Digital Commons Network^™

Social Media: A Tool For Discipleship, Allen James Williams

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this DMIN action research project is to equip students within The Next Generation Ministry at Christ Community Church Pinehurst with social media as a tool for discipleship. The academic literature reviewed reveals that social media introduces significant levels of influence, causes addictive habits, and often results in overconsumption of content. To determine if these aspects could be overcome, an intervention was developed to train and equip a group of thirteen participants to avoid those traits and instead use social media as a tool for discipleship. The research shows that it is possible for social media to be …

A Phenomenological Study Of Church Growth Strategies Used By Pastors Of Digital Churches During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Nicholas D. Cole

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the digital church growth methods that pastors of digital churches in the United States used to increase church attendance during the 2020-2022 COVID-19 pandemic. For the purpose of this study, pastors of digital/online churches were studied. Since the 1950s, the church growth strategy for many Christian churches has been to attract as many people as possible for in-person worship services. However, in-person church attendance has declined consistently for the past 20 years. The shutdowns of churches worldwide during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic amplified this trend. The only option available …

Covenant Infidelity And Political Apostasy In The Judean Monarchy: Disobedience, Punishment, And The Promise Of Redemption, Angie M. Roehrenbeck

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study will focus on an exegetical examination of political apostasy, the resulting judgment of God, and the promise of redemption for the Judean monarchy. Through an examination of specific texts in the book of Kings and the classical prophetic corpus, this dissertation will show how five out of twenty-one Judean kings ruling at key junctures in Israelite history were condemned and suffered punishment for violating the covenant by committing political apostasy with the surrounding nations. Yet, despite these infractions, Yahweh was still found to be a God of hope, compassion, and mercy, forgiving when his people repented, and faithful …

Becoming Who You Already Are In Christ: An Eight-Week Discipleship Plan To Equip Members Of Crossline Church To Live Out Their Identity In Christ, John Paul Jones

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This action-research project focused on equipping members of Crossline Community Church to live out their identity in Christ. The intervention was an eight-week discipleship plan, “Becoming who you already are in Christ.” The action-research project aimed to evaluate the impact of equipping believers with their identity in Christ upon their transformation into Christ-likeness. The project incorporated biblical, theological, and devotional content with a comprehensive pedagogy designed for maximum influence toward progressive sanctification. The twelve participants in the intervention engaged in sermons, training classes, small groups, and personal Bible studies as a part of the action research. Triangulated evaluation tools were …

The Prophets’ Use Of The Shepherd Motif And Its Contribution To Their Presentation Of The Character Of God, Deanna L. Huff

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The shepherd motif provides one of the most significant portraits of God in the Old and New Testaments. Various research on the historical metaphor within these studies frequently focuses on the relationship between rulers and leaders in the ancient Near East. The shepherd motif provides a tangible picture of the characteristics of deities and kings in their world. Therefore, it is a natural step for the prophets of the Old Testament to utilize a commonly used metaphor. In modern research, numerous studies in Ezekiel 34 have explored different facets of the shepherd motif. Several studies are related to leadership roles. …

Restoration Of Key Middle Age Demographic Can Save The African Methodist Episcopal Church, Geromy D. Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

St. Luke faced years of struggles resulting in a dwindling ministry and membership with specific impacts resulting in missing generations within the church. The missing generations include Generation X who were born between 1965-1980, Generation Y who were born between 1981-1996, and generation Z who were born between 1997-2012. There are many methods used to combat church decline and incentivize membership growth including evangelism, mega facilities, appealing ministry, and church legacy attracting the community. This research sought to prove that if ministries were developed specifically targeting the wants and needs of the missing generations souls would be won for Christ …

Rediscovering The Protestant Reformation In African American Worship, Eddie Anthony Robinson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Foundations are fundamental. Whether in the structure of a building, developing the mind, or establishing the faith, foundations are critical. The five solas of the Protestant Reformation are foundational to the Christian faith. When thinking of the Reformation and the five solas it produced, Psalm 11:3 comes to mind. This passage reads, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do” (Psalm 11:3, King James Version)? Today’s church needs to return to its foundations. This study argues that the five solas are a firm and solid foundation for the church. During the turbulent times of the Reformation, they held …

Embedding The Theology And Principles Of Worship In Pastoral Training And Sermon Preparation, Janicka E. Newbill

