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Emotion Socialization and Wellbeing: Exploring Emotion Regulation as Mechanisms of Change Among Asian and Latinx American Youth
No full textIn the present study, I examined the relation between parental emotion socialization (of sadness and anger) and adolescent wellbeing among 147 Asian and Latinx American youth (mean age = 13.98, SD = 0.36). I also examined whether various emotion regulation strategies (avoidance fusion, expressive suppression, and rumination) may mediate that relation. Punitive emotion socialization of children’s sadness was associated with increased internalizing problems, whereas punitive emotion socialization of anger was related to greater internalizing and externalizing problems. In terms of the mediation, avoidance and rumination significantly mediated the relation between punitive emotion socialization of sadness and anger and youth internalizing behaviors. Avoidance also mediated the relation between punitive emotion socialization of sadness and externalizing behaviors. Finally, there was a significant indirect effect between punitive emotion socialization of anger and internalizing behaviors via suppression. Cultural significance and meaning of these results are discussed, as well as implications for teaching effective emotion regulation skills
Won’t You Be My Neighbor: Cultivating a Church to Discover How to Love Its Literal Neighbor
Full text linkThe goal of this project was to help Zionsville Presbyterian Church understand the difference between technical and adaptive challenges. As the American church declines, congregations must not simply improve what they are already doing, but examine the way forward to a flourishing future, which depends on knowledge they have not yet acquired. Understanding the adaptive way forward requires shared leadership, an acknowledgement that new, shared learning will have to occur, dealing with loss and developing new hearts and minds. The way forward will be discovered through experimentation, reflection on what has been learned, then continued experimentation and reflection.
To help ZPC with adaptive learning, a pilot group experimented with how to love their literal neighbors. Throughout history, God’s people have been sent into their communities and the world. ZPC must learn anew what this means for them. The experiment was based on propinquity, a sociological term for the direct correlation between where people are physically and the number and depth of their relationships. The pilot group spent two hours a week, for two months, in their front yards to see how this impacted their neighborly relationships.
The pilot group discovered that the culture around them had changed and that the number of neighbors who were outside were fewer than anticipated. They also learned that being present and not actively engaged in anything was seen as odd and made others uncomfortable. However, they met neighbors for the first time, learned what their neighbors were enduring and grew in their understanding of Scripture. Through a second round of experiments, participants opened their homes to neighbors and discovered that this was an impactful way to engage more deeply with their neighbors. The process led to a group of people whose hearts and minds were changed
Initiating Contemplative Discipleship As a Soul Care Ministry Among Denver Area Pastors and Ministry Leaders
Full text linkThe purpose of this project was to assist a cohort of twenty pastors in the Denver area in deepening their relationship with God through an experiential process of nine monthly retreats, spiritual direction, and daily prayer practices.
This project is at the intersection of two ministry challenges. The first is the declining spiritual health of pastors and ministry leaders due to the extensive pressures they face coupled with a dearth of places to experience authentic intimacy with God and others. The project facilitated personal renewal, spiritual community, and the cultivation of healthy rhythms to sustain leaders in the midst of demanding lives. The retreats provided a safe place for intimacy with God and fellow leaders. The daily prayer practices established habits to deepen their conversation with God.
The second ministry challenge is the realization that the contemporary model of spiritual direction, which I have practiced for twenty years, is not supported by ancient Christian spirituality, Ignatian spirituality, or biblical discipleship. Theological reflection on discipleship in the Gospel of John and the study of ancient Christian and Ignatian spiritualities have produced a new ministry model that I have named “contemplative discipleship.”
