Christian education of adults

Ryan Nicholas Egli D.Min.

Missio Seminary moved from Hatfield Pennsylvania to Philadelphia in 2019. This project aims to contextualize that move from a rural and suburban setting to an urban setting for the staff, faculty, and Board of Trustees of the seminary. The author, who was previously employed at Missio Seminary, performed a training workshop, multiple interviews with key faculty and staff, and surveys to support the findings. The author concludes with multiple recommendations for the future of multicultural urban theological education as it applies to Missio Seminary in Philadelphia. While this project is specific to one medium-sized North American seminary, the steps and tools can be implemented in other situations, in education, and churches, and families, to successfully introduce and compassionately integrate people or institutions into a new urban home

Diane Lynn Galmore D.Min.

As the Christian population continues to grow in North America, the desire to read and the ability to comprehend the Scriptures have not. For many, the commitment to study the ancient text persists in being an elusive pursuit. The hinderance can be described as biblical nescience. Although numerous Christians adhere to religious doctrine, church ordinances, and corporate engagements such as regular Sunday worship, Christian instruction, communion, Bible study, prayer, ministry service, and giving, largely excluded from the framework of faith is Bible reading. Some Christians acknowledge the major obstacle to be a lack of understanding of the storyline. Another challenge for readers is finding relevancy in the text, while others hold to the notion that comprehensive Bible reading and study are the sole responsibility of the pastor and church leaders to guide Christians beyond these complexities and aid future believers to embrace the Living Word. This writing seeks to reenergize and rekindle the importance of reading and having a deeper understanding of the Good News through the use of a biblical plot-line that places emphasis on God’s mission.

Kim Louise Blocher

This project explores the ways in which we teach, preach, and think about the resurrection within a church setting. The resurrection is the foundational doctrine of our faith, and yet many pastors struggle with imparting his or her belief. A pastor's beliefs surrounding the resurrection may be at odds with the primary belief systems of the people in the pews. Or perhaps a pastor does not know what he or she believes. A vacuum is formed that gets filled with popular theology from books promoting a dispensational worldview, television or movies. Sermons often promote the notion of heaven without confronting what we really mean when we say, "I believe in the resurrection of the body."

The study presents the point of view that our understanding of resurrection can be opened up through attending to the gap between belief and practice. In other words, what does it mean in our lives today when we say we are a people of the resurrection? Can we think of ourselves as rehearsing resurrection right now? Toward that end a curriculum was developed for an adult study on resurrection, based on the shared praxis model of Thomas Groome.

The curriculum was found to be a tiny, first step in a re-shaping of the way a congregation apprehends the resurrection. Other necessary pieces are pastoral study and reflection, developing a theology of practices within the congregation, the importance of the funeral sermon in teaching about resurrection, theological imagination, and a willingness of the pastor to be forthcoming about his or her own beliefs.

J. David Apple

The purpose of this project was to equip selected members of Big Canoe Chapel, Big Canoe, Georgia, to discover and integrate biblical prayers and disciplines of prayer modeled in Scripture. The project director will research selected prayers in Scripture in order to emphasize key personal prayer disciplines among the multi-denominational congregation. He will develop and conduct an equipping workshop for the selected group of individuals.

The project director will purposefully increase understanding of a variety of prayer disciplines represented at Big Canoe Chapel. The project director will also increase knowledge for developing training experiences regarding prayer for persons from a variety of Christian traditions.

Kevin Richard D.Ed.Min.

Teaching Their Biblical Role in Family Ministry to Parents of South Main Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas

Kevin Richard, Doctor of Educational Ministry
Advisor: Danny R. Bowen, Ph. D
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2022

This project was designed to educate and encourage adults to take to heart their call to be the primary disciple in the life of their own children. The goals are to find out where parents are and how they view their role in discipleship towards their children, to create a curriculum to help them in understating their role, then to implement the curriculum and see if it helps.

Ron Wymer D.Min.

Metaphors concerning atonement theology that are misunderstood, poorly defined, and clumsily communicated often lead to a mischaracterization of God to those who have experienced trauma or abuse. Theological scholars, local church leaders, and pulpit preachers have discussed and debated the correct way to describe Christ’s work of atonement. However, little concern has been shown when communicating atonement theology toward those who have been injured by trauma and abuse. This study aims to provide a platform for the abused to share their stories concerning their spiritual formation through the lens of their experience both with trauma and theological teaching by church leaders. The use of terms trauma and abuse are defined by the participants in the study albeit as broad or narrow as the participant determines by their own definition.

