Religion Commons^™

Re-Discovering Intentional Use Of The Church Covenant As The Basis For Self-Identity In A Congregational Church Community, Richard Scott Hartley

Doctor of Ministry

This dissertation seeks to awaken a clear identity of a Congregational Church as an intentional covenanted community by rediscovering a practical theology founded in the idea of covenant and exploring the praxis of covenant implementation in community. Rediscovering this identity involves the exploration of biblical, historical, theological, and Congregational concepts of covenant. In response to the lack of self-identity, the project proposes the application of covenant to community to enable the church to be empowered to practice living, adapting, loving, and serving the community in which it exists. The problem is revealed in a semi-fictional narrative of a Congregational Church …

Grace In Paul's Letter To Titus In Light Of Greco-Roman Patronage, Jeffrey R. Syverson

Doctor of Ministry

This thesis argues that patronage is a crucial and not yet sufficiently utilized interpretive lens to understanding xcxpK (grace) in Paul's letter to Titus. It introduces patronage in the Greco-Roman world and surveys definitions and characteristics. It offers descriptions of the roles of clients and patrons. It discusses different forms of patronage: personal patronage, friendship, public benefaction, literary patronage, divine patronage, political patronage and brokerage. It also considers the relationship of patronage and benefaction. A major focus is a consideration of the usage of grace (xapic.:) in patronage looking to inscriptions, letters, and literature from the era. The influence on …

Youth Ministry In The Emerging Culture, Joel Dietrich

Doctor of Ministry

Youth ministry is a relatively new endeavor for Christianity in the West. In its short history, youth ministry became a major aspect of Christian churches and Christian activity. This project focuses on youth ministry in the emerging culture. The problem is that an increasing percentage of Americans leave their Christian faith behind when they enter adulthood. The paper examines the latest research into the emerging culture and youth ministry, and it provides a practical approach to youth ministry in the emerging culture. The thesis is that youth ministries can connect effectively with teenagers through missional, relational, incarnational, and intergenerational strategies …

Sacred Flow: Discovering Life In God's Rhythm, Arthur T. Sposaro

Doctor of Ministry

Today's Christian spirituality largely neglects or misappropriates the believer's mutual indwelling with Christ, thus leading to a legalistic spirituality. This project employs a phenomenon commonly known as flow or peak-experience, as described in psychological research and illustrated in particularly in sport, to reorient Christianity. Flow is a harmonious state of consciousness and experience in which one becomes totally absorbed in what one is doing, and where the mind and body are working together effortlessly. When integrated with Christianity, flow's nature, elements, and effects inform and inspire a faith of full engagement and graceful rhythm. This project engages decades of cross-cultural …

Finding Life: An Organic Model Of Renewal For Existing Churches, Thomas E. Rester Jr.

Doctor of Ministry

Statistics reveal most existing mainline churches are small, declining, and unable to minister effectively in their current environment. Rising stress is the result for these congregations. For mission and ministry to continue in many of these places, the stress must become an opportunity to release a deeper organic understanding of identity and ministry within the fluid postmodern context.

Chapter 2 presents biblical materials from the book of Acts. Focusing on Acts 15, we discover that in a moment of fil"eat stress and confusion, the church was able to e change and evolve to find new life in the midst of …

Transforming Inmate Character Within A Correctional Setting By Experiencing Spiritual Formation Through The Conventional Relationship With God, Ron D. Borden

Doctor of Ministry

Historically, the correctional system was concerned with locking up criminals and keeping them off the streets. Society's safety was, and still is, of primary importance. Unfortunately, most felons complete their sentencing and are released back into the community with the same belief systems and character traits that brought them to prison. Christian programming within the correctional setting is succeeding only at changing surface behavior, not genuine character transformation. This results in recidivism rates that are identical to those of non-Christian imnates. In order to address this problem, I propose that spiritual formation focused upon a covenantal relationship with Jesus Christ …

Communicating For Influence: Christian Proclamation From The Margins, Brian A. Ross

Doctor of Ministry

It is my opinion that North American Christianity needs to re-consider how it communicates to young adults about following after the person of Jesus Christ. The Church should seek to understand the present cultural milieu and the implications of influencing from below. Established Christianity formerly held a position of prestige and relative power. Due to cultural and epistemological shifts this is no longer the situation. The message of Christ is still relevant in the new millennium, but the standard approaches to communicating and thus influencing others in this new world are at times no longer relevant. Much of organized Christianity …

A Proposal For Creating A Master Of Divinity Specialization In Stewardship And An Ma In Stewardship And Development Program, John R. Frank

Doctor of Ministry

Critics and research indicate that inadequate leadership in stewardship education has led to inaccurate teaching, wrong attitudes, and a lack of generosity in the Christian church and parachurch ministries. This teaching has led tnany churches and parachurch organizations to etnphasize fundraising rather than the steward's spiritual journey and relationship with God. The dissertation addresses the need for a new look at stewardship, the theology of stewardship, and how stewardship is presented to the local church and parachurch.