The ministry project employed the facets of contemplative discipleship over the nine-month process. Assessment of the project validated that contemplative discipleship is a significant means to spiritual renewal, healthy life/work rhythms, and deepening discipleship to Jesus
The Effects of Work-Family Conflict on Chinese American Clergy Marital Quality
No full textRecent research has highlighted the importance of understanding the effects of work on individual and relational well-being. This has been especially pertinent within the clergy population, given their unique work roles in navigating a relatively fluid and ambiguous work context. In a sample of Chinese American clergy, I first explored the effects of strain-based work-family conflict on marital quality, as defined in this study by marital conflict. Second, I examined three coping strategies (self-compassion, daily spiritual experience, and mindfulness) as potential protective factors and how they might moderate the negative impact of work-family conflict. Finally, I examined how these relations may vary based on differing levels of interdependent self-construal. The current study indicated that higher endorsement of strain-based work-family conflict was positively associated with marital conflict, which suggests a negative effect on marital quality. There were no significant main effects observed for the three coping strategies on marital conflict, nor were there any significant moderating effects found for the three coping strategies between work-family conflict and marital conflict. Lastly, interactions between the three coping strategies and differing levels of interdependent construal were found to significantly impact the relations between work-family conflict and marital conflict
A Church for All Seasons: A Generative and Communal Spirituality Across Seasons of Faith
Full text linkThe Dark Night of the Soul, a poetic phrase arising from the writings of St. John of the Cross, is a common but misunderstood part of the Christian journey. It is often a lonely season where a wider Christian community has greater difficulty connecting and supporting a person’s journey with God through deconstruction, loneliness, and doubt. Yet it is a necessary season in the human journey toward God and a season that brings a dynamic richness and deep wisdom to the wider community of faith.
Particularly in evangelical contexts that thrive on stories of conversion and celebration, seasons of sorrow, doubt, and loneliness are often distanced from the centrality of the church’s shared life together. Yet while these seasons of deconstruction and dark nights are often lonely, they need not be isolating. This project maps out a communal and generative vision of spirituality that is robust and dynamic enough to encompass all seasons of faith.
Part One of this project explores the theology, reality, and necessity of seasons of faith where God feels distant, communal life feels complex, and faith feels difficult. Part Two surveys resources for a generative and communal approach to spirituality across seasons of faith and the contextual realities facing emerging generations and the church in the ever-changing world. Part Three demonstrates how specific postures and practices of faith can create a generative environment for Christian formation across seasons of faith
Divine Delight and the Little Way: A Renewal Strategy at Our Savior\u27s Church
Full text linkThe purpose of this doctoral project is to renew the mission of Our Savior’s Church. This was accomplished through teaching the loving kindness meditation and the little way of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. A retreat introduced these two spiritual practices as a way to enhance the congregation’s mission.
Part One details the setting of Our Savior’s Lutheran. After constant pastoral turnover for the past seven years, Our Savior’s lost its energy. Our Savior’s discerned a new mission statement in 2019 as a caring community called by Christ to live and serve in faith. Learning new spiritual practices including the loving kindness meditation and the little way, of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, provided a framework to live into this new mission.
Part Two describes the fruit of contemplation practices with the little way. Delighting in God through prayer and contemplation enables one to embrace others authentically. Experiencing God’s love directly through contemplative practices increases the capacity to extend hospitality. St. Thérèse of Lisieux is an example of this life of discipleship. St. Thérèse saw herself, and all of humanity, as unique souls belonging in God’s garden, all created in the image of God. From this anchoring in her identity as a child of God, St. Thérèse abundantly shared divine love through the little way.
Part Three relays the implications of transforming an environment through the daily implementation of the little way as a spiritual practice. In a retreat setting, active members of Our Savior’s engaged in spiritual practices including St. Thérèse’s model of compassion. After experiencing the little way in this retreat, participants were commissioned to practice this as a spiritual discipline and the loving kindness meditation for forty days. Assessments determined that the little way offered congregational renewal and equipped Our Savior’s members to renew in mission
Traditional to Missional: A Model for Missional Engagement at Temple City United Methodist Church
Full text linkThe goal of this project was to equip a traditional congregation to navigate through a process of transformation from institutionally to missionally oriented. It is argued that group imagination and practice focused on the six divine missional traits of missional, relational, incarnational, vital, transformational, and revelational can shift a congregation toward missional engagement. The thesis was tested at the Temple City United Methodist Church.
