Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

1982

Document Type

Project Report

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

Steven P. Vitrano

Second Advisor

Arnold Kurtz

Third Advisor

Robert M. Johnston

Abstract

Wherever the Seventh-day Adventist Church with its professional ministry desires to improve its effectiveness, the matter of field education for interns as well as theological education is of importance. Somehow, guidelines and formative education for the ministers in the field has been lacking in the Scandinavian countries. Due to lack of orientation and the absence of supervised education in the practice of ministry, ministerial interns have often felt inadequate when taking up their own responsibilities for the work in their national environment. For the development of a field practicum that may change the situation stated above, this study has been made in order to:

1. investigate into the present-day attitude and practice of the internship in Scandinavia. To do this a questionnaire was sent to various personnel in the Finish, Swedish, and West Nordic Unions of Seventh-day Adventists. In addition, in order to obtain material concerning up-to-date experiences, conferences and interviews were held with both interns and experienced ministers. These were conducted primarily in the East Norway Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, but also in other fields of Scandinavia.

2. Gain knowledge of the development within present-day field training. Recent literature was consulted to search out the philosophy of experienced-based learning, which is also well-rooted in the Bible itself. It would not be stretching a point to conclude that Jesus, in his questioning, reflecting, and associative style of ministry has provided us with a model of what is involved in ministerial training and supervision.

3. Give consideration to the Scandinavian culture. The cultural gap between Christendom and the population is becoming wider. This study takes up the dynamic of change and how it may become a tool that will permit actual association with people. Thus the intern is made aware of personal interaction and its principles. It was concluded that a simple program workable for the Seventh-day Adventist ministers in Scandinavia is needed. The program is structured within a time frame of two years with at least two different supervisors. The content of the program takes up issues of the learner's role, the context or field setting, and the supervisor’s role. Samples of instruments for the intern's skill and competence development are also in the text and appendix. From the study, it is suggested that ministerial field training may be one viable means of increasing the church's effectiveness in presenting the gospel.

Subject Area

Clergy--Study and teaching (Internship); Seventh-day Adventists--Clergy--Training of; Seventh-day Adventists--Scandinavia

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/dmin/417/

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