Lancaster Theological Seminary

James Henry Wise

Dying is now a chronic illness, artificially extended through an ethos of denial of death, resulting in significant and substantial spiritual needs for the patient and their caregivers currently being unmet. Dying is a lonely process owing to its nature as a process each must traverse by oneself, within one's self. The pain and suffering inherently present is the most private experience, but their causes demand public accountability. Current medical practice and technology, intentionality or unintentional, serve principally to needlessly prolong the dying process without any purposeful positive impact on the underlying disease process, and resulting on the dumping of the moral responsibility for the death of the patient onto the medically and theologically unprepared familial caregivers. A continuing litany of "Patient Satisfaction Surveys" report "Unmet Spiritual Needs" as a principal source of patient/caregiver dissatisfaction. By the end of the twentieth century, advances in medical life-support techniques have allowed the artificial extension of human life. However, this prolonged existence may usually presents increasing incapacities at the end-of-life. Death now medicalized and delayed, dying is now riddled with unwarranted, useless, and meaningless suffering and limited to no spiritual support. Yet physicians report, "We can always keep doing things!" The tortuous journey of dying, for both patient and caregivers, is a destabilizing maelstrom of emotional pain, psychological terror, and physical suffering. Compounding the misery of the journey is the absence of the church, of spiritual support, resulting in unmet spiritual in many patients and families. The process of dying leaves patients and caregivers with feelings of loss, darkness, and disconnection. The focus of this project discovers and reports on the unmet spiritual needs of the dying from a true spiritual perspective, previously unreported in the literature.

Kathy Harvey Nelson

This project will explore the significance of the spiritual lives of small church pastors. It is my goal to examine their spiritual lives by looking at the way they influence their congregations to live as followers of Christ. In addition, it is my contention that by engaging a deep practice of spiritual discipline a pastor's call is clarified and guided by the Holy Spirit into ways that produce a type of living that I am calling "connectional spirituality." To do this the project utilizes a review of relevant literature and past trends of thought, interviews with fifteen small church pastors serving the Susquehanna Conference of The United Methodist Church and my personal experience as a small church pastor and spiritual director of small church pastors. This study finds that pastors who engage regularly in spiritual practices find themselves leading their congregation to act as a type of mission outpost in their community. Through the interviews, I discovered that the more engaged a pastor was with spiritual practices; the more likely they were to lead in ways that lifted up those in the community surrounding the church as the ones God calls them to serve. This seems to be one very significant way in which small churches can be revitalized and become passionate, vital communities of Christ. Through this, I was led to explore the importance of being a missional church and the ways that this type of connectional spirituality grows from both spiritual practice and being formed in the image of Christ, leading pastors and churches to embody connectedness in their community.

David K Popham

The satisfaction or dissatisfaction of clergy with the church is tied into their expectations of ministry. These expectations are often expressed through theological language which obfuscates the underpinning ideological motivation. While clergy are aware of some of their ideological warrants, they remain unconscious of the full ramifications of these impulses. The result is vague feelings around the issue of contentment/discontentment with the ministry. Using the understandings of cognitive linguistics, this study undertakes the exploration of metaphor as an entrance to the hidden aspects of clergy ideologies and come to understand the consequences of unconscious drives. [This is the complete abstract from the original work.]

Robert J Hoffman

The primary purpose of this project was to investigate the Catholic perspective on evangelization and to see how these principles can be applied to the rural mission areas of Appalachia. The report begins with an historical perspective of evangelization followed by a Catholic and Protestant perspective and the difference between these views. Glenmary's fifty-two years experience and contribution to evangelization are reviewed. Three case studies of rural missionology show the diverse approaches of Catholic evangelization in Appalachia. The Virginia study is a Base Christian Community model. The Kentucky study is a Parish Team model, and the Tennessee model demonstrates a Community Development approach. The last chapter covers general reflections on evangelization and some recommendations for new ministers coming to Appalachia. For over fifty years, the Glenmary Society has challenged its members to evangelize the rural Appalachian population of over twenty million people. At present, over one hundred professed Glenmary members minister to 1.25 million people in thirty-five base parishes and thirty-seven mission stations. Some outsiders look up to Glenmary as "experts" in this ministry. They think we have the experience, knowledge, and success stories to teach others how to be successful missioners in Appalachia and the Deep South. But, the truth is that we are still groping for answers. The major findings were that Appalachia is a difficult place to do Catholic evangelization because of its unique cultural heritage, religious tradition, and depressing poverty. The area is highly unchurched. Glenmary mission parishes average about one-half of one percent (0.5%). Sometimes there is prejudice against the Catholic Church because its tradition differs greatly from the predominate Protestant churches in the area.

