrey Voth, Monte Lee Rice, Robert D. Mcbain, Joji Mathew

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

C. Douglas Weaver. Baptists and the Holy Spirit: The Contested History with Holiness- Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements

Larry Hart ................................................................................................................151

Wolfgang Vondey. Pentecostal Theology: Living the Full Gospel Joji Mathew..............................................................................................................153

Lalsangkima Pachuau. World Christianity: A Historical and Theological Introduction Robert D. McBain....................................................................................................156

David Perry. Spirit Baptism: The Pentecostal Experience in Theological Focus Monte Lee Rice ........................................................................................................159

Craig S. Keener. Galatians and Galatians: A Commentary Mark E. Roberts and Philip R. Feist .........................................................................164

Vinson Synan. Where He Leads Me: The Vinson Synan Story Sally Jo Shelton.........................................................................................................168

Paul L. King. Is It of God? A Biblical Guidebook for Spiritual Discernment Jeffrey Voth ..............................................................................................................171