Jesus Christ--Example

Steven Robert Irvin

People are more likely to grow spiritually when they have a plan. This project was an attempt to help believers implement practices that would help them become more like Jesus. Through the support, encouragement, and accountability that came through a small group environment, participants learned how to practice historical spiritual spiritual disciplines, identify those they believed would be most helpful for their Christian growth, and developed a plan to incorporate these into their lives. Through implementing their own personal growth plan, participants became more intentional about becoming more like Jesus.

Clarence Lanely

A Christian Exploration of African American Masculinity examines the cultural complexities of masculinity by investigating manhood acts and how they are enacted by African American men in their quest to obtain masculine (patriarchal) power. Those with cultural power, mostly white men, deny power to white women, men and women of color. In this project, biblical, cultural and theological insights are explored that offer African American men a life giving and progressive masculinity. The incarnation of Christ offers an image of masculinity that frees men to follow Him, allowing men to be in relationships with others in intimate and meaningful ways.

Patricia L Cowan

Jesus changed the world through spiritual formation and spiritual maturity. Jesus' focus upon God enabled him to do God's will. Jesus separated himself from culture and people at times to be with God in nature, pursuing God at the deepest level. Seminary spiritual formation training at the deepest level can be most beneficial to spiritual leaders, churches, ministries, and culture. This project included thorough research of scripture, literature, and survey method on spiritual formation and spiritual direction. Common themes from these three areas of research were combined to encourage seminary spiritual leaders to be free through intentional spiritual formation.

Jeffrey D Granger

This thesis researches whether a 12-week spiritual formation program for a group of ten to twelve married Christian couples will enhance their individual relationship with God and others, and therefore, increase perceived marital satisfaction. It outlines a model for spiritual formation centered on being conformed to the image of Christ. Theoretical support ties spirituality to marital satisfaction, and subjectification to love for God and others. Measures include the DAS, SWBS, and qualitative questionnaires. Results suggest this program was a positive influence on perceived marital satisfaction.

John W Wells

The thesis of this project supports the idea that a serious disparity of male servant-leaders exists within the church. A call to action necessitates that the church provide a pathway and an ongoing process for men to become servant-leaders. The project results were limited, due to a decline in the number of men who completed the project versus those who began the project, but yet encouraging. Project participants were invited to discover the theology, concepts, and characteristics of servant leadership. Participants experienced Jesus Christ as the ultimate model of servant leadership and were encouraged to follow His example in daily life, especially the church. The results revealed that becoming a servant-leader must be an intentional process. Servant-leadership is an attitude that is more caught than taught.

David O Kertland

This DMin project proposes a training model for church leaders that provides an introduction to church leadership appropriate for formal (officer) and informal (non-officer) leadership. Developed from a consideration of the theological topics of the headship of Jesus Christ and union with Christ, the project includes a biblical-theological study of the three offices of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King. It isolates specific aspects for understanding church leadership as participating with Christ as he leads his church. From this study, six areas of personal characteristics and six areas of church leadership tasks are introduced for use in training.

Matthew Charles Chittum

This integrative study unmasked consumerism for the practice of relational discipleship within the contemporary American cultural context. The author used ethnography, theological study, and case study to expose the corruptive consequence of consumerism on relationship, and offered relational discipleship as a constructive alternative that is scripturally sound, theologically supported, and offered relational discipleship as a constructive alternative that is scripturally sound, theologically supported, theoretically coherent, contextually relevant, and practically applicable. The Triune god was set forth as the primary example for relationship and the Leader in initiating and facilitating of discipleship. This needed holistic approach calls for a rejection of consumerism and materialism and provides the process of transforming change from corruption to Christ-likeness.

Tito Chao

This thesis is a study from the Gospel of Matthew about the act of following Jesus and how to imitate his model of leadership. Jesus comes not only to be King Messiah, but to be our Servant-leadership model. Throughout His life and ministry, He teaches us about God's call to leadership, overcoming tests, the characters of servant-leaders, job descriptions, how to multiply servant-leaders, the needs of servant-leaders, how to be renewed, the continuing model of our Lord in our ministry, and how to be a great servant-leader and about its missions or visions. The Christian Leadership model is Jesus Christ. And the model of Jesus' leadership is the servant-leader.

Timothy John Harben

The purpose of this project was to create a self-assessment tool which will serve as a resource to facilitate personal refection on an individual's Christian formation. This tool assessed a respondent's formation in Christ-likeness with respect to nine groupings of virtues/vices and six dimensions of the self. based on these results it recommended particular spiritual disciplines. This resource was reviewed by a panel of experts who indicated that it met its project goals reasonably well. They noted that the tool would be most effective when used in discussion with a trained spiritual leader knowledgeable in its use.

Kent Brian Palmer

How Christians are spiritually transformed to become more like Jesus of Chrislike in the context of a local church was the project's question for study. The overall design of the project was to create a climate and ecology that would be conductive for spiritual growth and whole person transformation into Christlikeness. The design included a qualitative approach, incorporating three macro environments: a sermon series on Christlikeness; an interactive guide; and small group gatherings. To capture the lived experience, in-depth phenomenological interviews were used. The project's key findings confirmed discernments of whole person spiritual transformation.