Breaking Depression’s Silence within the Church through Friendships

This article explores the silent nature of depression in the local church and suggests that developing Jesus-style friendships can break the silence. It adapts the author’s Doctor of Ministry (DMin) research project, which explored the silent nature of depression in the local church and Christianity’s interpretive healing qualities. This article argues that the church has a rich history of helping sufferers interpret their experiences of depression, but changing worldviews, the growth of the modern medical model, and the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals monopolized health and shoved the church to the periphery of the conversation. Silence became the church’s typical response, which promoted an attitude of stigma and avoidance. The article suggests that developing Jesus-style friendships can help break the silence because social or religious barriers do not restrict such friendships. This model of friendship is crucial for giving depression sufferers a sense of identity, meaning, and purpose within the church community.

Qualitative Research: A Field Manual for Ministry Students

Qualitative research helps investigators better understand the experiences of others. Qualitative Research: A Field Manual For Ministry Students assumes no prior background in research involving human subjects. The examples and exercises in this book are drawn from variety of ministry settings and religious communities. The book addresses the distinctive features of final projects in Doctor of Ministry programs, including how to evaluate a project’s success. Some research methods textbooks discuss theory in depth but provide little explanation about how to conduct a study. This book explains how to use specific techniques and procedures, from study design and recruitment of participants to collection of data, analysis (coding), and interpretation of findings. Included is a databank containing transcribed interviews from qualitative studies. These data can be used to practice the analysis techniques discussed in the book.

DMin as Practical Theology

The Doctor of Ministry is a professional degree accredited by the Association of Theological Schools. As delineated by ATS, the theological program requires to meet specific learning outcomes in a minimum of 30 credit hours with a culminating project that contributes to the understanding of ministry practice. Practical theology is a discipline that seeks to take “both practice and theology seriously”. As a consequence, the DMin can be generally conceptualized as practical theology. However, this paper demonstrates a number of the specific ways in which this general claim can be substantiated. It does this with reference to a number of theoretical discussions within practical theology as to the discipline’s nature. It then examines the implication of this for the status of the DMin, student learning, program design, and the nature of the DMin project.

Intercultural Formation and the Leadership Practicum: Competencies in Doctor of Ministry Education

This essay affirms the value of experientially based leadership formation in Doctor of Ministry theological education as a hallmark of developing religious leadership for the African American context. It suggests envisioning leadership practicum goals so students gain intercultural competencies for all ministry contexts. The essay argues it is possible to increase cultural and ethnic literacy, personal formation and development, attitude and values clarification, multiethnic and multicultural social competence, basic ministry skills proficiency, educational equity and excellence, and empowerment for intercultural engagement through focused competency goals. It encourages experiences of cultural disorientation as the context in which students best learn the need to affirm ethnic identity, to be inclusive, to appreciate diversity, and to overcome fear of human diversity. Stated differently, through intentional comprehension of commonalities of human community, DMin students journey more rapidly toward intercultural competence. Keywords: Doctor of Ministry, Intercultural Competencies, Ministry Context, Leadership Formation

RESENSI BUKU : CONFLICT MANAGEMENT AND THE APOSTLE PAUL

Buku ini merupakan kumpulan paper mahasiswa Doctor of Ministry (D.Min) dalam mata kuliah Conflict Management yang diampu oleh Scot McKnigt di Northern Seminary (halaman xi). Ada total sembilan paper dalam buku ini. Menariknya, setiap paper ditulis oleh dua orang, sehingga memperkaya ulasan setiap topik dalam tiap paper. Sebelum menyajikan setiap paper di dalamnya, editor buku ini (Greg Mamula) memberikan sebuah bab pendahuluan untuk memperkenalkan topik ini. Bab pendahuluan dengan judul An Introduction to Modern Conflict Management memperkenalkan beberapa pendekatan modern yang sering digunakan dalam penyelesaian konflik gereja. Beberapa pendekatan tersebut ialah pendekatan Fisher dan Ury (halaman xvxvi), A Conversational Perspective (halaman xvi-xviii), Family System Approach (halaman xviii-xx), dan Reconciliation Approach (halaman xx-xxi). Tujuan bab ini adalah untuk menunjukkan bahwa meskipun ada banyak pendekatan yang dapat digunakan dalam menangani konflik gereja, kembali ke Alkitab untuk menemukan prinsip-prinsip penting dalam penyelesaian konflik adalah hal yang sangat krusial (halaman xxiv).

Library Research Instruction for Doctor of Ministry Students: Outcomes of Instruction Provided by a Theological Librarian and by a Program Faculty Member

At some seminaries the question of who is more effective teaching library research is an open question. There are two camps of thought: (1) that the program faculty member is more effective in providing library research instruction as he or she is intimately engaged in the subject of the course(s), or (2) that the theological librarian is more effective in providing library research instruction as he or she is more familiar with the scope of resources that are available, as well as how to obtain “hard to get” resources. What began as a librarian’s interest in determining the extent to which Doctor of Ministry (DMin) students begin their research using Google, resulted in the development of a survey. Given the interesting results returned from the first survey in fall of 2008, the survey was conducted again in the fall of 2011. The results of the comparative data led to the discovery of some useful data that will be used to adjust future instruction sessions for DMin students. The results of the surveys indicated that the instruction provided by the theological librarian was more effective as students were more prepared to obtain and use resources most likely to provide the best information for course projects. Additionally, following the instruction of library research skills by the librarian (2011 survey), DMin students were more likely to begin the search process for information resources using university provided catalogs and databases than what was reported in the 2008 survey. The responses to the two surveys piqued interest regarding both eBook use during the research process and the reduction of research frustration to be addressed in a follow-up survey to be given in 2014, results of which we hope to report in a future article.