The thesis of this project is that in order to itnprove stewardship in the Christian church, leadership must teach cotnprehensive, biblical stewardship with …

A Project To Foster Spiritual Formation In Online Classrooms, Robert Vaughan

Doctor of Ministry

Online programs are a growing phenomenon in adult education. Many Christian colleges and universities use this method to meet the educational needs of non-traditional students. A drawback of online education is the challenge to address the spiritual needs of students in a virtual environment. This project will propose an approach for fostering spiritual formation in asynchronous, adult online educational programs.

Section 2 will demonstrate the problem of fostering spiritual formation in online environments including the following issues: the demographics of the project, an organizational analysis of the project, and historical timelines of online adult education.

Section 3 will explore how …

Where Are The Twenty-Year-Olds? Tools For The Church To Connect And Retain A Generation, Lars Rood

Doctor of Ministry

A generation of young people are losing their connection to the church today. Research by the Barna Group shows that "61 % of students who were active in church during their teenage years disengaged during their twenties."1 Many churches struggle to adequately connect with and retain the twenty-something generation. This inability to connect stems from changing culture, technology, new worldviews, and a lack of formal training in institutes of higher education. Raised with the Internet, instant messaging, cell phones, and hundreds of television channels, this generation is undoubtedly well informed. Yet many churches no longer speak their language. I believe …

Postmodern Trinitarian Philosophy: A Multiperspectival Approach, John Barry King Jr

Doctor of Ministry

To fulfill its missional imperative, the 21st Century, Western Church must engage a postmodem culture. To facilitate such engagement the following manuscript will relate Trinitarian theology to postmodem philosophy by using a Trinitarian grammar known as multiperspectivalism. In particular, multiperspectivalism will be used to integrate Trinitarian theology with the three loci of postmodem philosophy: non-foundational epistemology, socially constructive linguistics, and holistic relational ontology. As these various loci imply, postmodemism is characterized by a movement toward relationality in epistemology, linguistics, and ontology. It is precisely this emphasis on relationality that produces the resonance between postmodem philosophy and Trinitarian theology.

After outlining …

Spiritual Conversations, Randall D. Groves

Doctor of Ministry

How can the Keesler Air Force Base Chapel provide spiritual care for airmen who are spiritual but who are not religious? The Department of Defense challenges the chapel to promote the spiritual health of all airmen while the chapel mostly provides religion-based services. The chapel's efforts, therefore, ignore airmen who do not fit into a particular religion. The problem will be addressed by suggesting that the chapel incorporate a spiritual conversations gathering into the existing religion-based services. The chapel needs to embrace spiritual-but-not-religious airmen by offering a spiritual conversations gathering and conducting an annual spirituality survey. The purpose of this …

Offering Hope: Ministry With The Chronically Ill, Marti Gates Lundy

Doctor of Ministry

One of every two individuals in the United States suffers from chronic illness. While these numbers are staggering, studies indicate that they will continue to rise. The problem exists that the local church is not fully equipped to address the desire and need for wholeness and community felt by the millions of individuals living with chronic conditions. These individuals suffer alone and the contemporary church has failed to minister effectively with them. With proper grounding in a biblical understanding of God's role in illness and suffering, a foundation in the role of pastoral care throughout Church history, and by looking …

"Following Jesus To Burning Man" Recovering The Church's Vocation, Kerry D. Mcroberts

Doctor of Ministry

My Doctor of Ministry in Leadership and Emerging Culture at George Fox Evangelical Seminary has been E-P-I-C! I have been personally transformed by the unique [E]xperience of this DMIN. My transformation has centered on my exchange of the center for the margins in my ministry focus. Vicki's (my wife) law enforcement career has daily situated her on culture's extreme margins and through her I have connected with people whom I was not [P]articipating in life with as a pastor. Vicki has been my inspiration for my life-transforming experience. God placed a desire in my heart to make "Burning Man" my …

"Helping People Find Freedom In Christ" A Journey Toward Fulfilling Christian Ministry In Community, Clifford E. Watt

