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A Framework for Church Leadership
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TextPublication details: Johannesburg, South Africa South African Theological Seminary 2012Description: 141p PDF A4 Abstract. Table of contents. BibliographySubject(s): Dissertation note: Master of Theology (Mth) South African theological Seminary 2012 Summary: Church leadership is identified as a vital theological issue facing the twenty-first century church in the midst of negative church growth statistics as well as the struggle of the church to be faithful and relevant in rapidly changing cultural contexts. Key indicators supporting this are the overall lack of scholarly research with respect to church leadership as spiritual leadership, the failure of the pastoral leadership model to address missiological and ecclesiological challenges as well contemporary approaches, either functional or organisational, offering only method and strategy rather than spiritual and theological remedies. Alternatively, the missional approach, rooted in the nature and purpose of the church, offers a theocentric rather than an anthropocentric remedy to the leadership issue. The goal of the study is to explore a framework for church leadership following the missional approach.The missional approach begins with the intentions and actions of God. In reviewing the purpose of God, as expressed through the Kingdom of God motif, and subsequently this influence on the nature and ministry of the church,it was concluded that the church is thoroughly missional,and called to represent the Kingdom as its community, servant and messenger. On this foundation the church leadership construct is explored using the theological framework of ontology, methodology and teleology and concluded that church leadership in its ontology is called by the grace of God not by the will of man; in its methodology gifted by the grace of God and reflecting the nature of Christ and in its teleology exercising spiritual authority towards God’s purpose. The application of this theocentric view promotes a missional leadership system. The historical and current perspectives of the church revealed current leadership praxis still influenced by historical legacies of institutionalism, maintenance mode, individualism, volunteerism and mission as a separate calling in the church. The outcome is the church struggling to be an effective witness in a rapidly changing environment as well as struggling with its own ecclesial life. The conclusion arrived at is that nothing less than the reformulation of current ecclesiology in terms of mission will suffice.In proposing a church leadership framework the research emphasised that any model is only as good as the underlying theological paradigm and therefore recognising that the solution to the leadership dilemma is spiritual and theological rather than mere method and strategy. Some six essential elements of a missional ecclesiology were identified which a subsequent model will activate, embed and maintain. A working model (framework) was proposed which includes three key components -a model of the church that reflects its missional nature, a model of leadership roles and relationships that enforces the missional fitness of the church and an organisational model reflecting missional bias. Together these components reflect a church leadership framework satisfying the missional purpose of the church.Whilst the proposed research question was satisfactorily answered, several observations and recommendations are made to further close the gap between theology and practice.
| Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | URL | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
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Thesis
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South African Theological Seminary Online Resource | Electronic Holdings | Link to Resource | Available | 0000000000659 |
Master of Theology (Mth) South African theological Seminary 2012
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