Preaching--Study and Teaching

Carvil Antoney Richards D.Min.

This portfolio aimed to develop a collaborative model with six young adults of the Rosthern Seventh-day Adventist Church, Saskatchewan, to increase their confidence for preaching. A three-phase process was required to train the small group. The first phase involved allowing a few young adults to discuss the implication of an assigned Bible passage through the inductive Bible study method. The second phase involved training them to preach; the third phase allowed them to preach. For this portfolio, only the first phase was examined. The participants’ involvement included choosing four Bible passages to develop into four sermons.
This portfolio has V chapters. Chapter I is the introduction, which gives a general overview of the portfolio while chapter II focuses on the researcher’s personal journey and ministry context. Chapter III is about the author’s philosophy of leadership, which governed and guided his ministry practice; chapter IV examines the field research; and chapter V is the conclusion and implication.
The data collection methods used for this research were reflective journaling, participant observation and a survey. While there were things that could have been done differently in the research for a more effective outcome, the project’s conclusion revealed that the young adults’ confidence was increased through their contributions in the group collaboration.

Elizabeth Wright Anderson D.Min.

Preachers who have not received theological training can learn to prepare expository biblical sermons using an inductive dual authorial intent hermeneutic. A method to do so was devised based on inductive Bible study techniques and a dual authorial intent hermeneutic. This method took into account the intents and purposes of the Bibles original authors and the ultimate divine author. The method used was published as Thoughtful Proclaimer: a Bottom-up Guide to Preparing Bible Messages that Transform You From the Inside Out. This method was taught in week-long seminars in the United States and finally tested by training preachers in Nigeria.

James David Matlock II D.Min.

This project argues that the first step to church revitalization is the revitalization of the pulpit ministry. Then, it explores the biblical basis for text-driven preaching and its role in the revitalization of the local church.
Chapter 1 introduces the thesis of the project, explaining the need for pulpit revitalization in the life of the church today.
Chapter 2 explores the role of preaching from a biblical and theological perspective as it relates to the need for evangelism and church revitalization.
Chapter 3 explore the vital role that preaching plays in the ministry of church revitalization.
Chapter 4 examines the need to apply sound hermeneutics and improving homiletical skills in the effort to revitalize the student’s pulpit ministry.
Chapter 5 is an evaluation of the project, which includes feedback from pastors and professors who critiqued selected sermons preached by the student.

Robert Eloy Martinez D.Min.

The purpose of this project is to develop a healthy text-driven preaching and learning culture among the disciples at Redemption Hill Baptist Church in Albany, NY. Chapter 1 introduces the ministry context and story of Redemption Hill Baptist Church, along with the overall goals represented in this project. Chapter 2 shows the biblical and theological support for developing a text-driven preaching and learning culture within the local church through an exegesis of three passages of Scripture (Ephesians 4:11-13; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Timothy 4:1-4). Chapter 3 presents historical and practical support for the need of a healthy church culture that is centered on text-driven preaching and learning. Chapter 4 moves to describe the actual project implemented, concentrating on the biblical content, and the teaching methodology within the course that was developed and taught over a twelve-week period of time. Finally, chapter 5 is focused on evaluating the project that was completed while also regarding the success of the goals implemented, along with any variations desired.

Cameron Lee Williams D.Min.

The Adrianic Application Charting System: Navigating the Applicational Methods of Adrian Rogers as a Tool Set (Toolset) for Expository Preaching.

This project demonstrates the presence of a discernible applicational method in Adrian Rogers’ sermons and proposes axiomatic principles that may be extracted from the pattern of techniques he employs to achieve such a method. Further, axioms derived of the research are organized to establish a system of tools that may be employed to equip an expositor to increase the quantity and quality of applicational content, improving communication of application in weekly sermons. The system, envisioned to encompass the techniques Rogers employs to navigate application, relies on analogous tools germane to early Adriatic sailing practices.

Chapters 1-2 establish the premises on which the writer based his project. Chapters 3-8 research Rogers’ four techniques and develop his principles into Adrianic axioms for tooling. Chapters 9-10 express motivating insights, both practical and theological, behind the goals of the project. Chapters 11-14 test the expectations of the project in light of successes, examining the Adrianic tool set for weaknesses that might be bolstered for continued improvement of the system.

Appendices 1-2 graph the research and parameters of datasets. Appendix 3 depicts iconographic materials representing the tool set (toolset) to better illustrate the Adrianic system. Appendices 4-5 outline focus-group survey findings and relate metrics for gauging successful implementation of research.

Cameron Lee Williams, D.Min.
School of Theology
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2022
Supervisor: Matthew McKellar, Ph.D.

William Stevens D.Min.

God’s Givers:
A Preaching/Teaching Curriculum Based on Old Testament Narratives
Drawn from the Pentateuch and Historical Books

This dissertation project focuses on the biblical theology of giving as expressed in the Old Testament. There are four main goals: content creation; publication of the content; distribution of content for teaching/preaching; and engagement with the content – presentations to targeted market segments. The application of the dissertation project is to communicate that the practice of giving in the church community today can be informed, enriched, and inspired by the biblical patterns and principles found in Old Testament narratives. The core of the dissertation project is the drafting of a preaching/teaching series on profiles of giving in the Old Testament based on a selection of historical narratives drawn from the Pentateuch and Historical Books. To complement the teaching series, the project will create ancillary educational resources: blogs, published articles, videos, and a book.

