Digital Commons Network^™

Fifth Sunday Of Easter - 3 May 2026, Andrew Doohan

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

Second Sunday Of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday) - 12 April 2026, Gerard Moore

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

Third Sunday Of Lent - 8 March 2026, Pina Ford

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

The Most Holy Body And Blood Of Christ (Corpus Christi) - 7 June 2026, Ann-Maree O'Beirne

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

Ascension Of The Lord - 17 May 2026, Errol Lobo

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam - Rev. Dr Russell Hardiman

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

Major Developments Of The Altar And Ritual Movements In The Liturgy From The Early Church To The Immediate Post-Vatican Ii Years, Andy Nguyen Sj

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

Twelfth Sunday In Ordinary Time - 21 June 2026, Joe Tedesco

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

Eighteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time - 2 August 2026, Ann-Maree O'Beirne

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

Twenty-Fourth Sunday In Ordinary Time - 13 September 2026, Andrew Doohan

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

Flourishing Together, Kate Strater

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Our churches are incomplete without the presence, gifts, and friendship of people with disabilities and their families. Yet many congregations still struggle to gather and worship in ways that welcome these indispensable members. How can our churches become communities of belonging and full participation for people of all abilities? How might we flourish together as one body? More than 100 people convened at Calvin Theological Seminary on the evening of June 25 for a unique “community conversation” on disability and the church. The purpose of the gathering was to explore together how churches throughout the region might become more accessible …

Prodigal Daughters: The Crisis Facing Generation Z Women, Kristin Brouwer

Doctor of Ministry

Why are Generation Z women (born approximately between 1997 and 2012), increasingly leaving organized Christian religion in the United States? This question became personal in my office at a Christian liberal arts college, where national statistics took on the faces and stories of students I teach and mentor. For the first time in American history, young men are now more religious than young women, and nearly four in ten Gen Z women identify as religiously unaffiliated. Yet their departure is not primarily a rejection of God; it is a rejection of distorted representations of God, faith, and church.

Drawing on …

The Importance Of Mental Health Education In The Black Church: Exploring Mental Health And Trauma Through A Biblical Lens, Navita Kj Johnson-Belcher

Doctor of Ministry

The Black church has historically served as a cornerstone for African American spiritual and communal life yet faces significant challenges in addressing mental health needs rooted in generational trauma and systemic oppression. This dissertation explores the crisis of silence surrounding mental health in Black church contexts, where stigma, pastoral limitations, and historical mistrust of institutional systems create barriers to healing. Through examination of biblical perspectives on suffering, church-based mental health programs, and emerging digital ministry models, this study demonstrates that online platforms can effectively integrate trauma-informed care with theological education.

The research presents a digital, trauma-informed, biblically-based, mental health education …

Good Grief: Implementing Solace And Support Of Bereavement Ministry Within A Resource-Constrained Church In Chicago, Illinois, Celeste Haynes

Doctor of Ministry

Grief is a universal human experience that occurs at some point in everyone's life. This body of work explores the various benefits of implementing a bereavement support ministry in a resource-constrained church in Chicago, Illinois. The research will outline how a bereavement ministry can offer emotional support, spiritual guidance, and provide educational resources, community building, outline a budget proposal, and a grant opportunities, partnership with local agencies, training for volunteers, and practical help to bereaved members in a church, as well as the bereaved community.

Bereavement is an inevitable part of the human experience, and churches have historically served as …

Women In Leadership Seminar Series, An Integrated Approach, Diane B. Tuttle

Doctor of Leadership

Need Problem Opportunity (NPO) Statement

Women of faith aspiring to leadership positions in the nonprofit sector need to be strategically equipped with specialized knowledge, experience, and interpersonal awareness.