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A current literature investigation exposes a deficit in encouraging pastors and preachers to embed theology and principles of worship in their sermon preparation and pastoral training. This presents a concern when churchgoers gather in person or virtually to hear a sermon to strengthen their Christian walk each week. In addition, each year, seminary students and local church organizations graduate ministry leaders trained and prepared to deliver sermons designed to meet the spiritual needs of churchgoers. Yet, upon closer examination, there exist underpinning issues. Churchgoers are lacking in their understanding of worship. The Association of Theological Schools exposes a noticeable gap …

A Case Study On Leadership And Digital Media Strategy For Prolonged Absences, Blake Michael Harcup

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic created difficulties for the Western Church to meet together as it had normally done for generations. The question that arises is, “How is the church to continue its mission of reaching people with the Gospel and make disciples that make disciples when it is not able to gather together in the same manner as before?” This project will seek to determine the best strategies and tools that the modern Western Church can use to fulfill its mission through an online digital media strategy during these prolonged absences. A case study of Bedrock Church Sarasota and the strategies …

"Praise Him With Instruments" The Successful Implementation Of Orchestral Ensembles In The Modern Contemporary Worship Service, William Armour

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Despite the high demand for contemporary worship musicians to lead contemporary worship services, there remain classically trained orchestral musicians who desire to worship God with their instruments. Biblical evidence reveals, God, who highly values diversity and creativity, desires these traits in worship. Likewise, this evidence suggests God accepts and is pleased with all who offer Him true worship, regardless of their instrument. As such, there must be ways to accept these classically trained orchestral musicians into contemporary worship contexts and utilize them to enhance worship. Based on biblical evidence, industry resources, and music education materials, this qualitative study identifies the …

Small Groups That Fuel Active Service In The Local Church, Stephen Jerel Love

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Manna Church prioritizes empowering and developing leaders as an imperative objective of the local church. Such development is fueled through various avenues, including small groups. This thesis project will survey the purpose of small groups within Manna Church and how newly designed groups can address the problem of low voluntary participation in weekly services. The need for more active serve team members problematically exists among six site locations in the Fayetteville-Fort Bragg region. Furthermore, each ministry leader seeks innovative strategies to initiate and maintain involvement during weekly services. However, numbers are at an unprecedented low point. The effects of these …

Enhancing Effective Discipleship Recruitment In The Local Church, Anna Patrice Shanklin

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study evaluates effective discipleship recruitment in the local church. The overarching goal of this thesis research project is to increase the transition of new members completing new members’ orientation to discipleship training. Through the result of this research, the researcher will design and implement an enhanced recruitment campaign in the local ministry context and target it to new members to increase the population of membership committed to formal discipleship training.

A Phenomenological Study Of The High-Tech, High-Touch Pastor: Maximizing Personal Ministry In A Digital Age, Shirley Groce

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This qualitative phenomenological study aimed to explore how high-tech, high-touch senior pastors who practice servant leadership establish and maintain personal contact with their church members and lead them using digital technology. This research was particularly relevant in an era of social distancing required by the COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical framework for this study was Greenleaf's servant leadership theory. Ten experienced pastors were interviewed to determine how they balanced the impersonal nature of streaming worship services while maintaining personal contact with their congregations. These interviews were transcribed, and important themes were identified to determine best practices for using technology while maintaining …

Dealing With The Problem Of Lack Of Interest In Evangelism At Freedom Hill Community Church, Max Prudent Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

To deal with the problem of lack of interest in evangelism at Freedom Hill Community Church, a curriculum was designed as an intervention. Given the existence of many barriers to evangelism, this curriculum aimed at addressing only two of them, namely fear and biblical illiteracy. The curriculum was taught to ten participants over the course of six weeks over Zoom. Data collection tools that were used include a pre-course survey, a post-course survey, and a feedback survey. Analysis of the data has shown a positive change in attitude post-intervention in the areas of the relevancy of the intervention to participants’ …

The Historical And Modern Significance Of The Choctaw Hymnody, Angela M. Boatner

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Working with the Native Choctaw populations of early America, missionaries did much in the way of music and composition. One result was a compilation of original hymns written by English missionaries in the native Choctaw tongue, but there were also Choctaw composers and contributions. Singing these hymns in church services, gatherings, and social situations remains an activity where the Oklahoma and Mississippi tribal members participate today. The recorded history of the known hymns and composers is scarce and is disappearing daily in favor of teaching the ancient cultures rather than the religion of the white colonists. The research chose a …