William J. Stevens, D. Min.
Matthew McKellar, Ph.D., Advisor
School of Theology
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2022

Timothy L Brown

This project proposes to help congregations unleash the reservoir of persons gifted to preach, assisting them in fulfilling the Lord's command to be his "witnesses" until he returns, through an examination of some pertinent biblical and theological data, largely from the witness of Luke/Acts, which not only encourages it, but even requires it.

Chapter One offers a kind of "prelude" to lay preaching. It discusses a select range of concerns that have been discovered in the process that need to be addressed before a congregation can affirm the ministry of lay preaching.

Chapter Two provides an analysis of the "advance" and "growth" of the Word of God in Luke and Acts. Of particular concern are Luke's "progress reports in Acts 6:7, 12:12, and 19:20. This chapter demonstrates that the Word of God grows and prevails and in a certain manner of speaking draws the church into proclamation.

Chapter Three offers a plan for the recruitment, equipment and support of lay preachers. A ten session course outline is proposed to demonstrate the kinds of concerns that need to be addressed in the recruitment/equipment process. The concerns range from a review of the varying models for preaching provided in Acts, to dealing with some more pastoral and personal concerns such as development of "people eyes", and "facing our fears."

Chapter Four, "Responding to Questions: A Theological Prescript", deals with some of the questions that I have encountered throughout the process of research and writing. For the most part the questions were clarifying/expanding questions, but one particular question struck at the heart of the project, "How would your congregation be different than it is, or look different than it does, if this (project paper) were fully implemented?"

Curtis Allan Zoerb D.Min.

The purpose of this research portfolio was to identify if God was calling lay people to preach in their local church and begin to equip them for that calling.
Sitting in the pews were people whom God called and gifted to serve the church in many different ministries; some were called to share his word through preaching. Through this field project, these individuals were identified, equipped, and presented with opportunities to preach God’s word in their own setting. The two foci of calling and preaching were essential to answer the research question. Members of Massey Place Community Church interested in learning to preach were invited to participate in the study. Seven people responded. A six-week introductory course was conducted to teach about calling and how to prepare and preach a biblically-based sermon. We found that people were being called to preach, and four of the seven actively engaged as lay preachers. The question at the heart of this research project, “could lay people preach effectively in the Sunday morning service?”, was answered in the affirmative; there were laypeople that God called into the role of occasionally speaking from the pulpit. Further to that, this significantly benefited the life and growth of the church and positively impacted the individuals who preached.

Kenneth G. Moren D.Min.

Churches in the United States, regardless of denomination, are retaining fifty-one percent of new believers. This disheartening statistic was unacceptable to me and the leadership of Family Christian Center of Patterson, California. Unfortunately, we also had the same dismal retention rate of new believers and no strategy to resolve it. Thus, the need became the impetus to train a small group of teachers for new believer retention. The ABBA teacher training program was developed as a response to the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20) combined with theoretical principles for Christian service (Attachment, Belonging, Becoming, and Assimilation).
Instruction for the ABBA program is biblically based and formulated from Paulo Freire’s five ideas of dialogical learning and Robin Alexander’s theory of dialogical teaching. ABBA is implemented in a repertoire of teaching that includes talk, teaching aids, technology and tests. This methodology was presented in two different workshops one month apart which included homework assignments for participants. Volunteers from Family Christian Center were trained to teach new believers in doctrine, Christian service and spiritual gifts in conjunction with an emphasis on retention in the local church.
Two important reasons for new believer retention: (1) for the growth and maturity of the new believer; and (2) for the assimilation of the new believer into the church to connect with other believers and actionize their Christian service. The ABBA program was designed for multi-denominational use with flexibility to accommodate the church’s teaching schedule. The Candidate’s project has demonstrated a successful pragmatic response to the new believer retention dilemna.

Patrick Chi Leung Wong D.Min.

Hermeneutics of biblical narratives for preaching has its unique challenge for preachers and seminary students. Biblical narratives are stories often without explicit statements of teaching. A review of literature shows that there are deficiencies in various traditional approaches in identifying the author-intended thrust of a biblical narrative such as looking for good or bad models, arbitrarily creating principles for applications, and presuming linkage to redemptive-history. On the other hand, a literary approach and the notion of authorial doing with saying in linguistics are promising to help the interpreters identify the author-intended pericopal theology for preaching.

It was hypothesized that by incorporating elements from the literary approach and notion of authorial doing in a hermeneutics course, the Asian seminary students might better identify the pericopal theology of a biblical narrative for preaching. The effectiveness of this approach was assessed in this research which was about program development and evaluation. Specifically, major changes were made to an existing basic hermeneutics course so that the students were introduced to key concepts and elements in the literary approach and notion of authorial doing with saying.

An instrument was developed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data to assess the effectiveness of the final modified course. The instrument includes a pre-test and a post-test to generate quantitative data, and an open-ended question to gather qualitative data. The instrument was administered to a group of participating Asian seminarians. The data collected was analyzed to validate the hypotheses of the research project. The data verified all three hypotheses and affirmed that attending this course is associated with higher ability and confidence of the students in identifying the theological thrust of a biblical narrative for preaching. The dissertation suggests that such training approach may prove beneficial to seminary students in preaching in other contexts.