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Discipleship in the Workplace: A Ministry of Faith and Work for First Presbyterian Church of Houston
Get PDFThe purpose of this project is to outline a context-specific discipleship program to equip the people of Houston’s First Presbyterian Church (FPC) for missionary engagement in the workplace through the study of Reformed doctrinal and theological foundations that emphasize vocational significance, personal transformation, and contextualized expressions of gospel-informed cultural renewal. FPC is a congregation historically known for its entrepreneurial members and ministries. This project is presented in three parts.
Part One examines the local context of FPC and the uniqueness of the church’s ethos. Particular attention is given to the socioeconomic and demographic makeup of the neighborhoods closest to the church and a broad look at the changing face of the city. This section also describes the core values and theological convictions of the congregation, including an aggressive vision and strategy in support of ministry in the marketplace.
Part Two engages the biblical and theological content most relevant to developing a theology of faith and work as a means of discipleship. The discussion examines key Reformation theologians who viewed work as an agent of transformation and sanctification and a means to engage God’s providential purposes. The theological inquiry also explores the notion of worldview, utilizing biblical narrative to outline themes of creation/fall/redemption/restoration as the basis for faithful cultural engagement. This culminates in a synthesis to examine both “why” and “how” disciples integrate faith and work.
In order to develop a faith and work ministry at FPC, a ten-week learning cohort was created. This initiative has served as a test of the new model by allowing participants to explore the following: biblical foundations, theological themes, personal transformation, and practical ministry expressions.
The cohort has provided the shared language and basis upon which to develop industry-specific vocational networks (guilds) in order to imagine and implement gospel-informed cultural renewal throughout Houston and beyond
COLLECTION 0181: C. Peter Wagner Collection, 1930-2016
Get PDFCharles Peter Wagner (b. Aug.15, 1930 – d. Oct.21, 2016) worked as Professor of Church Growth at Fuller Seminary\u27s School of World Mission (SWM) from 1971-2001. He authored 80 books, was the founding president of Global Harvest Ministries from 1993-2011, and was founder of the Wagner Leadership Institute (WLI, now “Wagner University”) established in 1998.
The C. Peter Wagner collection includes Wagner’s course material and teaching notes, various writings of his, organizations and events that he had correspondences with, and personal and miscellaneous files
Paradigm Change: From an Institutional Church to a Lay-Driven Disciple-Making Movement
Get PDFThe purpose of this project is to develop a multi-faceted strategy to empower laypeople from Sunrise Christian Community to launch simple, reproducible, and micro churches in the community or in their own social networks, leading to a paradigm change from an institutional and attractional church to a lay-driven disciple-making and church planting movement. Sunrise Christian Community is located in the predominantly immigrant West San Gabriel Valley, California. Historically, the three main waves of Chinese immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China have provided the church with many opportunities to evangelize. At the same time, the influx of new members from different sub-cultures has created serious internal conflicts and challenges for most churches. The traditional strategy of the institutional church to attract and keep new members has only brought minimal growth to Sunrise in the last fifteen years. To address this challenge, this project seeks to transform Sunrise from an institutional church to a lay-driven disciple-making movement through a multi-faceted and multi-dimensional change process.
Part one of this project examines both the local community and the specific character of Sunrise’s ministry and spiritual dynamics. Part two establishes the theological foundations of a missional movement ecclesiology from the doctrine of the missio Dei, the theological themes of the Kingdom of God, the universal priesthood of believers, and the nature of the church. A combination of the Evangelicals’ emphasis on evangelism and the Charismatics’ distinctive of prayer and power evangelism are explored for designing a contextualized disciple-making strategy. Part three presents a multi-faceted process of paradigm change. It describes the various components of the process, including a prayer campaign, a guiding coalition, a new vision, a pilot group, new ministry tools, and a new matrix to measure success. It also analyzes and evaluates the outcomes after two years of implementation
In the Shade of Vallombrosa: Reimagining Christian Formation at Biola University through Apophatic Spirituality, Transgressive Pedagogy, and the Logic of Practice
Get PDFThe binding characteristic of Biola University’s theological identity represents a hierarchical spirituality rooted in “thinking biblically about everything.” As a result, Biola espouses a resolutely kataphatic [1] spirituality that reduces Christian formation to the transmission of biblical knowledge while neglecting the formation of the whole person. This approach is regrettably deficient in addressing the dynamics of embodiment and the role of ritualized rhythms in both the curricular and co-curricular educational pedagogy.
