Lancaster Theological Seminary

Janet M Peifer

This project proposes that the leadership and pastoral strengths of Brethren in Christ clergywomen can enhance the integrity of atmosphere and services in ministry among older adults in retirement communities and congregations. Resistance to calling clergywomen to these ministries does not come from the older adults who would be served but rather from governing boards and institutional leaders who frequently lack education, experience, and principles of equality. Service in two church-related retirement communities and surveys of others document the needs and possibilities for women in these ministries.

Kathryn M Fitzgerald

This project explores imagination--the human capacity to form images that help one create, understand, and transform one's reality--in its central role in effecting human transformation. The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, Jungian active imagination, and various kinds of body work can facilitate access to imagination and transformative images. Attending to significant images leads to long-term changes. Lasting spiritual transformation does not occur without mediation by the religious imagination.

Geoffrey G Drutchas

This project proposes that "sanctity of life," often identified as a Christian moral principle with deep roots in the biblical and theological traditions, may actually represent an idolatrous tendency for Christian churches inconsistent with their traditional theocentric focus. Ancient Stoicism and eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought are the authentic sources of a notion of life as sacred; except for an isolated interlude involving John Calvin, Christian churches did not begin to adopt belief in sanctity of life until the late nineteenth century. The project affirms a more circumspect respect for life as the appropriate and faithful Christian stance on such controversial issues as abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide.

Dennis B Berk

This project proposes that comprehensiveness, as an important element of the Anglican ethos, facilitates affirmation of homosexual men and women and promotes their full participation in the churches of the Anglican Communion. The project research demonstrates that some members of the clergy have construed Anglican history in inclusive terms that affirm and support full participation by homosexual persons. Although comprehensiveness is not yet fully realized in all parts of the Anglican Communion, greater inclusiveness is both attainable and desirable.

Joseph M Beer

This project prepares, presents, and evaluates an original play about Jesus during his adolescent years--They Belong to God, Too!--in order to help people to deal with faith issues in their own lives. The project pursues the play from conception through research and writing to performance, evaluating its influence on the audience and reflecting on the theological significance of religious drama and its usefulness for ministry. Such drama is a valuable tool in expressing religious ideas and in teaching the history and culture of Jesus' time.

Earl Lester Bledsoe

This project proposes that churches must provide ministry to persons who have been evangelized so that they become more whole in the self. This "step after evangelism" is necessary because evangelized persons do not automatically demonstrate changes in personality or behavior. To accomplish this purpose the project advocates "therapeutic preaching" based on the command of Jesus in Matthew 10:1 to "heal every disease and every infirmity." The project defines and demonstrates the context and content of therapeutic preaching, providing four therapeutic sermons as examples. Listeners help define what makes these sermons helpful. Not all sermons are therapeutic, but characteristics that make sermons helpful can be identified and replicated.

Isaac L McDonald

This project examines African American expectations about preaching in the Eastern Virginia Association of the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ, reviewing collected data from two questionnaires and many clergy interviews. The project tests an assumption that expectations of preaching are changing, primarily because of increasing educational attainments of laypersons in African American churches. Results of these investigations, presented in 24 tables, show that the majority of college students and laypersons agree on many questions concerning the importance of preaching. Most important, these educated persons feel that seminary preparation is not as important for ministers as others might assume.

Michael Douglas Borko

Giving behavior of adult church leaders is significantly influenced by early life experiences in the family of origin and in the congregation. This project explores the effectiveness of an educational process designed to identify the content of these early experiences, examine the Biblical witness concerning stewardship, and provide an opportunity for decisions about behavioral change. Giving behavior of adult leaders from the United Church of Christ is also examined in relation to income, education, generation, and theological perspective. The project offers suggestions for significant change in content and format of current resource strategies for stewardship ministry.

Jill R Edens

This project describes worship practices of black congregations of the United Church of Christ in North Carolina. Three black pastors helped to create an interview protocol that could explore and define the black church tradition in the UCC. The interviews analyzed the pastor's context in ministry, authorization for ministry, Sunday morning worship practices, preaching, music, communion, baptism, special days, and printed resources used in worship. The reports reveal a remarkably consistent worship practice that reflects the black, "rural" worship tradition of this region. A central ritual act of nearly all churches in the study is believer's baptism by immersion. Immersion matches the believer's experience of death of the old life and rebirth in Christ and parallels the Sunday morning experience of death to the old, destructive, secular world and rebirth into the beloved community of the church.

Barbara Kershner Daniel

This project proposes to identify metaphors that could expand, enhance, and enrich the life of one local church and its ministry. The project offers a framework for understanding ministry through use of metaphor. Beginning with the premise that language creates and shapes worldviews and that metaphor in particular is a powerful means of expression, the project explores various works pertaining to metaphor and then moves to analysis of metaphors that have been operative in the life of one local church. These metaphors not only provide a foundation for a common language and common understanding of the congregation, but they also provide a strong means for shifting away from metaphors of constriction and creating new metaphors. The project proposes that a congregation's life may be transformed through shifting of metaphors and introduction of new metaphors.