Entries Tagged 'Doctor of Ministry' ↓

Good reminder as we plow through our dissertation work!

Awhile back we wrote about the movie, “Meet the Robinsons.” Recently, in the midst of pretty intense dissertation work, we remembered a key phrase from the movie: “Keep moving forward!”

It’s great advice for whatever stage of life’s journey we find ourselves in. In our case, we’re 3.5 years into our Doctor of Ministry programs, and about halfway through our dissertation process. We’re on track, but we’re at the point where we need to submit our proposal drafts for a proposal hearing later this summer. This is a week of intense work, a week we have to keep reminding ourselves: “Keep moving forward!”

If we keep moving forward, this part of life’s journey will culminate on 05.24.2008 in Wilmore, KY, in a graduation ceremony!

The ministry project for Randy’s dissertation.

Earlier, we said we’d write more later about our specific ministry projects. In the conversations with Russell West that we wrote about in that post, both of our ministry projects changed. Rather than conducting ministry projects in our local settings, we will now be looking for leaders who are doing what we want to do and then study them. It’s a change we’re both very excited about. Of course, we will apply what we learn in our local settings, so it’s win-win.

My project will involve studying/observing 3 leaders who are shaping a missional culture through their leadership and communication. After studying them, I will write about the lessons I’ve learned and that will provide the rest of the material for my dissertation.

My top two choices, at the moment, are …

Andy Stanley / North Point Community (Atlanta, GA)

Erwin McManus / Mosaic (Los Angeles, CA)

I will need to choose the third/final leader from one of the following …

Kirbyjon Caldwell / Windsor Village United Methodist Church (Houston, TX)

Bill Hybels / Willow Creek Community Church (South Barrington, IL)

Ed Young / Fellowship Church (Fort Worth, TX)

Mike Slaughter / Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church (Tipp City, OH)

Adam Hamilton / Church of the Resurrection United Methodist Church (Leawood, KS)

Mark Beeson / Granger Community Church (a United Methodist Church) (Granger, IN)

Rudy & Juanita Rasmus / St. Johns United Methodist Church (Houston, TX)

Pete Hise / Quest Community Church (Lexington, KY)

T.D. Jakes / The Potter’s House (Dallas, TX)

Comments …

Not sure why there are so many Texas-based churches on this list!

Andy Stanley and Erwin McManus top my list (you’ll notice we’ve recommended some their books in the sidebar). Both are huge in shaping my leadership and communication. Choosing one of the others will be no easy task!

More than likely the third/final leader I’ll choose will either be Kirbyjon Caldwell, Bill Hybels, or Ed Young. However, since it might be a good idea to include at least one United Methodist leader/church, Kirbyjon might get the nod.

I also added one lesser known leader/church to the mix (Pete Hise, Quest Community). We visited there last January; it’s a young, growing congregation. I like that they have a female teaching pastor (Helen Musick) who seems to provide a good portion of the Sunday preaching responsibilities.

After I submit my second draft (in the next couple of weeks, hopefully), I will begin work on this project so I have a few weeks to make a decision. If you’d like to weigh in on my selections, or propose another leader who’s shaping a missional culture, please click on “comments” and add your thoughts to the mix.

Looking forward to graduation one year from today!

One year from today, 24 May 2008, is graduation day at Asbury Theological Seminary. As long as we stay on track and complete our dissertations this year, we expect to be in Wilmore, KY one year from today to receive our doctor of ministry degrees! Needless to say, we’re very excited and can’t wait!

The countdown continues.

Dr. Russell West (our faculty mentor) presses us for the puzzle behind our dissertation topics!

In our last post related to our dissertation work, we reported that we mailed our first drafts to our mentor, Dr. Russell West, at Asbury Theological Seminary.

We both had very productive conversations with Russell last Friday by phone as he travelled to Louisville, KY. We both received good direction, and interestingly, both of our ministry projects are going to take a major detour. We’re both very excited about these changes (we’ll say more about our projects in another post).

Russell is very good at challenging you and getting you to the heart of the matter. Russell asks, “What’s the puzzle?” For Russell, this is the most important question. IOW, Russell asks, “What is not right in the world?” It’s a question Russell pressed us with when we met him last summer and again last January when we had lunch with him. We still needed some more pressing last week. (Incidentally, this question can be helpful in other contexts, too; for example, I started my sermon prep last week by asking this question.)

From our conversation, Russell sensed that the word “impact” was a keyword for me. In fact, our conversation reminded me of what I wrote a couple of months ago after the Chris Tomlin concert. I had written that I felt the experience at the concert was influencing my thinking on my dissertation work but I wasn’t sure how, at the time.

I did expand a little in my journal that same evening …

During the brief intermission, I wrote this: “I don’t just want to do ‘pastor things’ – I want to change the world! I want to be a transformational agent!”

