Enhancing leadership in the life and culture of a merged congregation

Eddie Calvin Williams

Etd

Enhancing leadership in the life and culture of a merged congregation

Public Deposited

MLA citation style (9th ed.)

Eddie Calvin Williams. Enhancing Leadership In the Life and Culture of a Merged Congregation. Columbia Theological Seminary. rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/cddac994-9cde-441f-861d-a71f58f2a69e.

APA citation style (7th ed.)

E. C. Williams. Enhancing leadership in the life and culture of a merged congregation. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/cddac994-9cde-441f-861d-a71f58f2a69e

Chicago citation style (CMOS 17, author-date)

Eddie Calvin Williams. Enhancing Leadership In the Life and Culture of a Merged Congregation. Columbia Theological Seminary. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/cddac994-9cde-441f-861d-a71f58f2a69e.

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

Creator

Eddie Calvin Williams

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In Copyright

Abstract

The focus of this project was to help a young merged congregation gain a better understanding about leadership. The goal was to address the theme of biblical leadership using a retreat setting and opportunities for group dialogue and reflection in order to help the leaders in the church to better understand and practice more effective and faithful leadership. The project addresses the theoretical assumptions that underlie the project, including biblical and theological assumptions as well as assumptions about the church as an organism, leadership, and the culture of the church. Participatory Action Research method: The research process involved in this study led to important findings. Participants acknowledge that the culture of the merged congregation has a significant impact on the strength and effectiveness of the congregation's leadership. Results from this study also suggest that the process of engaging in the Participatory Action Research together resulted in a process of the leaders beginning to construct a new culture for the congregation. By engaging in the process, the leaders helped to both re-envision and reenact their relationship as a more collaborative and less conflictual and to begin to see the congregation as a single unified church. Secondly, the leaders began to see the church more as an organism rather than an organization. As they began to glimpse themselves as an organism, they see not only the differences among members, but also their relatedness. They understand themselves as different parts of the Body of Christ with different roles. They also see the role of Jesus as the head. In an organism, control is not distributed but retained by the head. In short, the results from this project validates the theoretical assumptions, Body of Christ, the church as an organism, and fellowship are useful concepts to strengthen the leadership of the church.

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