Celestine Fields

This research study seeks to gain more knowledge from the experiences of Black clergy who are serving in predominantly White congregations and learn from their experiences. This research will assist Black clergy and the congregations that call us to understand what is involved when calling Black clergy to serve in a predominately White congregation. In addition, this study will investigate how positive psychology can be used when a predominately White congregation calls or desires to call a Black clergy to achieve a mission of creating a diverse multicultural congregation. [This is the complete abstract from the original work. This project includes bibliographical references.]

Marsha Brown Woodard

Internalized oppression is a reasonable response to the inundation of messages that are disempowering and devaluing. In this project, movies have helped African American clergywomen explore and deconstruct these messages. The Midwife Leadership Style created a participant-centered environment where women became free to share even as they would if they were gathered around a kitchen table. Within the project, movies were used to stimulate dialogue and as a disseminator of educational content. It was my finding that women were able to learn to identify these messages and to gain skills that enable them to develop healthy responses. The project establishes a foundation for additional work in exploring the unique and powerful understanding of faith that African American women possess.

Daniel Jon Lundquist

This project seeks to answer the question, "what is working in bi-vocational settings from the perspective of both the bi-vocational ministers and their congregants?" This is being researched to better understand how the members of churches, in conjunction with their pastors, can better use their God-given gifts in bi-vocational settings. This is significant for two reasons. The first is that more and more churches and denominations, including the more mainline white United Church of Christ (UCC) churches, are either seeking or needing bi-vocational ministers. The second is that, as churches move forward, and hopefully embrace, bi-vocational church living, they can, and oftentimes do, discover their own ministerial callings. These callings are grounded not only in the biblical tradition but also in the Reformed tradition. This project is qualitative in nature. It conducted a survey in which ministers and congregations who are working and serving in bi-vocational settings were asked several questions on what, how, and why certain concepts are a success in their church settings. This was done mostly in the Central Atlantic Conference-UCC. This is what I tested in my surveys and interviews: the views about bi-vocational living held by both the bi-vocational minister and their congregants and how these views contributed to the success of "bi-vocationalism." The results appear to be able to give pastors, congregations, congregants, denominations, and seminarians--especially those in the UCC-Central Atlantic Conference--a better understanding of what makes for a successful bi-vocational ministry.

Carolyn Vann Jordan

Much attention has been paid to African American men as they reenter society from prison. There is, however, a gap in the literature as it pertains to African American women. This project seeks to study the impact of race, gender, and faith on African American women when they are faced with the reentry process. Primarily, through their narratives, I am motivated to see if faith can be a resource for empowering them to move beyond the systems of inequality of race, and gender when facing reentry. Ultimately, this research project will provide recommendations to faith communities that will help them develop ministries and programming that will equip and empower African American women reentering the community after being incarcerated.

Gene M. Gordon

Although Black Liberation and Womanist Theologies have unlocked a profound conversation on praxis for oppressed people, they have not included, in large measure, the guidance to be gained from an intersection with Moral Injury Theory. An argument is presented, the purpose of which is to show how Black Liberation Theology enhances Moral Injury Theory and how Moral Injury Theory provides tools for addressing the effects of racism. In so doing, the concept of moral injury strengthens Black Liberation Theology by expanding its resolve to serve within communities affected by racism and indeed with all humanity. In addition, the theology of liberation may provide support for the spiritual attempt to encourage sufferers of moral injury through transcendent concepts such as forgiveness, reconciliation, and perhaps even atonement. This project also provides pastors, chaplains, and others with the kind of understandings and motivations that will assist them in meeting the needs of parishoners who may be struggling with the despair of the hidden wounds of racism that display the symptoms of moral injury.

Andrew Missiras

The problem to be explored in this project report is the sequential aspects of establishing, developing and maintaining parish libraries as a means of creating effective networks of communication between the constituent members of a parish church. To understand the nature of the sequential aspects of establishing, developing and maintaining parish libraries, it is necessary to clarify the presuppositions which underlie the statement of the problem and its solution. The term ‘library’, as will be described in Chapter II, is understood to have a conceptual meaning that transcends any definition. ‘Library’ as a concept refers to the function of a learning resource center in a parish church. To call a church library a ‘learning’ center is predicated on the concept that the library is a place where learning happens rather than one in which learning materials are stored. Its function, then, is to advance the cause of learning by providing materials (documents, books, filmstrips, etc.) and services (answering ready reference questions, circulation of materials, etc.) to parish constituents. The emphasis here implies that the bringing of knowledge or information to the parishioner is important, not the collecting or processing of knowledge or information. The character of the parish library changes from collecting library materials to fostering learning so that the parishioner learns how to acquire information. If a parish library is understood to be a ‘learning resource’ center, the focus is on the parishioner and how he can best use the collection of books, magazines, etc. to facilitate his learning process. This is why it is important to clarify the use of the terms used in this project report.