looking for a research partner

I'm excited to reach the next stage in the work I began at Yale (and even before, actually) on pastoral leadership and faith as a way of life.  Many readers of this blog know that the faith as a way of life project led to the book on pastoral leadership of the same title published by Eerdmans this past June.  Lilly Endowment has funded a new project here at Luther Seminary which will build on what I've already done.  Lots more can be said and will be over time here but for now I want just to highlight the basic plan and post a job description for the Associate Director position.

From the proposal:

"This project explicitly builds on an understanding of pastoral excellence as pastoral imagination for the task of shaping communities for living faith as a way of life.  Given this definition of the fundamental purpose of pastoral leadership, our goal is to answer the key question “How is pastoral excellence—and the pastoral imagination it requires—formed through pastoral practice over time?”   As a part of pursuing this goal, we have three main objectives:

1.    Capture the complexity and coherence of developmental processes of learning pastoral imagination through interviews with and observations of samples of seminarians, pastors and the congregations they serve in five distinct sites throughout the nation;
2.    Create and foster relational networks of seminarians, pastors, theological educators, and congregational leaders, encouraging conversation about their work in relation to a practice model of learning pastoral imagination over time;
3.    Publish and Disseminate materials that portray how one learns pastoral imagination with recommendations of developmentally appropriate tasks at each stage of learning over time, including the specific tasks appropriate to the years of formal graduate theological education."

And here's the job description. 

Download research_grant_position_110508.docx

  If you know someone, get in touch with me!

Comments

[Andy Rowell]

Makes me think of the Practical Theology grads from Princeton like your colleague Andy Root who worked with Kenda Dean and Rick Osmer, and perhaps people in your alma mater Emory or Vanderbilt's Practical Theology programs. No one graduating yet from Duke's Th.D. program though maybe next year though I do not think any are as interested in research as this. I would assume most of the folk interested in pastoral formation would want to teach and not just do research.

Also reminds me of Hartford Seminary and Louisville Institute and Lilly and what they do. I note a bunch of people doing research on congregations in this post:
http://www.andyrowell.net/andy_rowell/2008/10/on-the-use-of-surveys-by-church-leaders.html

I would assume too that your Ph.D. grads there are Luther might be interested. Perhaps also a Ph.D. student with Mark Lau Branson at Fuller.

I wonder too about Brian Williams from Regent College, though I don't think he has done his Ph.D., who wrote The Potter's Rib: Mentoring for Pastoral Formation.
http://www.amazon.com/Potters-Rib-Mentoring-Pastoral-Formation/dp/1573832677

all the best,
andy

Andy Rowell
Th.D. Student
Duke Divinity School
Blog: http://www.andyrowell.net