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Connectional spirituality : small church pastors and the future of the church
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MLA citation style (9th ed.)
Connectional Spirituality : Small Church Pastors and the Future of the Church. rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/3d89ef44-6d72-4ffa-9ec0-638a28bc1a97.APA citation style (7th ed.)
Connectional spirituality : small church pastors and the future of the church. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/3d89ef44-6d72-4ffa-9ec0-638a28bc1a97Chicago citation style (CMOS 17, author-date)
Connectional Spirituality : Small Church Pastors and the Future of the Church. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/3d89ef44-6d72-4ffa-9ec0-638a28bc1a97.Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
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- 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.
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- 12/01/2023
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