Lancaster Theological Seminary

Thomas E. Herrold

The parish ministry is ultimately concerned with persons. Persons--as they relate to themselves, to one another, and to God. Persons--as they express their needs and try to meet one another’s needs. Persons--as they seek to discover the meaning behind tragedy and joy, and the significance of life and death. The parish ministry has the unique opportunity and responsibility to express the love of God and the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ to persons as they encounter the great moments of their lives--birth, baptism, confirmation, marriage, and death. The entire milieu of life is encompassed within the parish ministry and the lives of people are seen in their entirety, completeness, and wholeness. One does not specialize as one relates to people in the parish. Of necessity, the parish minister must relate to the whole person--body, mind, and spirit. Even more important, it is necessary for the minister to see himself as loved of God and as a whole person. Only then is he able to relate his and God’s love to those lives which are entrusted to his care. It is an awesome responsibility, but inherent to the task is the conviction that he is doing the will of God and is seeking to show God’s love to persons. This conviction enables ministry. It provides the incentive and the impetus to minister in a world that continually denies personhood and the worth of individual and collective man.

Gene Wilson Aulenbach

As we minister in the local church, we are constantly faced with its challenges. Meetings, counseling, “oiling,” sermon preparation are an ever-present drain on time and talent. But to add to the challenge, membership roles and interest in the church seem to lessen as the “job of the ministry” demands another day in the “eight day” week. How do we spark enthusiasm? How do we overcome the apathy that surrounds the church? In the past two and a half years we at Bausman Memorial United Church of Christ have been involved in a process of “revitalizing congregational life.” As a result, our participation in worship over the past year has increased over 30%. Our program of Christian Education has experienced the same growth. In fact, there is a whole new attitude toward the church evolving as a result of this process. It is the purpose of this paper to explain the model we used in this revitalization in the hopes that other churches might experience a similar spark… the same excitement. Chapter 2 looks at its organizational design. Chapter 3 explains the attitudinal survey which receives its correction in chapter 4, the demographic survey. Chapter 5 describes a congregational survey which is designed to elicit the ideas of the people, and chapter 6, goal setting, follows directly from those ideas. Chapter 7 reviews the validation of this project by a trained interviewer to determine whether or not the process has been the major cause of growth and revitalization in the congregation.

Albert Clarence Robinson

The purpose of this history of the committee on christian Education of Eastern Synod is twofold; namely, to acknowledge the fine work done by this committee, and to set forth some of its achievements as an inspiration to others who are interested in the cause of Christian education. This committee was the pioneer among the synodical committees on Christian Education in the Reformed Church. Its membership included some of the outstanding men of the reformed church, and its program many of the finest achievements in Christian education. Since the merger of the Reformed church in the United States and the Evangelical Synods this committee as such has been dissolved but its members are continuing the work as an inter-synodical group. No attempt has been made to present a complete chronological history of the work of the committee. In keeping with the purpose this is an interpretive history. Outstanding personalities and events have been included in so far as they were related to the various projects considered. The main emphasis, however, has been placed upon the growth and significance of the committee used in preparing this history.

Terrell M. Shoffner

It was on May 24, 1738 that John Wesley, a priest in the Church of England, went into a religious meeting in Aldersgate Street and had a heart warming experience that transformed his own life and inaugurated a great religious awakening among the English speaking peoples. Wesley belongs not only to the Methodist churches, but the Holy Catholic Church of which all Protestants are members and are indebted to him for the powerful influence of his wonderful personality. And undoubtedly the Roman Catholic Church has been influenced by the movement, but there will be little time to deal with this fact, except in a general way. It is the object of this essay to trace the contributions of this magnificent beacon light down through the centuries. Our endeavor may be logically divided into two parts. After giving a brief account of his life through his conversion experience, we shall concentrate our interest on Wesley’s influence during his earthly pilgrimage. In the second division we shall follow his influence from the time of his death up to the present time. Some of the materials present may seem to the reader to be irrelevant to the subject, but on closer examination he will see that it all tends to culminate in a better understanding of the influence that the founder of Methodism has had in the development of Christianity.

Paul Barrett Rudd

The project in ministry described in this paper is a study of Congregational Expectations of Pastoral care. It was conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Ministry degree at the Lancaster Theological Seminary in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The purpose for making the study was to provide information to the Presbytery of Baltimore and its member churches and pastors regarding the attitudes and expectations of lay persons, in both leadership and non-leadership capacities, in the area of pastoral care and counseling. Second, the project was selected in order to better understand the concerns of church members whom the candidate is training students to serve through Clinical Pastoral Education. Finally, I selected this type of project in order to learn and utilize descriptive research techniques.

