Preaching for discipleship in an emerging post modern context

Clines, Paul D.

Etd

Preaching for discipleship in an emerging post modern context

Public Deposited

MLA citation style (9th ed.)

Clines, Paul D. Preaching for Discipleship In an Emerging Post Modern Context. Asbury Theological Seminary. rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/8c43a96b-66b0-4e0c-afff-b318faec367a.

APA citation style (7th ed.)

C. P. D. Preaching for discipleship in an emerging post modern context. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/8c43a96b-66b0-4e0c-afff-b318faec367a

Chicago citation style (CMOS 17, author-date)

Clines, Paul D. Preaching for Discipleship In an Emerging Post Modern Context. Asbury Theological Seminary. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/8c43a96b-66b0-4e0c-afff-b318faec367a.

Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.

Creator

Clines, Paul D.

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In Copyright

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a model of preaching for discipleship and to evaluate its effectiveness in encouraging discipleship in the lives of Christians in a postmodern context. The model was developed from a survey of relevant literature in the fields of preaching, communication, persuasion, transfer learning, and postmodernism. The study took place at Parkway United Methodist Church, a new church reaching families in the suburbs southwest of Houston, Texas. Nineteen people participated in the study by completing a series of pretest questionnaires. The questionnaires sought to determine to what extent they demonstrated the characteristics of a postmodern person, a baseline for determining their spiritual well-being, and the extent to which they were engaged in specific spiritual habits. Each participant then listened to a five-week sermon series on developing spiritual habits, each sermon speaking to a different habit (prayer, Bible study, giving, outreach, and ministry). Each week of the sermon series every attendee at Parkway UMC was encouraged to complete a brief questionnaire seeking to determine to what extent they felt the sermon that week fit the model for preaching to encourage discipleship. Three weeks and eight weeks after the sermon series the participants were again tested to determine if there was any change in their spiritual well being and if they showed any measurable increase in the spiritual habits covered in the sermons. The questionnaires indicated: 1) the participants demonstrated a mixture of modern and postmodern characteristics; 2) there was not a significant increase in spiritual well-being as measured by the Spiritual Well-Being scale; 3) the participants did demonstrate a measurable increase in participation of the habits preached about in the sermon series; and 4) the attendees at Parkway UMC agreed that the sermons in the series fit the model for preaching for discipleship. The major findings of the study include the following observations: postmodern characteristics are not limited to a specific age group, but can be demonstrated across a spectrum of ages. Factors that are important when preaching for discipleship among people with postmodern characteristics are: the preacher is credible, the sermon is biblical, experiential, relevant, simple, and practical.

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