Date

7-15-2024

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Chair

Thomas Cook

Keywords

Discipleship, Mission, Missional Church, Attractional Church, Leadership, Culture

Disciplines

Leadership Studies | Practical Theology

Abstract

The purpose of this action research project is to design, execute, and evaluate a small group instructional framework that cultivates a missional culture focused on communal discipleship at MVMNT Church, a local church in the Association of Related Churches network, while also addressing a gap in scholarship surrounding the interrelation of discipleship and the missional church. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study leveraged inductive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with survey data to validate the lack of discipleship activity at MVMNT Church and moderate-to-low comprehension of topics related to mission, discipleship, and leadership in the church. This project recommended and directed an intervention consisting of an instructional program that targeted seven members of MVMNT Church in formal and informal church leadership to cultivate an environment for learning, knowledge-sharing, and mutual edification in discipleship to address the problem. Longitudinal analysis of survey data collected post-intervention demonstrates the success of the instructional framework in improving comprehension of these topics and the effective catalysis of discipleship. This project proposes an instructional framework bridging the gap between mission and discipleship scholarship, with the potential to improve missional discipleship cultures in many other similar church environments. The project processed the generalizability and transferability of this research and areas warranting more in-depth study.

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