Nora Driver Foust

Knowledge is readily available today with Google and other search engines designed to answer any question. However, the integration of knowledge into understanding and competency is not as straightforward. To address the challenge of integration of knowledge and competency for ministerial authorization, this project follows Richard Osmer’s four tasks of practical theology and looks at the United Church of Christ’s (UCC) Marks of Faithful and Effective Authorized Ministers alongside principles of competency-based assessment. The project presents a working model for UCC Committees on Ministry across the denomination for implementation of the new Manual on Ministry (MOM). The new MOM embraces a single form of authorized ministry and the use of the competency-based Marks with all ministerial candidates, seminarians, and those on alternative paths to authorization. Alongside a model for UCC Committees on Ministry, this project opens doors to further change in the UCC’s process and points to possible implementation of competency-based assessment programs in other denominations. This project opens with a glossary and the state of the field in Chapter 1 leading to the research question on how the UCC might move to embrace the Marks and develop an implementation strategy for using them in a true competency-based approach. Chapter 2 includes a literature review. Chapter 3 offers a glimpse at how the education world uses competency-based assessment and offers five principles for how their use might be carried over into the assessment work of UCC Committees on Ministry. Chapter 4 presents the model for how one UCC Conference implemented this use and Chapter 5 draws conclusions and points readers forward to possible application of a competency-based assessment model in their own setting.

James L. Mills Sr.

The purpose of the research is to examine how Dr. Howard Washington Thurman’s notions of community, religious experience, and an inward journey are potentially helpful tools for reentry from long-term incarceration. The project looks at the origin of the American prison-industrial complex through the twenty-first century and its impact on marginalized people of color. There is robust research on programmatic needs coming out of prisons, such as financial and housing assistance and vocational training. Returning citizens also need help to deal with inward wounds and traumas of life and incarceration. Howard Thurman’s notion of community, religious experience, and the inner-life offer a pathway to wholeness to those regaining their footing in society.

Wendell C. Yorkman

There seems to be a gap between church doctrine and praxis as far as matters of grace is concerned, particularly grace understood as forgiveness and reconciliation. Because of the lack of clear, theologically coherent doctrine, church leaders and their members are left to decide for themselves how to practice grace toward themselves and one another. Through a process of examining doctrines, analyzing sermons, reviewing literature, and conducting personal interviews with church leaders from African American Pentecostal Holiness churches the researcher’s intent is to determine how closely aligned doctrine and praxis are. Since a large percentage of the church doctrines examined include no specific guidelines or directions as to matters of grace beyond being the power of God in bringing salvation (Eph. 2:8-9), the lack of understanding often causes un-graceful responses by leaders and members alike. It is hoped that this work will be read by Christian leaders as they gain insight as to how grace is to be understood and practiced.

Richelle Foreman Gunter

This project explores the intersections of racialized trauma and faith development in individuals who have sometime during their life identified as religiously unaffiliated or “nones.” Through the lens of life stories, nine individuals describe their faith journeys from their earliest memories of life to their most recent adult experiences. Their courageous sharing sheds light on the connections between racism and racialized trauma and the precious moments when faith in God moved them forward on their journey of faith. Their stories highlight the experience of 250 plus years historical trauma from slavery and its intergenerational influence, alongside the instances of racism members of the black community continued to experience. The stories that they shared also help us to understand that God inserts himself into the lives of His people in ways that are unexpected, not written about or understood. Like life, faith development is a journey not a destination.

Kay S. Rader

Meeting leadership needs of the United Church of Christ, which includes finding the best ways to prepare new leaders for authorization, has been a lively conversation in the denomination in recent years. A decade of study led to a national Pronouncement on ministry issues in 2005 which suggested ways to move into the future while taking into account the remarkable diversity of faith communities within the denomination.

The broad range of ecclesiologies, with their corresponding theologies of ministry, has made the denominational conversation rich, but it has also made the task of coming to consensus on ministry issues challenging. In order to gain a better understanding of our practices in preparation for creating new guidelines for authorization, one directive of the Pronouncement was to “pay attention to our theologies of ministry in the UCC, especially ordained ministry.”

This project applies an ecclesiological typology to the descriptive language in current local and national denominational guidelines for identifying, preparing, and authorizing candidates for ministry, for the purpose of comparing the preferences which are revealed in them. Preferences are arrayed, and similarities and discrepancies between local and national materials are noted. In particular, this project observes whether or not the full range of ecclesiological diversity of the United Church of Christ is reflected in the guidelines for authorization, what differences exist between the sets of guidelines in this respect, and what the significance of those differences may be. The intent of this project is to contribute to the ongoing denominational conversation.