Program

Doctor of Ministry

Number of Pages

235

Year Approved

2024

First Advisor

Song, Kris

Second Reader

Jeanine Parolini; Josh Carrol

Abstract

This study sought to address the need for effective practices in the pulpit ministry that would mitigate ecclesial adoption of popular culture. To achieve this goal, the researcher carried out a review of the host cultures of the 1st century church and a content analysis of the speeches of Peter in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost and Paul in Pisidian Antioch. He also carried out a general overview of the apostolic speeches to ascertain whether the two aforementioned speeches would be considered representative. He identified and isolated several common practices. Further, he performed an ecclesial impact analysis of those speeches relative to then prevailing Jewish and Greco-Roman culture. Subsequently, this researcher carried out a review of the contemporary literature on the pulpit ministry. He identified Post-modernism as the prevailing American culture. He focused on and did an overview of consumerism as an expression of Postmodernism and its impact on the American Church over the past sixty years. He also carried out an overview of the parallel developments in the pulpit ministry over the same period before identifying what contemporary academicians and scholarly pulpit ministry practitioners consider to be effective pulpit ministry practices for mitigating ecclesial adoption of popular culture. These practices were harmonized with those identified in the apostolic speeches to form twelve salient issues. The twelve salient issues provided the basis for analyzing the twenty four messages from three Converge Worldwide churches located in Minneapolis and St. Paul and eight messages from one Mega-church based in Houston, Texas. A number of findings were made which showed a general imbalance in the speeches emanating from the American pulpit which, if corrected, have the potential to mitigate ecclesial adoption to negative aspects of the popular culture.

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

Document Type

Doctoral thesis

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