As I wrote that I recalled the passion (and perhaps some naïveté) I had when I first responded to God. It was a charge-hell-with-a-water-pistol kind of passion, a passion to change the world! As I’ve grown and matured, I’ve also become a little less naïve (I hope) but I don’t want to lose my passion to be a change agent for God in the world.

I also thought about how this passion to be a change agent might impact the work on my dissertation (that I’m now beginning). We really don’t need another model for doing or leading church. I think what we need is more of God. Sure, we need good systems, but God has to be at the center of any system we develop, I’m curious how this will develop!

Thankfully, Russell helped me begin to make some connections.

Well, we’ll write more later about our specific ministry projects, but for now we need to reframe/redraft what we’ve already written. The good news is that we are on schedule (if not ahead of schedule). We should be one or two drafts away from our official proposal hearing sometime this summer.

Previously, we wrote about our first dissertation-related deadline. We had a little work remaining after the weekend, and we also wanted to read/edit each other’s work before mailing them, so it took a little longer than we had anticipated. It was intense, but it was also a very good first step in the process.

But, today we mailed our first drafts of the first three chapters of our dissertations (i.e. our “proposals”). What a relief!

One thing we’ll mention here is that instead of mailing our proposals to the D.Min. office, we mailed them to our faculty mentor, Dr. Russell West (at his request). This is where having a mentor at this early stage will be very helpful. When we get our work back from Russell in the next couple of weeks, we’ll work on the suggested improvements and then mail them to the D.Min. office. That should help us to be in good shape for the next phase (of preparing the document for our proposal hearing).

Now, a brief word about out topics …

Joleen is studying/developing a model of small group ministry that includes service and outreach as well as Bible study and fellowship.

Randy is studying/developing an approach to shape a leadership culture that will help the church to be more fully engaged in God’s mission.

We’ll take a little breather from the intensity. But, the work goes on and we’ll continue reviewing books and
resources related to our topics. We’ll also work on designing projects (related to our topics) for our ministry
settings. The main goal of the next two to
three months is to improve, expand, and polish our proposals.

It’s now "crunch time" as we near our first big deadline for our dissertation projects — Friday, 16 March 2007. T-minus 7 days!

We had hoped to be further along than we are but we think we’re still within range of meeting this deadline. 3/16 isn’t actually a hard and fast deadline; it’s more of a guideline. But we’re hoping to get pretty close. Most of our spare time, including our day off on Monday, will be devoted to this task. This first deadline is very important. Getting behind at this stage will force us to play catch up, so we want to stay on track as much as we can.

For this first deadline, we are to submit a rough draft of chapters 1-3 of our dissertation projects. We both have written rough drafts of chapter 1 and are working on chapter 2, which is a pretty intense review of literature related to our topics. The plan, at the moment, is to be pretty well done by Saturday (3/17), and to mail them out on Monday (3/19), after our home visit with the social worker from our adoption agency.

After we submit this first assignment, we’ll continue researching current literature. Over the next few months, we’ll work on polishing the first three chapters, in preparation of a "proposal hearing" later this summer.

One of our next big steps will involve putting together a Research Reflection Team, a group of 4-8 people from our local churches who will meet with us nine times during the rest of the year, to help us process our research and offer feedback along the way. We expect these groups to get started shortly after Easter.

Well, we’ll post our next dissertation progress report after we complete this first leg of the journey! We will try to say more about our specific topics in that report as well.

We will occasionally post reports on the progress of our dissertation work. For this first report, we wish we had more progress to report than we do. It has been 5 weeks since our class, and while we always need a break after class, we had hoped to be a little further along than we are. But, fortunately, we’re not quite in panic mode yet!

The goal is still to write a (very) rough draft of chapters 1-3 by 03.16.2007, which still gives us four weeks to get it done. In reality, this may very well be the most important part of the entire process. Once we get this draft turned in we can work toward a "proposal hearing" sometime this summer.

Once approved, the next step is to work on projects in our
respective charges, probably summer / late summer / early fall.
Afterward (in the fall) we’ll write the final two chapters, 4-5.
Hopefully, then, in the spring of 2008, we would be ready to "defend"
our dissertations before a committee. If that’s successful, we will
graduate on 05.24.2008, completing a 4.5 year journey!

We are grateful that we have a faculty mentor to work with from the
beginning of this process. Normally students are not assigned mentors
until at least mid-March after
they submit a rough draft of the first three chapters. Fortunately, however, we already have a faculty mentor. Dr. Russell West has agreed to work with both of us. We are very much looking forward to working with him!

Next steps …

Randy is hoping to write a rough draft of Chapter 1
(introduction and overview of the dissertation project) in the next few
days, and then conduct a "review of literature" (i.e. Chapter 2)
related to his topic during the next 3 to 4 weeks. During the fourth
week, he’ll rough out chapter 3, which is about the design of the
proposed project.