Authentic Credible Leadership: An Examination Of Jesus’S Leadership In The Farewell Discourses, Joshua D. Henson, Samuel Hemby

Selected Faculty Publications

This is a study of authentic credibility as demonstrated through John’s description of Jesus’ words and actions in the Farewell Discourses (John 13-17). Identifying the need for further research on the relationship between authentic leadership and credibility (Williams et al., 2018) and building from Kouzes and Posner’s (2011) six disciplines of leader credibility—discover yourself, appreciate constituents, affirm shared values, develop capacity, serve a purpose, and sustain hope—and Hemby’s (2007) on leader credibility, we espouse that moral foundations of authentic leadership promote leader credibility while not dimensioning the need for competence. After a thorough literature review on authentic leadership, the study …

Unsung Holiday: Memorial Day And Christian Patriotism, Donald Roth

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"The holiday has had a complicated relationship with religion and contentious issues around our national identity."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­Memorial Day from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/unsung-holiday-memorial-day-and-christian-patriotism/

The Development Of The Holistic Pastoral Wellbeing Assessment: A Mixed Methods Study, Timothy Captain

Dissertations

Some pastors are clearly in crisis. Research has indicated that clergy struggle to cope with the stressors of their profession. While pastoral work is overtly spiritual in nature, day-to-day tasks include interactions with God, themselves, congregants, and the world at large. Without multi-dimensional tools to consider their wellbeing, specifically assessments that reflect their worldview and role, pastors may remain unaware of dangerously low levels of wellbeing until they reach a place of crisis. Therefore, in this mixed methods study, the Holistic Pastoral Wellbeing Assessment (HPWA) was developed and tested to offer a validated, useful tool for pastors and those who …

Hospitality: Areas That Are Effective In Creating A Desire For A Visitor To Connect To Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Brent M. Hartwig

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

This major applied project explores hospitality offered by the local congregation. Biblical hospitality is implicitly and explicitly commanded in scripture. Balancing the Missio Dei and two kinds of righteousness will keep us on the straight and narrow theologically when pursuing hospitality.

When churches offer hospitality, we are feeding, clothing, visiting, providing, and welcoming our neighbor. Our Redeemer wants to continue serving the community as a family-oriented, mission focused, hospitable congregation. We are doing the feeding, clothing, and providing through many efforts in the community. We are active with the local homeless shelter and crisis center. For the MAP, we wanted …

Coming To Peace In The Presence Of Wild Things: A Personal Exploration Of The Intersections Of The Environment And Faith, Hampton T. Randall

Student Scholarship

From a young age, I have felt the power that certain places have over me. Some made me feel an overwhelming sense of awe, some freedom, and some made me feel depths of peace unknown like Wendell Berry describes in the poem above. Considering my natural restlessness, a disposition that has been there since birth, the fact these places invoke a feeling of peace that washes over me speaks volumes to their power.

It wasn’t until college that I truly recognized this power of place, but since learning that fact I have sought its connection. A professor of mine gave …

Positive Factors Related To The Decision To Study For The Office Of The Ministry By Men Of The Lutheran Synod Of Nicaragua (Iglesia Luterana Sínodo De Nicaragua/Lutheran Church—Canada), Edmund Auger

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

Auger, Edmund D. “Positive Factors Related to the Decision to Study for the Office of the Ministry by Men of The Lutheran Synod of Nicaragua (Iglesia Luterana Sínodo de Nicaragua / Lutheran Church—Canada).” Doctor of Ministry. Major Applied Project, Concordia Seminary, 2023. 128 pages.

The Lutheran Church throughout the world needs a continuing supply of men to serve as faithful pastors in the public ministry of the Gospel. The identification and spiritual formation of candidates for Word and Sacrament ministry is critical for the young national church body, Iglesia Luterana Sínodo de Nicaragua (Lutheran Synod of Nicaragua).

This project is …

There Is A Place For You And Your Little Ones: Homiletics And Liturgy In View Of Pregnancy Loss, Joseph Michael Baumgarten

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

Baumgarten, Joseph M. There is a Place for You and Your Little Ones: Homiletics and Liturgy in View of Pregnancy Loss. Doctor of Ministry. Major Applied Project, Concordia Seminary, 2022. 81 pp.

