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Reading Karl Barth's Trinitarian Theology Of Freedom In The Sociopolitical Context Of Chin Christianity, Tawk Lian

Doctor of Philosophy Theses

This thesis argues that the act of reading Barth’s Trinitarian theology of freedom in the Chin context helps the Chin to acquire a new understanding of the Trinity, which reminds them of how the triune God stands in solidarity with them in their hard situation and how the triune God gives them freedom, which empowers them to engage their sociopolitical environment in a positive way. The sense of this Trinitarian logic requests the Chin evangelical and ecumenical Christians to appropriate the implications of Barth’s Trinitarian theology for reshaping their Trinitarian misperceptions underlined by the tendency to perceive the Trinity in …

Cultivating The Practice Of Neighborliness: A Missional Practice Of Living In A Perichoretic Relationship With Neighbors, Abenda F. Tamba

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This Participatory Action Research study, utilizing a sequential explanatory mixed methods design, investigates the hostile relationship between the church and its Liberian context. The research design created a spirit of collaboration between the PAR team, local church, and the neighbors, and assisted us to outline interventions which positively affected the relationship between the church and her neighbors. The results indicate that to deal with this adaptive challenge and enhance interpersonal relationship with neighbors, the church had to provide adaptive leadership, break boundaries, participate in incarnational ministries, and cultivate several missional practices to affect neighborliness and bring about a cultural change.

Harvesting Hope: Biblical Preaching With People Of The Land, Catherine Belles

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This project seeks to customize generic preaching skills to better serve rural Midwest churches in a time of great transition. “What seeds are we planting that our harvest will be hope in Jesus Christ? Does the Word of God affect our response, and are we transformed by that change, so that hope becomes part of our faith DNA?” Seeking to encourage prophetic visioning, preacher, leaders, and members to live into God’s ongoing new creation. Harvest is a major theme in rural communities and biblical narrative, a metaphor of grace and judgement. Preachers are encouraged to glean the faith stories of …

Risen With Healing In Her Wings: An Ecclesiological Ethnography Of Three Young Congregations In St. Paul, Minnesota, Catrina Louise Ciccone

Doctor of Philosophy Theses

This dissertation assumes that death and resurrection is the rhythm of life for all disciples of Jesus Christ, and that this baptismal pattern of dying in Christ and being raised to new life in Christ plays itself out in many penultimate iterations across our lives until our ultimate Death and Resurrection. As such, living in a cultural climate in which the white North American Christendom Church is captive to an ecclesiology of death, fixated upon and anxious about its imminent demise, this dissertation seeks to provide a counter-narrative: an ecclesiology of the resurrection occurring in this new missional era, a …

God’S Beautiful Mission: Missional Church And Leadership In The Light Of Theological Aesthetics, M. Scott Boren

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This project seeks to ascertain how pastoral leaders who have been trained in missional theology have led in a way that has been influenced by theological aesthetics. The view of missional leadership here is built upon a re-imagination of missio Dei and missional church that is informed by theological aesthetics. This theology of beauty is based upon the work of Gregory A. Boyd, Jonathan Edwards, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This proposal seeks to advance the views of the missional church rooted in the work of Lesslie Newbigin and advanced by Craig Van Gelder, Alan Roxburgh, and Pat …

A Congregation Engaging In Missional Dialogue: Strengthening Discernment Amid Diversity Through Healthy Congregational Dialogue, Jeffrey M. Wilson

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This transformative mixed-methods modified Participatory Action Research (PAR) project was used to investigate and affect healthy and faithful discernment and decision-making in a diverse congregation within the reality of being the body of Christ in mission. Data were collected utilizing baseline and end-line surveys, recorded and transcribed meetings and interviews, and memos. The data revealed that people who engaged in the research process grew in their perception of the congregation as being healthy and faithful in discernment and decision-making. This research shows that mutual responsibility, respect, trust, and interdependence between leaders and congregation members helps us focus on God’s mission …

Preparing Transformational Sermons: An Attitudinal Model Of Sermonic Application, Donald G. Bryant Jr.

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This mixed method, action-reflection project explores the results of attitudinal rather than a behavioral sermon-application model. The research project delves into the change in the listener’s perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs through sermons deliberately designed for attitudinal application of the gospel. My project will attempt to assess whether such an intentional focus on attitudinal application can impact heart transformation. I hoped to study sermons that transform the human heart as opposed to legalistic (behavior-based) sermons within evangelical churches.

Led To Lead: Vocational Discernment And Emerging Pastoral Leadership In The Reformed Church In America, Tanner Smith

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This mixed-methods sequential exploratory research project investigates the leadership development practices of two Christian organizations—a multi-site church and seminary—within the Reformed Church in America. The study identifies the best practices of both organizations for building vocational discernment capacity in emerging leaders, and compares the practices of the organizations in an attempt to foster dialogue that leads to collaboration in leadership development efforts.

Thinking With Luther About Jesus (Aka Sweetlips), Gary M. Simpson

Faculty Publications

In Luther’s commentary on Ps 45, Jesus can properly by understood as “SweetLips” because of Luther’s bold nuptial rhetoric describing the beauty of Christ the Bridegroom. Jesus’ lips overflow with grace and are, therefore, pure sugar and honey

The Ecology Of Vocation, Terri L. Elton

Faculty Publications

Those who care about the future of the church have a vested interest in both the quantity and the quality of candidates preparing for ministry in this generation and into the next. And it is easy to see those pastors as the product of a series of independent and individualized decisions. A college student, for example, meets with her pastor to discuss her future. Or an engineer sits at the kitchen table with his wife asking if they have the money for him to quit his job and head off to seminary. The future of ministry does indeed depend on …

Soli Deo Gloria: A Doxological Hermeneutic Of Mission In Emerging Ministries In The Evangelical Lutheran Church In America, Daniel R. Anderson

Doctor of Philosophy Theses

This research project is a grounded theory, ethnographic study of emerging ministries in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Twenty emerging ministries were selected from within the ELCA. Six of those sites were the subjects of indepth site visits by a research team. Eleven additional sites were the subjects of partial site visits and interviews. The data-gathering phase of the research concluded with a consultation with thirty emerging leaders held at Luther Seminary. Four sensitizing concepts were used as lenses in data gathering: Lutheran, emerging, missional, and doxological hermeneutics. Leadership in emerging ministries and emerging ministries as contextual and …

Reframing Mission: An Action-Research Intervention Into A Mainline Judicatory, Dwight J. Zscheile

Doctor of Philosophy Theses

A system-wide, action-research intervention into a mainline church judicatory sought to empower its members to respond to the adaptive challenges facing them through reframing their understanding of mission in light of their changing context and theological tradition, and through actively discerning the leading of the Holy Spirit. Recognizing that the problems facing mainline denominational systems in 21st century America require attention to foundational questions of identity and purpose in a post-Christendom era, this study utilized a multi-layered, participatory process that encouraged grass-roots transformation.

Over the course of one year, approximately 2,000 members of a diocese of the Episcopal Church participated …

The Church Growth Movement: A Wesleyan Critique, Alan G. Padgett

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.