Doctor of Ministry

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore a biblically based set of principles that will empower believers to have freedom in their Christian lives. There is an underlying belief contained in the Bible that it is natural for a believer to do ministry. Jesus said: "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-fruit that will last."3 He also reminded us: "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going …

A Strategy For Evangelism With Samoans, Tauileata Moli

Doctor of Ministry

This paper will provide an evangelism plan designed to carry out this mandate among traditional Samoans in Samoa. The plan supports and utilizes the Samoan communal patriarchal family system. The thesis of this paper is that a Christian evangelistic model can be designed that is compatible with the Samoan communal, patriarchal family system. Chapter 1 of this dissertation describes conflicts caused by using individual evangelism style in the Samoan community, which is community oriented. Chapter 2 will provide historical information about the country of Samoa and its cultural background. Change and especially change that destroys the cultural system is very …

Youthbuilders: 1974-2008 Building A Student Leadership Model, Denis Eldon Bell

Doctor of Ministry

The YouthBuilders is an itinerant group of students, ages 18-24 who volunteer for one year of community life and personal growth. They train and serve in what is now a co-operative opportunity sponsored by the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada and the Canadian Conference of the Brethren in Christ Church.

After thirty-three years the YouthBuilders' adventure is just completing its tenth season of tour, involving the 13th and 14th teams, having trained 58 students in this model of leadershop development.

The practical application of this Doctor of Ministry dissertation is to investigate · · the history of this movement and …

Movies As The Vernacular Of Adolescence, Jacob Youmans

Doctor of Ministry

Audience: The primary audience/user of my project will be Christian teenagers with a desire to share their faith in a missional way in the vernacular of their peers. I also hope the project will be a resource for those who minister to and work with teenagers and desire to connect with them as well as inspire them to go out and be the church to their friends that do not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

I hope my users will have more confidence in sharing their faith and will learn skills to talk about the sacred in the …

Resurrecting A Witch: An Intimate Look At The Roles Faith And Politics Played During The Salem Witchcraft Trials Of 1692, Teresa M. Marbut

Doctor of Ministry

This work deals with the roles faith and politics played in the hearts and minds of those people who were caught up in the mass hysteria of the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692. It examines the trials through the colored lenses of several of Salem's accused, their accusers, and the men who served as their judges. It focuses on the mishandling of the accused witches at both their hearings and trials, and how the purported "visions" seen by their accusers were often used as the sole evidence to indict, try, sentence, and hang many of the accused. Resurrecting a Witch …

A Suffering Messiah? Messianic Expectations In Light Of The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Case Of 1qisa 52:14, Jenifer A. Manginelli

Doctor of Ministry

This paper considers the possibility of an intended messianic reading at Isaiah 52: 14 in the Great Isaiah Scroll (lQisaa) in light of the New Testament's presentation of Jesus as the suffering Messiah. Such a reading may evince a connection on the part of the scribe between the vicarious suffering of the servant of the LORD and a messianic figure. The plausibility of a messianic reading is considered through analysis of the text, followed by an exploration of the likelihood that such a connection would have been made on the basis of what we can discern of the Qumran community's …

Exploring The Impact Of Consumerism And The Role Of Stewardship In The Church, Christine Roush

Doctor of Ministry

This paper claims that Christianity, as practiced in the contemporary United States, fails to address the problem of consumption and that society desperately needs a Romans 12 movement. American Christians look similar to American non-Christians in almost every aspect of life. Others propose solutions to challenge the consumer culture. Organizations such as Crown Financial Concepts and Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace Seminars encourage individuals to use their wealth and resources wisely. Some experts suggest science and technology have produced dramatic results in the past and wiII continue to aid humanity in the future. Others claim more consumption addresses the problem because …

Remembering To Be Faithful: The Role Of Humility In The Revitalization Of Pentecostal Churches, James O. Williams

Doctor of Ministry

This dissertation addresses spiritual revitalization of Pentecostal churches. This paper's thesis is that the revitalization of Pentecostal churches must begin with the recovery of the early Pentecostals' passion and urgency.

Knowledge of the antecedents affords a clear understanding of the early Pentecostal movement. Chapter 1 examines the spiritual decline in the decades leading up to the birth of Pentecostalism. The chapter considers the causes of decline, the dynamics of renewal, and concludes by introducing key figures in restoration movements in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Chapter 2 explores the passions of the Pentecostal forerunners in their own words. …

Emmanuel "God With Us" In Suffering, E. Douglas William Jr.