Pregnancy loss and the grief that follows is more common than most people think. However, there is a gap in resources, discussion, and care for those who have experienced such losses. This is true in wider culture as well as in the church. While there are a few resources available, they are limited. This project addresses the church’s ability to provide proper recognition of pregnancy loss, the validation …

Embodied Superintendence: The Person Of The Preacher In Lutheran Homiletics Especially In Relation To Cultural Identity, Dennis Matyas

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Over the past several decades, the greater homiletical academy has progressed from questions of authority to dialogics to identity, both of the preacher and of the hearers. Within this timeframe, modern Lutheran homiletics has stayed relatively silent on considerations of the person of the preacher, opting instead for certain foundational homiletical truths including the efficacy of the Word of God, the proclamation of justification, and the authority of the Ministerium. After recovering the consideration of the person of the preacher as a foundational Lutheran homiletic, this work explores the formational significance of the preacher’s cultural identity by offering a theoretical …

Behind The Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces A New America, Larry Vogel

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

The dissertation examines membership data for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) from the mid-1970s to the present. It considers the analysis of LCMS decline by two scholars, George Hawley and Ryan MacPherson, who independently proposed that LCMS membership decline was internal in causation due to diminished birthrates and fewer young families. While acknowledging the reality of such internal decline, this dissertation argues that the lack of external growth is a greater cause for LCMS decline. Its lack of external growth is due primarily to the racial and ethnic homogeneity of the LCMS and its failure effectively to evangelize the increasingly …

Calladitas No Nos Vemos Más Bonitas: Testimonios Of Mexican Migrant Catholic Mothers’ Resistance To Marianismo, Jessica Guadalupe Ornelas

Master's Theses

The purposeful killing of women due to their gender (feminicide) is an atrocious global act that has been ascending at an alarming rate, over the past couple of years. Specifically, last year in México and in the duration of six months, there were close to 3,000 victims of gender based killings in México, which is about 10 casualties daily (ONU Mujeres, 2022). While most studies have centered their attention on systemic causes that lead to gender based violence, the amount of research that closely analyzes the ways these causes are interwoven with womens’ everyday lived experiences of social and personal …

“Some Days Are Much Holier Than Others”: Relational Uncertainty And Partner Influence In Christian Dating Couples' Sexual Intimacy Negotiation, Arielle Leonard Hodges, Jennifer L. Bevan

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

When intrafaith couples' religion strictly prohibits premarital sexual intercourse, negotiating sexual intimacy can become a multilayered process of identity negotiation that compounds the difficulty of sexual communication. Through the lens of relational turbulence theory, this study explored how devout Christian couples negotiate sexual intimacy by reanalyzing qualitative interview data the first author collected in 2017 from 16 self-identified Christians (8 heterosexual couples). Seven themes revealed how relational uncertainty, partner interference, and partner facilitation manifested in the context of sexual intimacy negotiation. Themes of relational uncertainty experience and prevention included assumption of shared values, relationship talk, and sexual behaviors …

A Spiritual Call: Jeremiah’S Call To The Heart And The Stages Of Spiritual Progression In Carmelite Spirituality, Julia S. Whelan

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The aim of this study is first, to identify resonances between Jeremiah 1:10 and the three stages of the spiritual journey as defined by the Carmelites such as John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila (i.e., the stages known as purgative, illuminative and unitive) and then, in light of an in depth understanding of the spiritual senses attributed to Jeremiah 1:10 in its reception history, to evaluate the impact of Jer 1:10 upon the Carmelite conception of the spiritual journey.

A comprehensive Word Study is undertaken of six task verbs from Jer 1:10, presented as three pairs: to root …

Online Worship And The Autism Community, Stephen J. Bedard

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many faith communities to move their services online. This may have been a pragmatic decision to adapt to health regulations but it also provided an accessible option for autistic worshipers to participate in their faith community. Although there are some challenges to online worship services, they remain an important option for autistic members of faith communities.

Ndas: How Should Christians Think About Non-Disclosure Agreements?, Donald Roth

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"The answer to forward-looking NDAs may be for Christians to write better ones, rather than abandoning them altogether."

Posting about the pros and cons of non-disclosure agreements from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/ndas-how-should-christians-think-about-non-disclosure-agreements/

St. Columbanus And Holiness In Community, Elise Wixtrom, Hank Voss

Presentations

No abstract provided.