Key Insights That Emerged From Research

When this journey began, I envisioned my project focusing on executive leadership transitions in nonprofit organizations. However, through interactive discovery in this doctoral program, I realized that the scope was too narrow. Women at different career levels wanted to learn, grow, and have opportunities to connect with other women. This led me to develop a seminar series intended for women interested in personal and professional growth. …

Wellspring For Renewal And Transformation In Ministry, Deborah Cundey Owen

Doctor of Leadership

Ministry leaders increasingly experience burnout and isolation within performance-driven leadership cultures in the United States that fail to cultivate self-awareness, resilience, and spiritual formation. This Need/Problem/Opportunity (NPO) emerged through stakeholder engagement, expert interviews, and academic research, revealing that leaders are not primarily lacking ministry skills but the emotional, spiritual, and relational capacity to sustain those skills in healthy ways.

Several key insights shaped the project. Burnout is less a function of workload than of identity; leaders operating from performance rather than belovedness are spiritually and neurologically vulnerable. Emotional regulation functions as spiritual formation. Concepts such as differentiation, non-anxious presence, undefended …

5.4.1. Cultivating Cross-Generational Leadership, Shela Ammani Sullivan

Doctor of Leadership

Need Problem Opportunity (NPO) Statement

In the current corporate landscape, there is a lack of effective leadership models for the developing Millennial and Gen Z leaders.

Key Benefits from Research

Research and prototype testing yielded several key discoveries. While digital formats such as vlogs and ePlaybooks offer accessibility and relatability, the strongest outcomes emerged from in-person engagement. Stakeholders’ feedback emphasized the importance of relational depth, experiential learning, real-time feedback, and recommended digital supplements to enhance accessibility and reduce costs. These findings confirm that leadership development initiatives must integrate adaptability with relational practice to achieve sustainable and meaningful impact. The project …

Beyond Rugged Individualism: A Narrative Intervention For Men Languishing In Isolation, Chad Edward Warren

Doctor of Leadership

My NPO (Need, Problem, or Opportunity) addresses the problem that an exceptional number of men in Northwest Montana languish due to prolonged social and emotional isolation.

Across my research, the key insight was that isolation is sustained not only by personal circumstances but also by the cultural narratives that form men’s identities and expectations. Stories function as “maps of meaning,” shaping what men perceive as strength, weakness, and the good life. In this context, rugged individualism, understood as a self-reliance and isolation narrative that prizes toughness and minimal dependence, can foster admirable grit while also reinforcing shame around vulnerability, help-seeking, …

Addressing Pornography Use Among Christian University Students: A Small Group Study Curriculum, Jeffery P. Styer

Doctor of Leadership

In the world of 24/7 access to the internet, it has been determined that Christian universities have students who struggle with a habit of viewing pornography impacting current and future relationships, with God, self, and others. These students graduate and are sent out into the world where they continue to struggle with pornography use and its accompanying guilt and shame. It is an injustice for the university and the church (worldwide) not to address this problem.

Research for this project confirms that pornography use is an issue both inside and outside the church. Christians are quick to identify pornography as …

Finding Meaning And Value In Old Age, Jane Nell Morgan

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project addressed finding meaning and value in old age. The research conducted explored barriers to achieving meaning and value and how to overcome those obstacles. The research specifically focused on senior adults who reside in a Christian-based assisted living home located in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. In response to this problem, the researcher studied the lives of three older biblical characters, Jacob, the author of Psalm 71, and Anna, and reviewed relevant literature on barriers senior citizens face today. In addition, research included the damaging effects older adults face when they fail to find meaning in their lives and …

A Cause Sprinkled With Blood: The Life Of Owen Lovejoy, Abolitionist, Pastor And Congressman, Owen Bryant Lovejoy

Books

No abstract provided.

Walking Through The Valley Of The Shadow: A Pancreatic Cancer Journey, Don Butterworth

Academic Books

No abstract provided.

