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Breathing With God: Inhaling God\u27s Spirit, Exhaling God\u27s Reign
Get PDFThis action research project engaged transformative mixed methods to determine the effect of directed interventions on a cohort’s participation with the triune God. “Breathing with God” embraces an inspiring by God, aspiring to be Christ-like, and conspiring with the Holy Spirit. Theoretical lenses included respiration and personality preferences. Biblical lenses included Genesis 11:1-9 (Babel), Psalms 42-43 (the deer pants), Acts 2 (Pentecost), and Romans 12:1-8 (church as body). Theological lenses included spiritual capacity and discipleship. Findings revealed that improved comprehension of personality preferences and spiritual gifts coupled with consistent spiritual practices improved participation and willingness to engage in missio Dei
Risen With Healing in Her Wings: An Ecclesiological Ethnography of Three Young Congregations in St. Paul, Minnesota
Get PDFThis 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 minority report grounded in the messy lived experience of actual congregations, witnessing to the Holy Spirit’s raising of the church to new life on its margins. Working in an emerging mode of research known as theological ethnography, the author conducted three-to-five year ethnographic apprenticeships among three faith communities in St. Paul, Minnesota (one ELCA Lutheran, one Old Catholic, one Nondenominational Evangelical), each founded in 2008-2009. This dissertation seeks primarily to partner with these three faith communities and their respective participants in attending to, drawing forth, and articulating their collective and individual embodied theological wisdom. The work of Mary McClintock Fulkerson provides the foundational framework of the dissertation, as it explores how these communities are doing theology that matters at the scene of various wounds sustained by their people at the hands of the Christendom Church, and how these communities make space for their participants to appear among the body of Christ. Ann Swidler’s understanding of culture as a toolkit, which operates differently among settled versus unsettled peoples, serves as an additional conversation partner in articulating the deconstructive and reconstructive wisdom of these communities. The work of Kathleen Cahalan informs the structure of the final chapter as it discusses the contours of a resurrection ecclesiology through communal practices of resurrection common across these three congregations who, like Christ, continually dwell in the margins, pour themselves out and give themselves away, and dismantle the hierarchies
Oral History Interviews in the Congregation – Part 3: The Interview Questions
Get PDFThis article presents a sampling of interview questions for a congregational oral history project
Practicing Community: Naming, Claiming, and Practicing the Holy Spirit\u27s Sending of a Congregation in the Midst of Change into the Open Future
Get PDFThis project utilized social science research, through a transformative, mixed- methods strategy, to investigate a thriving, downtown Presbyterian Church (USA)
congregation’s missional awareness and response to change, disruption, and chaos in their midst during a major building expansion and movement into new spaces. This study explored in what ways members of the congregation relied on or adjusted their patterns of engaging in spiritual practices as a result of a change in their surroundings. This research shows how a greater missional understanding developed for members of the congregation because of a movement through a season of modification to both their building and access to it, and the ways in which they were able to gather and practice their faith
Oral History Interviews in the Congregation – Part 4: Final Interview Details and Conclusion
Get PDFThis article discusses the technical aspects of completing a successful oral history interview, including technology considerations, transcription, and deed of gift forms
Apostolicam Ecclesiam: Socio-Liturgical Interpretation of the Mission of the Church in the Perspective of Friedrich Nietzsche\u27s Antichrist
Get PDFOral History Interviews in the Congregation – Part 1: Introduction
Get PDFThis article present scope considerations for a congregational oral history project
Real People, Real Faith, Real God: Encountering the Divine in Preaching Biblical Characters
Get PDFUsing the Action/Reflection method, this project examines sermons which aim at the heart by using character development within a storytelling sermon style. This thesis considers the effectiveness of intentional reimagining of biblical witnesses by overlying behavioral styles and archetypical fears and desires onto various characters of the Gospel of John. It designs a methodology for intentional development of characters and examines the responses of the listeners. It asserts the value of creating space within a sermon for the listener to encounter the Divine by identifying with the people of scripture
Perichoretic Worship: Cultivating Relationships with the Triune God, with One Another, and with the World
Get PDFA Participatory Action Research (PAR) study focusing on perichoretic worship as a way of cultivating holy relationship with the Triune God, with others, and with the world. Theoretical lenses include ritual studies, Faith Development Theory, and personhood in social relationships. Theological lenses include perichoresis, Lutheran worship, and faith practices. Using both quantitative and qualitative research, the study explores the practice of Christian worship in a large Lutheran congregation and seeks to grow active participation in the missional work of the Triune God through worship grounded in Word and Sacrament. Presents the Triune God as the active subject of Christian worship