Doctor of Ministry

This paper proposes a response the following question: What is the best approach for ministers to use in ministry to the suffering? The paper examines the question in light of culture in the United States in the twenty-first century. Many people face a crisis in their faith due to a misconception that God allows suffering to happen to good people. Three covenantal theories: limited retribution, telic vindication, and theocentric consolation, appear throughout the Old and New Testaments and in the history of the Church. This paper proposes theocentric consolation as the proper paradigm for ministry to those who suffer. Chapter …

Consumer Theology: Its Causes, Effects, And Solution, R. Douglas Bailey

Doctor of Ministry

This paper claims that consumerism has permeated our culture so completely as to affect the church as well, creating a consumer theology. The thesis of this paper is that spiritual formation, properly understood and implemented in an established church, is the corrective for the harmful effects of consumer theology. Chapter 1 traces the rise of consumerism in America, noting its harmful effects on society. This chapter also introduces consumer theology, claiming that it is characterized by a commodification of the Holy; churches' becoming vendors of religious goods and services; a radical individualism; and a sense of entitlement among congregants. Chapter …

An Epistemology Of Hope: A Modest Theory Of Knowledge For The (Post) Evangelical Church, Jeffrey Norman Tacklind

Doctor of Ministry

The problem that I will be addressing in this dissertation is the chasm that is growing between the evangelical church and the emerging church pertaining specifically to the epistemological differences between the two. My hope is to provide a theory of knowledge that will bridge the gap in such a way that it will preserve what I believe to be the virtues of both sides of the discussion. I will propose an epistemology that will hold to both the more evangelical commitment of an objective reality, while at the same time honestly facing the limitations to the modern quest for …

Devotio Moderna: The Cornerstone Of The Reformation, Willis Miller

Doctor of Ministry

Standing up to the ecclesiastical institutions of the late fourteenth century, the Devotio Moderna formed in the hopes of reforming the Catholic church. By comprehensively reviewing the Devotio Moderna, this thesis explores the question; was the Protestant Reformation possible without the steady and penetrating influence the Devout Brothers and Sisters? In contrast to the schismatic Reformation arriving a century later, this reformation pursued spiritual renewal for both laity and clergy. The movement achieved a measure of success, but in a manner the founders might not have anticipated. The Devout Brothers and Sisters lived in stark contrast to the failing Church; …

Recovering Spiritual Direction In The Protestant Tradition, Morris Dirks

Doctor of Ministry

The purpose of this dissertation is to foster a commitment to the development of spiritual direction in the ongoing care of pastors within the Protestant tradition. The need to recover this practice, once well established in the church, is made obvious by the increasing challenges faced in ministry and the spiritual and emotional impact now experienced by pastors. More and more leaders are losing their way as a result of the unchecked stress fostered by the overwhelming expectations, whether real or perceived, which are placed on them. Pastoral responsibilities have been significantly compounded by the increasing programmatic and executive functions …

On The Origin And Intent Of The Quaker Women's Meeting: Promoting And Preserving The Influence Of Women During And Beyond The Period Of Institutionalization, John Ross

Doctor of Ministry

The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) had as a hallmark from its inception, a strong commitment to egalitarian theology and practice. As the movement took shape in the 1640s and 50s, women were prominent among their preachers, leaders, and evangelists. As the Quakers began to institutionalize in the 1660s, women Friends were in real danger of being marginalized, their voices lost behind a complex system of meetings for business and government. The answer proposed by Quaker leaders George Fox and Margaret Fell was the Women's Meeting. These meetings, settled throughout England and eventually throughout the world, mirrored the monthly, quarterly, …

Discerning The Covenant Renewal Model, Randy Robert Butler

Doctor of Ministry

Modem Christians in the United States are products of both their environment and their past. In a time when "cultural relevancy" is the buzz word, there appears to be a desperate attempt to "get it right" with God. Modems have jumped from fads to fashions to forms, all in an attempt to find a connection with God. Yet there appears to be restlessness within the body of Christ. There is also division within the body of Christ. With the rise of postmodern Christians and the emerging church, modem Christians are left scratching their heads, searching for answers to questions that …

Igniting A Parent-Church Movement In The Congregations Of North America, John C. Bangs

Doctor of Ministry

Guided by the misleading church planting metaphor, North America's churches do not establish thriving new congregations in sufficient numbers to evangelize emerging generations effectively. A better metaphor is needed. In order to reach and disciple emerging North American generations effectively, a church parenting culture must be created in North American churches. The purpose of this project is to provide a book designed to motivate potential parent-churches to conceive, birth, and nurture daughter congregations. Section 2 establishes the priority of starting new churches in the evangelistic task. The section also demonstrates that existing churches do not establish a sufficient number of …