To test this hypothesis, a survey was distributed to the entire congregation of a medium-sized Mid-Western Evangelical congregation concerning their grasp of atonement theological terms as well as their perceived characterization of the God of their understanding, connectedness with others in the congregation, and grasp of theological terms relating to atonement theology. Following a four-week teaching series, a second similar survey was conducted to gauge movement in the areas of study. Additionally, all survey respondents were given the opportunity to privately schedule individual interviews with the researcher to share their insights and experiences with trauma and the church teaching on atonement theology. Church survey responses were scored by numerical averages.

The results showed a significant increase in knowledge of atonement theology and small increases in correcting characterization of God and connectedness with fellow believers in the congregation. The interviews reported a lack of meaningful interaction with most of the subjects instead it was reported creating their own view of God’s care, comfort, and leading through the traumatic experiences.

Sergio Cedeño González

This thesis analyzes the impact of Pentecostal theological education in the local church and the community, in terms of the fulfillment of the church's mission. This work focuses on the context of the educational programs of theological formation of the Church of God of Prophecy in Chile. The purpose was to verify how the local churches have been impacted by the Pentecostal theological formation programs and to find out if the pastors and members who participate in these programs have developed in terms of their spiritual life, preparation to serve and commitment to the local church and its mission. And at the same time to evaluate if the curriculum responds to the needs of the local church and the context where they develop the mission.

In order to achieve this purpose, I used documents and reports related to this topic, and interviews with actors involved in these formation processes. Secondly, I used the survey methodology, directed to about 60 students (30 pastors and 30 members), which allowed us to have a representative sample of the population to be studied.

I came to the conclusion that the majority of the students surveyed have experienced progress in their spiritual development and commitment to the local church where they serve, however a smaller percentage, but no less important, understands that important changes are needed in the approach of the curriculum.

Kevin Harney

My understanding of shared ministry, at the beginning of my studies, was shaped by New Testament teaching on ministry. As a matter of fact, the Pauline Epistles were the primary source of my thinking. Beyond this, it is safe to say that three sections of Scripture formed the core of my ecclesiology in relationship to Shared Ministry (Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12-15 and Ephesians 4). Each of these passages teaches the importance of spiritual gifts among the body of believers.

This limited perspective led me to read the entire bible and look for any passages which dealt with shared ministry (of any kind). The second learning unit in my program pushed me beyond the New Testament "gift-centered" approach and helped me develop a broader understanding of ministry and God's people.

James D Lester

"Preaching from Teaching" sets forth a design for the production of a series of sermons. It is an encouragement to pastors to include geographical, historical, and archaeological material, theological themes, and contemporary issues, in the planning for their adult teaching to enhance their preaching.

The first part of the project is the creation of a student workbook as an illustration of an adult teaching curriculum. Genesis 11:30-25:10 serves as the model for the workbook entitled "Rejoicing In New Beginnings." Chapter one "Traveling with God" is a review of appropriate geographical conditions, the historical background, and life settings of Abraham and Sarah. Chapter two, "Friends with God, "is a study of the theological themes from the passages. Chapter three, "Living Everyday with God, "is an examination of the contemporary faith and life issues which can be identified from the Abraham and Sarah narrative. Each chapter is designed to be one twelve week quarter of Sunday School lessons. The workbook serves as resource material of the class, but it also is designed to prompt the students to reflect on the data which has been presented.

The second part of the project is a methodology explaining how a series of sermons can be produced using the classroom experience and material. The section, "In the Study," is a description of the process of selecting passages, planning the curriculum, and preparing the workbook. The unit, "In the Classroom," offers some thoughts about the presentation of the workbook, but primarily emphasizes the need for the pastor to dialogue with the class and then retrieve the essence of those issues for direction in sermon preparation. The third of this group, "From the Pulpit," sets forth the practice of making sermons from the workbook and the classroom interactions.

Steven D Pierce

This project seeks to answer the question, “What would Clement do?” concerning faith formation in churches today. Its aim is to help the spiritually curious, newcomers, and regular church attenders develop a more informed understanding of the Christian faith, particularly through the lens of the Reformed Church in America (RCA). My research for this paper began at Marble Collegiate Church (RCA) in Manhattan—a large, urban church context. In the summer of 2011, I began my ministry as a solo pastor at The Community Reformed Church (CRC) at Manhasset, NY, a small, suburban congregation just outside of New York City. The Explorer’s Handbook and formative process that comprise my doctoral work both emerge from and serve both types of settings. Its appeal is wide; its scope is broad.