Pastoral Supervision for Safe Churches

This essay will examine the contribution of pastoral (professional) supervision in enabling and ensuring a safe church. Pastoral supervision is the brave, safe space where clergy (and ministry workers) reflect on their ministry practice in a regular, planned supervision session. The present article emerges from a decade of training pastoral supervisors and consultation across the national Anglican Church during 2019 based on recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It concludes that the properly Christian way for pastoral supervision to change the culture of the Church is christological: a rigorous grounding of its theory and practice in the story of Jesus Christ.

“Many are the plans”: An analysis of goals described by youth ministry leaders

This article examines the content and appraisals of youth ministry leader goals. Responses to an open-ended survey question by 378 leaders primarily working in the United States who held significant responsibility for the discipleship of high school-aged young people in their ministries were coded, resulting in 29 categories of goals. Participants named goals associated with service, relationships in general, relationships with God, biblical/gospel knowledge, and discipleship most frequently. Leaders rated each goal according to factors that contribute to goal achievement and well-being. Appraisals of goal difficulty (“this goal involves challenge”), clarity (“this goal is well-defined”), satisfaction with progress (“this goal is moving forward satisfactorily”), and support (“other leaders and congregants encourage the pursuit of this goal”) varied significantly across goals. Of note, participants rated discipleship and partnerships with parents/families as progressing the least satisfactorily and as some of the most difficult goals. By contrast, participants rated service goals as some of the least difficult and most clear. The content and appraisals of these goals bear implications for both the psychological study of goals and strivings and for ministry practice.

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.

Religious Habitus of Neopentecostalists and Community Life

This article is devoted to one of the most active Christian movements - neo-Pentecostalism. To describe the functioning of neo-Pentecostal communities in Russia, the article uses the concept of "habitus" by P. Bourdieu, thanks to which it is possible to show the role of ministry practice in the everyday communal life and the religious everyday life of a believer. The concept of "religious habitus" in the article is understood as a system of stable dispositions, functioning as a structuring principle, generating and organizing practices and beliefs, thereby setting the daily routine of a religious community. The article also examines the neo-Pentecostal teaching about the "pentahedral" ministry, about the "gifts of the Holy Spirit" and the activities of the church, and the structural principles of a religious community functioning. It is shown that a believer, within the framework of socialization in the community, goes through the following stages: calling to service, professionalization, independent service, mentoring in service. Based on field research and presented narratives, it was revealed that the choice of religious service occurs according to the following types: on the recommendation of community leaders, arbitrary disclosure of the "Holy Spirit" gifts, by personal choice, and according to the rehabilitation type. The article raises the following question: can we talk about religious service as a religious practice or as a value-rational type of religious action?

We know to whom we belong? The drama of ministerial practice in a postcolonial African context

We are busy celebrating 500 years of reformation and one of the basic convictions of the reformers was that we know to (W)whom we belong. During the student uprisings that we experienced in 2015 and 2016, it became clear that the notion of ‘belonging’ was deeply contested. Students still experience that black people are socially, economically and psychologically abused by the white systems, including university campuses.In empirical research conducted in 2016 with colleagues from five other faculties, these feelings and experiences of exclusion, of not belonging and of injustice among theology students and even some lecturers, were confirmed. This led to the basic research question focused on the subject field for which I am responsible at the Faculty of Theology: how do we work together as lecturers and students to help create such spaces of human dignity in the training of students who are busy preparing for ministry practice in a postcolonial African context in which they experience belonging? This article endeavours to provide an answer to this question.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The empirical part of the research was conducted by colleagues from five different faculties including Arts and Science, Engineering, Law, Education and Theology. In that sense, the research was not only intradisciplinary but also interdisciplinary.

Organisational Strategies to Bridge the Theological Language Gap

(Theological) language is an important theme in youth ministry. Conveying the Gospel message entails making it accessible and understandable to young people. Thus, it is important to bridge the theological language gap that can exist between organisers and young people in New Ecclesial Movements (nems), movements associated with religious orders, and general youth ministry practice. By describing aspects of nems and Catholic youth ministry in the Netherlands, introducing the theological language gap and presenting early findings of a Franciscan Youth Work case study, this article proposes four organisational strategies to bridge the gap.

Christian ministry and theological education as instruments for economic survival in Africa

There is a conflict over whether Christian ministry and theological education should be pursued with an expectation for economic survival. The rise of Christian ministry practice emphasising wealth and prosperity has heightened commodification of the Christian ministry. Church ministry and theological education are being used as instruments for economic profit. The link between theological education and Christian ministry, among other things, is that church practices and ministry expressions reflect the underlying theology. In such a situation, this article reflects on the following questions: How are Christian ministry and its undergirding theology being utilised as instruments of economic prosperity in Africa? What is the theological education approach that is employed to support this ministry approach? The article attempts to establish an understanding of ministerial practise that has biblically and theologically informed views of material wealth. It begins by examining the traditional missionary model of ministry as a sacrificial act and responses by African clergy. This is followed by examination of the development of the view of ministry as a means of economic survival and commodification of ministry and theological education in Africa. It concludes by providing an evaluation and proposing a way forward.

Towards a global theology: Theological method and contextualisation

How should the cultural context influence theological formulation? This article examines contextualisation as it relates to theological method. After considering definitions and methods for formulating contextual theology, it applies the method in two areas: the missional activity of communicating the gospel in a particular cultural context, and the ecclesial activity of improving upon the theological confession of the local church. The author concludes by briefly considering the method with a global perspective.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Some traditions have failed to contextualise the biblical message, whereas other ministry practice has radically altered its message in an attempt to be contextually sensitive. Recent research has resulted in a confusing array of conflicting methods with drastically different practical applications. This article explores how theological method largely determines contextualisation, and it offers a method that is both faithful to the biblical text and sensitive to the contextual situation