This project explores an alternative approach regarding Christian formation for undergraduate students at Biola. It will establish methods of habitual immersion in a combination of Christian practices. The project will also proffer meaningful change in light of three critical areas: the infusion of an apophatic spirituality, an exclusively transgressive pedagogy, and the synchronization of a Christian habitus that is reflective of a complexified theory of practice.
The body of this dissertation is divided into three parts. Part One begins with the examination of Biola\u27s historical and theological context. This section determines Biola\u27s current state regarding core practices. It will indicate my initial observations and the potential and likely resistance for a proposed alternative. Part Two will develop a foundation for sociological and theological reflection to intentionally respond to the ministry challenge. This section begins with a literature review of five diverse resources. The remainder of Part Two investigates Pierre Bourdieu\u27s complex theory of practice and articulates an apophatic spirituality grounded in Jürgen Moltmann’s ecological doctrine of creation. Part Three develops a ministry strategy to reimagine Christian formation at Biola. The strategy pragmatically addresses the ministry problematic by proposing a co-curricular immersion program that is robustly apophatic, pedagogically transgressive, and practically Bourdieuian. The project concludes with a summary of insights gained and highlights implications for the future of the ministry.
[1] Although the words “kataphatic” and “apophatic” are traditionally italicized, because of the nature of this project, they will be presented non-italicized
Transforming Anger
Get PDFThis study explores the spiritual transformation of anger as a starting point for personal and ecclesiastical renewal and reconciliation. Dr. Dallas Willard writes, “To cut the root of anger is to wither the tree of human evil.” This is an extraordinary claim which suggests anger is a primary human sin, and a catalyst for many other sins and social problems. The implications of anger reach deep into one’s personal life and relationships and threaten the unity and witness of the Church. The transcendent problem of anger, according to Willard, is why Jesus addresses it before lust, divorce, retaliation, and loving enemies in the Sermon on the Mount. The transformation of anger has profound implications for individuals, relationships, the Church, and the culture.
The first section of this thesis examines the epidemic of anger in the culture and in the Church. Getting one’s way, and what one wants, is considered an inalienable right in today’s culture. Defensiveness, unforgiveness, road rage, political antagonism, and old-fashioned fist fights are manifestations of the growing problem of anger. Faith in God, devotion to Jesus, and participation in a local church, often make little difference in how anger is used to advance personal agendas. The Church has a prime opportunity to pursue its missional calling through the ministry of reconciliation with a commitment to gentleness and civility. The Church, however, is too often defined by the opponents it angrily fights.
The second section of this thesis explores various perspectives on anger including those of philosophers, psychologists, and theologians. In addition, a practical theology of anger is developed based on various biblical narratives and teachings. Jesus’ unique role in God’s revelation provides the ultimate means for evaluating anger. Given the volatility of the current culture, the defense of “righteous anger” is challenged throughout this dissertation.
The last section of this thesis explores various individual and communal disciplines and practices for transforming anger. Authentic change requires intentional effort in cooperation with the work of God’s Spirit. The hope in this final section is to provide realistic means to personally and ecclesiastically transform anger into gentleness and grace
Learning to Live: A Curriculum for Cultivating Spiritual Transformation at Christ City Church, Washington, D.C.
Get PDFThe goal of this project is to create a twelve-week discipleship curriculum for the multiethnic urban setting of Christ City Church, Washington, DC, as a way of introducing congregants to the spiritual journey and to some of the individual and communal spiritual practices that will help cultivate spiritual transformation and growth in the character of Christ.
Christ City Church is a congregation located in the heart of Washington, DC. It is a young church, both in terms of the age of the congregation and in terms of the age of the congregants. Sunday gatherings are held at a local public school, located at a meeting point of neighborhoods, backgrounds, races and ethnicities, and socioeconomic classes, and the church seeks to reflect that same diversity, not just as a visibly multiethnic community but as a multicultural and multiclass one in the midst of the multitude of pressures of an urban environment.
One of the challenges of being a young church in a transient urban environment in the twenty-first century is that of spiritual formation. Not only are we faced with a simplistic, culturally-inherited understanding of the spiritual journey that ends—rather than begins—when a person chooses to become a follower of Jesus, but also with the individualism of American evangelical spirituality. The purpose of this project is to create a curriculum that will introduce (and re-introduce) the church to the individual and communal spiritual practices that Christians have used for centuries in order to help them not just identify as followers of Jesus but to grow in the character of Christ and to become more like Jesus, and to do so in a way that is sensitive to the ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, and otherwise diverse backgrounds of the people who make up our church