The Rise And Fall Of The Small Bronze Tripod Used For Pouring Heated Libations (A Pre-Confucian Libation Rite), Elizabeth Childs-Johnson

Art Faculty Publications

The rite of pouring out heated alcohol in honor of spirits begins during the Late Neolithic but matures as a formal institution known in writing and in cast bronze during the earliest phases of the historic Bronze Age, namely the Erlitou (ca. 1900-1600 BC) and Shang periods (ca. 1600-1046 BC). As will be analyzed, the libation rite known as ... [示 + 爵 = ...] (jue/guan) in Shang oracle bone divinations involved the use of the tripod jue爵 (bronze vessel). Although the rite [...] continues to appear in written inscriptions through most of the Western Zhou era, by the 9th-8th …

Fifth Sunday Of Lent - 22 March 2026, Andy Nguyen Sj

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

Scandal And The Late Ancient Christian Historian, Jennifer Barry

Cultural and Philosophical Inquiry Articles

This article argues that scandal functions as a key narrative technology in late ancient Christian historiography. Rather than treating scandal as anecdote or moral failure, ecclesiastical historians use it as a structured way of arranging deviant bodies, contested practices, and moments of exposure to produce claims about Christian truth. Through recurring controversies, this study traces how biblical stories are reworked by authors such as Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret to stabilize doctrine, police boundaries, and articulate Christian identity. Across these writers, scandal emerges as a method of historical control, not merely a record of past conflict but a means of …

The Christ Of The Asbury Road, E. Stanley Jones

The Asbury Journal

This is an unpublished sermon, given by E. Stanley Jones on May 8, 1942, at 11:00 am at a special assembly at Asbury College. The day was named E. Stanley Jones day by the administration, and the 1942 yearbook was dedicated to Dr. Jones, who was also a member of the Board of Trustees. Jones had been asked to adapt the idea of his most well-known book, The Christ of the Indian Road, to his experience and knowledge of Asbury in Wilmore, Kentucky. He provided several interesting points to help ground Asbury’s theological position of holiness and build on that …

Hunters Of Men: A Tribal Reading Of The Missiological Motif In Luke 5:1-11, Themshang Horam

The Asbury Journal

This article presents an intercultural and contextual reading of Luke 5:1–11 from the perspective of the Naga tribes of Northeast India, proposing a reinterpretation of the traditional “fishers of men” motif as “hunters of men.” Grounded in the author’s cultural context—where, owing to the absence of large water bodies, fishing serves as a secondary means of subsistence while hunting remains central to social and spiritual life— this study contends that biblical metaphors risk losing their theological depth and communicative efficacy when removed from the ecological and cultural frameworks of the receiving community. Through exegetical analysis and intercultural hermeneutics, the paper …

A Tribal Hermeneutical Reading Of The Creation Narrative In Genesis 1:26-28, Enolyne Lyngdoh

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

The Rise And (Sudden) Fall Of The New York Magdalen Society: How A Methodist Doctor Upset The Entire City Of New York, Philip Hardt

The Asbury Journal

In the 1820s, several new interdenominational societies distributed Bibles and tracts, formed Sunday Schools, and launched missions in areas of the city that lacked a religious presence. Another society called the New York Magdalen Society (hereafter, NYMS) was formed on January 1, 1830, to rescue women from prostitution. To be sure, this society was greatly needed as this activity had been steadily increasing. Their primary focus was a dilapidated area known as the “Five Points.” Purchasing an asylum (i.e., a large house), they started to accept women who sincerely wanted to change. Yet, their first annual report, issued in July …

A Brief History Of Women At Asbury Theological Seminary, Robert A. Danielson

The Asbury Journal

Understanding the past roles of women within the 100-year lifespan of Asbury Theological Seminary is an important exercise in institutional history. Educational institutions frequently experience turnover in students, faculty, and administration at high rates. Institutional memory frequently is held by a few older members of the faculty and staff and more importantly by the archives of the institution. Institutional memory provides the foundation for changing policy decisions, understanding the institutional mission, and following how previous administrations dealt with a constantly changing cultural and social context. In the case of Asbury Theological Seminary, this paper explores an institution rooted in the …