Joleen has been doing research to help nail down her topic.
She has an important meeting scheduled on Monday with a pastor in our
Conference whom she thinks has been doing something similar to what she
wants to do and study.

Whew! What a week. The "dissertation-writing and church-based research class" that we took this past week on campus was pretty overwhelming. It was a very helpful week, though, but it is simply the beginning of a long journey that will, God willing, culminate with graduation in May 2008!

I wrote earlier this week on Wednesday right after one of the most important points of the week for me. I had just become more clear about my research focus (after a day of class discussion on students’ topics), a process that I’ve been thinking about (to one degree or another) since beginning the program three years ago. During these two years I’ve gone through a couple of ideas (storytelling as a leadership skill and spiritual leadership). Interestingly, both of these may very well play a part in my current focus.

The highlight of the week, though, was the lunch we had with Dr. Russell West. Joleen and I took a class he taught last July called "Developing Leadership in the Local Church." On Friday of that week (just before making the long trip home), the three of us went to lunch to discuss possible dissertation topics. During the week, Dr. West had expressed openness to working with us on our projects (the school assigns us a faculty mentor to work with us on the dissertation project).

In preparation for this past week on campus, we made arrangements to meet with Dr. West again. Once again, we met for lunch on Friday before heading home. We met at Romano’s Macaroni Grill (our favorite Italian chain, but that’s another story). It was a tremendously helpful time for both Joleen and I. We left with much clearer direction for our projects!

So in case you’re wondering what the next 17 months might look like, here’s the basic time-line …

• By 03.16.2007, a rough draft of Chapters 1-3 (out of 5) is due; this essentially represents our "proposal." This may very well be the most important deadline of all. Everything that follows seems to depend on this one. (FWIW, students that do not gain approval within one year, must retake this class. This year, there were 20 of us taking the class for the first time. There were approximately 10 students taking it for the second time! Actually, about 70% of people who start doctoral programs in the US do NOT ever finish. Yikes. Perseverance is the keyword!)
• During the summer of 2007, we will attend a "proposal hearing" to gain approval for our topic/project ideas.
• In late summer and/or early Fall, following approval, we will conduct our proposed ministry projects in our respective contexts; at the completion of our projects (now called "interventions"), we will write Chapters 4 and 5 which reflect on what we learned from our projects and point to possible future research ideas for others to carry the research further.
• In early 2008, we will meet with a D.Min. committee to defend our dissertation.
• Assuming we survive this process, we anticipate graduating on 05.24.2008, a little more than 16 months from now!

We’re excited about this journey and pray that it will be a huge growth opportunity for us and the congregations we serve. We would appreciate your prayers during this experience!

I am posting this while we’re on our afternoon break. As you may know Joleen and I are in Wilmore, KY this week for our ninth and final class in the D.Min. program at Asbury Theological Seminary. This course begins the final 17-month stretch of this journey. It promises to be a meaningful, albeit grueling, process. I am excited about it, but we would definitely appreciate your prayers for us over the course of this last leg of our D.Min. journey!

It’s been a good, though tough, week. We’re learning about how to write a dissertation — not an overly exciting topic, but extremely necessary. We are also trying to settle on and clarify the topics we’re going to spend the next year or so researching and writing on. My topic is finally starting to take some significant shape today (I’ll try to say more about that later when I have more time). In fact, just before the break I was the next-to-last student to discuss my topic. The feedback I received was the professor and the students was extremely helpful!

Well, I’ll try to post again before leaving on Friday after lunch.

I’m writing this final reflection on Friday (and the week) on Saturday
afternoon. Yesterday was a very long day; we arrived home last night
around 11:00 pm, slightly more than 9 hours after leaving Asbury.

Class concluded shortly after noon yesterday, after which Joleen and
I went to Subway for lunch with Dr. West to discuss our dissertation
ideas. It was nice to get to know Russell a little better and to get
some direction on our dissertation topics.

At the moment, Joleen is thinking about something along the lines of
teams, small groups, and community. I went into this week thinking
about "spiritual leadership," but during the course of the week began
changing my focus toward something along the lines of developing and
creating a leadership culture in order to experience community
transformation (church and the wider community). Well, this is all
still very much in process!

Yesterday’s final class session began with devotion by a student based on Acts 4.23-31
(a section of scripture I especially like). Then we divided into two
groups for two final team-building activities. We also attempted, as a
class, the exercise that we were unable to do a few days ago (lowering
the hula hoop as a group using only all of our index fingers). We did
better (at least holding it in place a little longer) but we still were
not able to lower it. Oh well.

This week we’ve watched a few clips from the movie Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story (1996). We hope to watch the whole movie soon. It’s a challenging and inspirational story.

Our week of class on campus is over but we now have nearly 3 months
to complete our post-class work which involves writing 17-20 page paper
(more about that later).

Well, thanks for reading along this week. Now it’s time to make
final preparations for worship gatherings tomorrow at 12th Street and
Hope. I hope to see you there!