Leadership, Religious--Christianity

Edward W Dunnington

The purpose of this study was to explore how senior pastors can lead congregations toward systemic gospel health. The research focused on how pastors describe systemic health, what pastors believe to be hindrances to systemic health, and how pastors cultivate systemic health within their congregations. The literature reviewed included biblical and theological material relating to a congregation's systemic nature and the definition of congregational gospel health; change theory; systems theory; and the leader's role. The researcher interviewed two senior pastors of two different churches, their spouses, staff, and lay leaders. Both senior leaders articulated four factors that the literature supported: personal and marital growth; thinking systemically about the congregation; a working knowledge of change theory; and having at least one co-laborer in the work of change. This kind of systemic change is not simply technical in nature, but adaptive and cannot be done alone.

Robert C Sipper

Seeking to reach a community with the gospel of Jesus Christ requires an intentional path for fostering lives of investment and passion. The purpose of this project was to develop a vision strategy for Ebenezer Baptist Church in Hillsborough, North Carolina. By studying the demographics of the community and the church, the project director hoped to see God working to bring believers together to formulate avision strategy. Concurrently, the project director studied and evaluated several models for developing a vision strategy, seeking to guide a leadership team to discover the unique makeup of the church and how an intentional strategy within the framework of a tailored model will guide the future of the church. Professionally, the project director sought to grow in his knowledge of vision strategies and ability to adapt avision strategy process to other venues. Additionally, the project director hoped to gain leadership skills that transcend the project for use inmultiple settings in the church and community. The project director planned to use various rubrics and evaluators to appraise the research, methodology, and concluding product. Ultimately, the project director desired to see ministry alignment across various programs and arenewed passion for community ministry.

James E Hoffman

Silence to Active Voice: A Leadership Process for Conversations on Timely and Sensitive Topics charts the process of the author to guide adaptive change at St. John's United Methodist Church of Kansas City, Missouri. The aim of this leadership project was to overcome silence so that the congregation could regain an active voice regarding the timely and sensitive topic of human sexuality. Through the interactive process of learning from other leaders, preaching to name silence, engagement in conversation, and forming a taskforce to move forward, the congregation embraced adaptive change in order to regain an active voice within and without.

John Currie

This project proposes that a substantial cause of ineffectual preaching stems from the failure to integrate the essential pastoral functions of preaching and leadership in pastoral practice. The project seeks to address the problem by presenting a seminar that equips pastors to integrate best practices in preaching and leadership. To ascertain these practices the author studied the biblical and theological foundations of preaching and leadership and historic and contemporary voices in the tradition of Reformed Presbyterianism and Westminster Theological Seminary. The results of the study are presented as perspectives essential to the preacher-leader's identity and best practices in both preaching and leadership.

Sue Marie Baskette

The purpose of this project was to impact congregational leadership in a group from southeast Pennsylvania through participation in a six-week small group experience to equip them with skills to preempt explosive conflict. The assessment of the project included the administration of both a pre-test and a post-test questionnaire. The goal with the highest results revealed an increased awareness of listening as an active form of communication. Increased awareness as to the role active listening plays in achieving successful outcomes was also noted. Additionally, the interconnectivity of successful listening with a moderate level of self-awareness was realized.

Zachary C Edwards

The purpose of of this ministry project was to lead a select group of church planting leaders in Wyoming Southern Baptist Convention to demonstrate an understanding of how family systems affect their personhood and leadership ability and, consequently, to develop and initiate a plan for increasing self-awareness and self-differentiated leadership. Through three sets of personal exercises and three group meetings, the majority of project participants demonstrated an understanding of project content and created a growth plan for self-awareness and self-difentiated leadership. The director grew in leadership, discoverd new theological insights, and evaluated the project as effective for developing future church planters.

Donald E Shannon

The purpose of this project was to address the need and means of change for Sunset Hills Baptist Church from program driven Bible study model to institute a reproducible discipleship process which included a focus on evengelism. The result of the project was the formation of new small groups built upon the reproducible discipleship process.

Celillon Alteme

The project explores emotional competence for healthy leadership and ministry. Emotional competence is the ability to appropriately manage and express one's emotions, while being able to react to others with adoptive control. Emotional competence applies to both human and interpersonal emotions as well as to God's emotional patterns. This project concluded that leadership with experience using emotional competence is better prepared to lead and minister in crises; the data showed a connection between emotional competence and healthy leadership.

Neil J Dougall

At the heart of the research was an on-line survey of all Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) Parish Ministers, which produced statistically significant data. 96% of ministers said that offering leadership was a significant aspect of their ministry, a much higher figure than the author anticipated. 60% had experienced 'toxic' leadership, which helps explain some of the ambivalence around leadership in the church. The author concludes that the conversation should not simply be about leadership but about the kind of leadership the church needs, and suggests that it should be servant-like, adaptive, collaborative, facilitative and enabling.

Eric C Schlichting

Stepping into leadership on a church council is a challenging calling. This project demonstrates that the ministry of worship can be used to offer church council members a more clearly focused and more richly rewarding experience of serving in leadership. This intervention introduced a format for meetings based on a pattern for worship, and through mixed-methods research, affirmed that a meeting modeled on worship improves council members' sense of purpose, sense of effectiveness and sense of satisfaction.