Sociology of Religion Commons^™

The Liminal Church: Why Navigating Thresholds Between Us Leads To Thriving, Andrew Hale

Doctor of Leadership

Through the discovery, design, and delivery stages of the doctoral project, I centered my work on the following NPO: Churches can thrive when they understand, navigate, and leverage the liminality existing between people, the community, and where God is leading. Despite the myriad of different contexts among local churches, whether polity, worship style, belief statements, and geographical locality, congregations are still composed of people living in relationship to one another and the community around them. Relationships, no matter their nature, are complicated. For the relationships within a local church to thrive, they require intentionality, coaching, effort, openness, and vulnerability. My …

Developing A Shared Ecclesial Identity Utilizing Story-Based Elements With First Baptist Church, Gainesville, Georgia, Jeremy T. Shoulta

Doctor of Ministry Projects

The Body of Christ is challenged to, “be like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind” (Philippians 2:2). How then could a congregation, comprised of individuals harboring diverse cultural worldviews, discover and live into this reality? Through various individual and group exercises, participants sought to determine whether story elements have the power to serve as a true sense-making device within an ecclesial setting. The results indicate that that a majority of participants found the story-based framework beneficial in regards to their personal understanding of the work of First Baptist Church.

The Church And Ethnopolitical Conflict In Kenya: 1982-2013, David Tarus

The Journal of Social Encounters

The chapter examines the role of the church in addressing the problem of ethnopolitical conflict in Kenya from 1982 to 2013. Though ethnocentrism within the Kenyan Christian community goes beyond the years cited to the colonial period and the immediate years following independence, the intensity of the problem after 1982 calls for special attention. The single event that marks political change in Kenya is the 1982 attempted coup. Although this was not successful, the coup heightened opposition against Moi’s rule and thus, 1982 marks the beginning of the recent history of Kenya, a history in which three phases may be …

Examining The Cross-Cultural Competence Of United States Christian Missionaries Engaged In Developing Indigenous Leaders: A Mixed Methods Study, Craig W. Goodman

Dissertations

For the past two millennia, missionaries have crossed from one culture to another to bring the Christian message to all cultures of the world. Questions about the effectiveness of these mission efforts have been asked and researched by many; however, one key question remains unanswered: what personal attributes help a person to be more competent at crossing cultures as they interact with people from other cultures? Although cross-cultural competence has been studied in a variety of fields over the past 50 years, the models and assessments used have never been applied to Christian missionaries.

To address this deficiency, this parallel …

Johnson V. M'Intosh: Christianity, Genocide, And The Dispossession Of Indigenous Peoples, Cynthia J. Boshell

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Using hermeneutical methodology, this paper examines some of the legal fictions that form the foundation of Federal Indian Law. The text of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1823 Johnson v. M’Intosh opinion is evaluated through the lens of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to determine the extent to which the Supreme Court incorporated genocidal principles into United States common law. The genealogy of M’Intosh is examined to identify influences that are not fully apparent on the face of the case. International jurisprudential interpretations of the legal definition of genocide are summarized and used as …

Attracting Millennials: An Examination Of Millennial Participation In Assembly Of God Churches, Kenneth Hansen

Scholar Week 2016 - present

The greatest decline in church attendance of any age group has occurred among Millennials, which are individuals born between 1980 and the early 2000s. This decline in Millennial church attendance has created great concern among church leaders about the future of the church. Church leaders have struggled to understand Millennials, which has led to an inability to attract and maintain Millennial participation in the church. The purpose of this study was to determine what, if any, characteristics caused Millennials to be attracted to certain Assembly of God churches in Illinois and not others. The population for the current study was …

Seventh-Day Adventists And ‘Race’ Relations In The U.S.: The Case Of Black-White Structural Segregation, Cleran Hollancid

Dissertations

A worldwide Christian denomination of some eighteen million in global membership, and with a presence in over 200 countries and territories (i.e., in just about every country on the globe), the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church is one with a distinctive arrangement in the U.S., insofar as it concerns its racial segregation practice. The SDA Church professes and preaches unity in the pulpit, as in all members being equal and one in the faith, yet the actual practice says otherwise. Such is the case since it is officially segregated along black-white lines.

The segregation arrangement, essentially a black-white schism, falls …

Millennials: The Unreached In Our Midst. A Practical Theology Of Reaching Millennials Through Organic Church Principles And Repurposing The Church, Janelle Anderson

Master of Arts in Ministerial Leadership (MAML)

There is an unreached people group in your community--you interact with them on a consistent basis, but they are beyond the reach of the Church right now. The Church has missed her opportunity to reach and disciple Millennials as children and is now struggling to connect with them at all. The first step to reaching this people group is understanding them. This thesis presents the three major longings of generalized Millennial culture, in hopes of highlighting ways to interlace individual lives with faith and Christian community. Each of the three cries of this generation has varied implications for the world, …

Towards Heterogeneous Faith Communities: Understanding Transitional Processes In Seventh-Day Adventist Churches In South Africa, Alan Parker, Ph.D.

Faculty Works

This dissertation examines racial transition toward heterogeneity in three Seventh-day Adventist congregations in South Africa. This dissertation aims to uncover social factors involved in this change as well as to set forth a theological direction with application to the local faith community.

The first section examines recent studies and literature on multiracial congregations, indicating a possible breakdown between theory and practice. Using insights from Kuhn, Gadamer, Habermas, and Geertz, a critical correlational approach is proposed using narrative, community-based praxis, dialectical thinking, and eschatological vision. The theological methods of Groome and Browning are combined to suggest a four-phase approach to practical …

A Survey Of The Snake-Handling Cult Of West Virginia, Kenneth Paul Ambrose

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

For over half a century the snake-handling cult has been active in the United States, especially in the Appalachian area. There has been little scientific information published about this cult. The two major works were mainly confined to a single church in Durham, North Carolina, and a single church in Scrabble Creek, West Virginia. This investigator studied four churches in West Virginia, and one in Durham, North Carolina, for two and a half years to gain a deeper understanding of these people and their religious behavior.