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Together in Mission: A Model for Flourishing Male/Female Ministry Partnerships in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA
No full textIn this dissertation, I start by surveying the literature regarding male/female ministry partnerships, both in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA and in the broader egalitarian theological community. After a thorough review, I posit that the literature reveals a gap around intentionality; that is, while there are values in place for flourishing male/female ministry partnerships both in InterVarsity and in the egalitarian community, there is an absence of blueprints for how to make those values a reality.
In response, I entered into a triangulated research protocol that surfaced ten attributes for flourishing male/female ministry partnerships in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. Such partnerships will be personally satisfying and missionally effective when they are marked by a vision for freely shared power, a belief that embracing difference advances the mission, a commitment to communicate, a corporate sensitivity to gender dynamics, a value for holistic friendships, a shared egalitarian theological conviction, the practice of public affirmation and modeling, a personal awareness of gender brokenness, thoughtful interpersonal boundaries, and a consistent learner’s posture.
Operating with the belief that the training pathway will be the more effective way to help staff throughout the organization engage these characteristics, I put forward a training model that groups the attributes into three domains; namely, the inner life, community culture, and intentional practices. When these three domains intersect, male/female ministry partnerships in InterVarsity are more likely to become places of flourishing.
Finally, I articulate five concrete recommendations for how InterVarsity could fill its intentionality gap by moving forward with focused training in the area of flourishing male/female ministry partnerships. Specifically, I encourage the organization to strongly consider articulating the need for training in male/female ministry partnerships, training every staff in the model, establishing a variety of training forms, hiring gender diversity personnel, and forming a network of champions. Purposefully engaging these things should ensure that male/female ministry partnerships could flourish throughout the organization.
Mentor: Elizabeth L. Glanville, Ph
Cultural Consultants: Contextualized Learning for Indigenous Team Leadership Development at the International Bible Institute of Cambodia
No full textIn this dissertation, I present a strategy to develop indigenous teams of leaders at the International Bible Institute (IBI) in Cambodia. The study was prompted by the need for learners at IBI Cambodia to work as a team.
In part I, I recount the history of educational development in Cambodia and research instructional design (ID) models to create an ID model that incorporates key factors of Cambodian culture and the use of dialogue education to train the resident faculty.
In part II, I explain my use of semi-structured interviews to investigate cultural factors affecting the educational development of learners at IBI Cambodia. From my analysis of the data, I found that resident faculty members desired to learn and improve their ability to teach and equip learners. They are limited by the lack of educational development and inadequate training. In order for learners to become indigenous teams of leaders, the resident faculty must be equipped with tools that enable them to implement a new model of learning.
In part III, I evaluate the organizational dynamics of the relationship between the Bear Valley Bible Institute International (BVBI) and IBI Cambodia. I then draw conclusions from the findings to suggest an ID framework that leads to recommendations for training the resident faculty. The application is designed for IBI Cambodia, but the ID model has significance as a contextualized tool for the educational process at BVBI and other mission organizations.
Mentor: Mark Hopkin
Cross-Cultural Management in Healthcare: A Case Study of Malamulo Hospital, a Seventh-Day Adventist Mission Hospital in Malawi, Africa
No full textThis paper examines the complexity of cross-cultural management in a Seventhday Adventist mission hospital in Malawi and the effect of national and organizational culture on employee accountability, with the goal of expanding cross-cultural management capacity among the leaders of Malamulo Hospital and Adventist Health International. The literature provides cultural dimensions to understand the national culture of Malawi as compared to the United States. However, literature on cross-cultural leadership fails to address the nuances of healthcare management in a mission context.
In this study I identify how people in the Malawian culture hold each other accountable and how the organizational culture of the hospital can be influenced to promote appropriate accountability and performance. In order to achieve this I used a case study method using focus groups, semi-structured interviews, document review, and observation at Malamulo Hospital in Malawi.
The data fell into five themes that demonstrated an organizational culture where accountability was inconsistent and the core value of the Malawian culture is interpersonal relationships, which should inform the management policies and processes. I used two of Bolman and Deal’s frames—Human Resource and Symbolic—and Trebesch’s ECO model as theoretical frameworks to address the findings through a twoday workshop implemented for representatives from all healthcare facilities and the health science college in Malawi. I suggest that this type of training could be extended to other mission hospitals within Adventist Health International to expand their crosscultural management capacity.
Mentor: Susan Maros, Ph
Adjusting to the College Transition: An Examination of Clydesdale’s Identity Lockbox Theory
No full textThe literature indicates that adolescents tend to set their Christian faith aside as they leave high school and enter their emerging adult years (e.g., Kinnaman & Hawkins, 2011) and various arguments exist to explain this trend. Some sources suggest emerging adults leave their faith behind in order to pursue new ideas or that they become more interested in newly found freedoms related to fulfilling adult gratifications (Hunter, 1983; Lefkowitz, 2005). Clydesdale (2007) offered an alternative argument, proposing that the majority of emerging adults do not completely abandon their faith in the years following high school, but put it on hold by placing it into a metaphorical identity lockbox. He argued that although most emerging adults lock core aspects of their identities away, some do not, including those who are strongly religious, antireligious, or future intelligentsia. The Identity Lockbox Scale (Lee & Teller, 2010) was created to operationalize Clydesdale\u27s theory, but to date the scale has not been empirically validated. In the present study, I tested the validity of the Identity Lockbox Scale using archival data from the College Transition Project. I conducted an exploratory factor analysis using the principle-axis factor extraction to determine factor structure. Analyses revealed a 3-factor solution, with loading in a manner partially consistent with Clydesdale\u27s theory. I employed reliability analyses to assess internal consistency of the scales constructed from the results of the factor analysis, and conducted cross validation analyses between the three factors and college adjustment