Wesley Theological Seminary

Diane Akers

The goal of my thesis is to give guidance to persons whose spouse does not share their level of faith or even practice another faith. I describe the healing of my marriage and invite others to discover prayerful ways of finding healing in their marriages. I provide thirty-one days of prayer for spouses as a way of discerning what God intends for us to hear, understand the marriage covenant now and learn how to communicate with our husbands to produce understanding. The guidance provided shifted the participant's perspective to be able to see their way to a healthy marriage.

Jessica Anschutz

How can Grace United Methodist Church in suburban New York shift from being an inwardly-focused, struggling congregation to being a fruitful "missional church?" To deepen the congregation's understanding of what it means to be a "missional church," (Darrell L. Guder) The author developed a worship series, a congregational Bible study, and a Leadership Development Seminar. This work engages the Great Commission, the Great Commandment, the early church, and John Wesley's "The Character of a Methodist." These interventions enabled the congregation to better fulfill God's vision, engage the community, and make new disciples.

Seong Kook Lee

In this paper, the author proceeds the project with the question of a healthy Church community. In chapter 1, he approaches the biblical understanding of the image of God. In chapter 2, he studies the recovery of the Church community through Koinonia, and Diakonia. In addition, he tries to change the inferiority complex that the church communities and individuals face into a sense of superiority by dealing with individual psychology of Adler. In the project, he appropriately applies and practices Koinonia, Diakonia, and individual psychology and the conclusion describes analysis of the project.

Yongjoo Kwon

The paper begins with the problem recognizing for the future of the church caused by the indifference about life in faith of the young adults in the church and the lack of community. When young people in a church are vital, the church becomes a dynamic church. For the reason, it is necessary to understand the importance of the young adults in the church. Young people today open and share their lives through the social networking service and are connected with others opening new communications. The church now needs to accept the culture of this era and to improve young people with programs utilizing social network services. In this paper, the author organizes the project with the purpose and constructs and implements programs using Facebook, and KakaoTalk, representatives of the contemporary social network service, with contents such as the Bible meditation and writing, gratitude sharing, intercessory prayer, and sharing Christian video clips and so on. In this persp ective, the author examines the change in life in faith and in community consciousness of young people.

Young Suk Kim

This research is about the kingdom of God education, which demonstrates the objectives to, rather than transfer mere information about, Christianity. This is because the kingdom of God is not about doctrinal beliefs, but practical purposes. After presenting the concepts and meaning of the kingdom of God through literary and theological studies, the author structured a six-week course curriculum and conducted the project in order to observe the changes in the students' attitude and perception of Christianity. The analysis suggests that students reflected changes towards positive perceptions of Christianity and that the project was effective in helping students understand Christianity.

Ryunshik Kim

This study is an exercise in missiology and comes at a time when there is a serious urgency to redefine mission or at least how mission is construed and conducted by overseas missionaries in Africa. The study was conducted among the Maasai community of Kenya and Tanzania. The problem for the study concerned the fact that many Maasai's did not abandon some retrogressive elements of their culture that were in conflict with the Christian faith, even after embracing Christianity. The study employed Paul's framework in his letter to the Galatians where it is shown that Paul was not content to make converts but to transform Christians to be witnesses. The objective for this study was to use cultural structures of church leadership in order to mediate the Christian faith through the leaders. Ultimately, this study was aimed at showing how members can be transformed into witnesses through leadership. Qualitative data for this study was gathered from interviews through nonprobability sampling from the Maasai Methodist mission fields in Longido Tanzania. Data was analyzed through philosophical analysis and conclusions were drawn from the given samples. The findings and conclusions of this study point to the fact that converts to Christianity should become witnesses in their communities. It is hoped that the recommendations that have been brought out in this study will be of utmost importance to future missionaries in Africa.

J Christopher Greene

The objective of this project was to help the church focus on what it means to be a vital missional community that engages millennials and their children and seeks to connect all people in a journey of developing as disciples who embody God in their service to a Postmodern world. The author led his study committee, leadership, and congregation in studying the needs of the church and community using dialogue, surveys, presentations, and tools of cultural analysis to set forth and live into an effective and relevant vision of God's preferred future for the people of Shiloh United Methodist Church.

Audrey L Fleming

The Southern Black Baptist Church is a spirited denomination that constantly needs new leadership to accommodate its growing membership. While individuals are eager to lead, the church lacks a clear succession plan or a unique process for mentoring and coaching women seminarians as pastors to lead the denomination. Research shows that effective use of rhetoric and communication empowers women leaders to become more effective in casting vision in leading women seminarians to take the next step. The Pastor of Faith Missionary Baptist Church of Richmond, VA conducted interviews with five Baptist Pastors (three women and two men) and developed a workshop to help prepare seminarians and other women for licensing, ordination and Leadership roles.

Rodrigo Cruz

The objective of this project was to design and implement a new model of church planting that required the involvement and participation of twelve sponsoring congregations from a particular district within the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church. The author led a process of engagement with four churches to support the new church with their gifts, four with their presence and prayer, and four with their service and witness. While conducting a series of meetings with clergy and denominational leaders, the idea of building a collaborative network of United Methodist Churches that can be the foundation and support of a new church wasn't totally possible. However, the pastor and his supervisors found a way to continue to further the vision of a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural church utilizing some principles from the church in Antioch despite the brokenness of the United Methodist connectional system.

Il Kim

This study discusses the role of church in multicultural situation, especially for those who are hurt and suffered from discrimination. Further, examines practical and systematic pastoral caring and mission works through a church project. In the introduction, it talks about the purpose, topic and ultimate goal of the research, while body discusses details such as general understanding of multicultural families and current state of multicultural families in South Korea. Later, explains the tolerance of multicultural families through theoretical and biblical approaches and suggests Korean church's multicultural pastoral caring and missionary that is grounded of realistic correspondence and consideration.