An examination of the church history and ministry practice revealed six challenges to be overcome: culture, theology, structure, heart, program, and security. Through an examination of scripture and trinitarian theology, this study identifies six divine traits that are the foundation for the missional calling of the church that address the challenges of the church. To test this hypothesis, a group of eight people from the church gathered weekly for three months to study the six missional traits, listen imaginatively to Luke 10:1-11, and to apply these traits to their lives through weekly ministry experiments. Following the completion of this project, the transformative effect of the project was evaluated utilizing McNeal’s three missional shifts.
This project concludes that the use of missional imagination and practice significantly moved the participants and the church toward a missional orientation. However, not all the participants moved in this direction. Due to the limited scope of the project, these findings will require further research before a conclusion can be made. The series presentation and weekly training modules developed in this project will stimulate opportunities for initiating missional change in the local church
Discipleship in the Earbuds: Developing a Podcast Curriculum as a Component of Congregational Equipping
Full text linkThe purpose of this doctoral project is to evaluate the effectiveness of a podcast for the community of First Presbyterian Church Glen Ellyn as a component of disciple equipping, so that the congregation will be able to overcome some of the barriers that preclude participation in traditional ministry formats. An effective congregational podcast will drive its listeners to deeper participation in the life of the Christian community and personal spiritual disciplines. An ineffective congregational podcast will be either ignored by the congregation or will further a consumer mindset where listening to the podcast is a substitute for active participation in the community of Christ. This podcast curriculum was tested in the setting of the First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
Through a literature review of relevant classic and contemporary works, this study makes the case that contextualization is a key component of gospel ministry and that a new kind of ministry contextualization needs to occur in the church in order to adjust to changing cultural realities presented by technological habituation and the growing prevalence of handheld devices as basic parts of daily life.
This study outlines the elements of a podcast curriculum that are most fitting to the podcast medium and designed to catalyze participation in personal spiritual disciples, commitment to the Christian community, and transformative understandings of the self, the church, and the journey of discipleship.
The conclusions of the study indicate that a podcast can be an extremely effective tool for overcoming some of the barriers of ministry participation present in the congregation of First Presbyterian Church, is able to catalyze further action steps in spiritual disciplines and has significant potential to find a broad listening audience in the congregation
Neighborhood Structure, Parenting, Flourishing, and Behavioral Problems in Young Children of Immigrants
No full textMany low-income children of immigrants live in disadvantaged neighborhoods marred by isolation, resource deficiency, and violence (Suarez-Orozco, Suarez-Orozco, & Todorova, 2008). Living in neighborhoods with low-socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with higher rates of internalizing (Lara-Cinisomo, Xue, & Brooks-Gunn, 2013) and externalizing problems (Russell, Ford, Williams, & Russell, 2016). However, there is a dearth of research examining the pathways through which neighborhood SES influences preschool-age children of immigrants’ development. Using a subsample of 3-5-year-old children (N = 1,134) from the National Survey of Children’s Health (Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, 2018), this study tests a model of direct and indirect neighborhood SES effects on young children who have at least one foreign-born parent. Based on a relational developmental systems perspective and family stress theory, the proposed model identified neighborhood structural disadvantage (i.e., cohesion, resources, and support) and parenting (i.e., parent-child interactions, aggravation, and mental health) as indirect pathways through which neighborhood SES influences preschool-aged children of immigrants’ flourishing and behavioral problems. Results indicated that there was an indirect effect of neighborhood SES on child flourishing and behavioral problems through neighborhood structural conditions and parenting (mental health, aggravation, parent-child interaction). This research contributes to increasing knowledge and understanding of the links between foreign-born parental nativity, neighborhood disadvantage, and the health of children of immigrants