Research Project
This guide exists to aid you in locating resources that will enhance your research about Christian Leadership. Here you will find highlights of the most relevant databases, including search strategies to help you get started in your research. You will also find a list of a few key resources. Please use the "Chat with a Librarian" instant messaging service during library hours or contact the Distance Learning Librarian at julieburchfield@leeuniversity.edu should you need additional research assistance.
Your assignment:
Write a paper developing an integrated definition of Christian leadership.
The structure of the paper should be as follows:
- ​Introduction (Includes Thesis)
- Biblical Foundation: You should be able to identify key passages that will contribute to your understanding of the definition of Christian leadership.
- Contemporary Leadership Theory: You should be able to identify leadership theories that contribute to your understanding of the definition of Christian leadership.
- Leadership Development in the Local Church: You should be able to identify elements of leadership development that will contribute to your understanding of the definition of Christian leadership.
- Conclusion (Restate your Thesis)
The paper proposal (Due at the end of Week 3) should be 2-3 pages in length, double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font with 1-inch margins, and written in the Turabian (SOR Manual of Style) format.
The final paper should be 10-12 pages in length, double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font with 1-inch margins, and written in the Turabian (SOR Manual of Style) format.
Resources
There are a lot of resources out there! The trick is finding the resources that actually deal with your research topic and address the subject of your paper. To accomplish this seemingly daunting task, you need to develop a search strategy.
- Come up with keywords that deal with your research topic and perform a keyword search in the library's databases for these terms.
- Mix and match these keywords with other aspects of your research. As you add more search terms, your result list will become smaller but more concentrated to your area of research.
- When you find a resource that meets the need of your research, look at its subject terms to find other similar resources and to identify other search terms that you can add to your search. Here are just a few examples.
- ATLA Religion This link opens in a new window
The ATLA Religion Database will help you tremendously as you search for sources to support your research concerning the Biblical and Theological Foundations of Christian Leadership.
The ATLA Religion database is the premiere religion database offered through Squires Library and offers several valuable tools that will enhance your research process. See the list below to view each tool individually or scroll through the list of instructions to view all.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Use the multiple search boxes in the ATLA Religion Database to create a search strategy and search for multiple terms that describe your search topic. Watch the instructional video below to see how to complete an Advanced Search.
INDEXES
Using the Indexes tool in ATLA will help you easily identify sources that are about a specific topic. The ATLA Index works much like an index in a book, find your topic and then see where information about that topic is located. For our purposes, using the Index tool to search by subject will be most beneficial. Watch the instructional video below to see how this tool in action.
THESAURUS
Another helpful tool in ATLA is the thesaurus. Using the Thesaurus tool in ATLA will help you identify other subject terms that are related to your search topic. This tool is similar to the ATLA Index tool but is different in that it will help you broaden your search outside of your original keyword search. Watch the instructional video below to see how this tool in action.
SCRIPTURES
Using the Scriptures tool in ATLA will help you easily identify sources that are about a specific Biblical text. This tool allows you to search for resources that are about a specific book in the Bible, a certain chapter in a book in the Bible, or even a key verse in the Bible. You can also limit these resources by entering additional search terms to your scripture search. Watch the instructional video below to see how this tool in action.
Related Research Starters
These research starters, supplied by Salem Press through the library's EBSCO Discovery Service, provide an excellent place to begin your research. Each research starter gives a brief summary of the leadership style and each includes a bibliography. Use these research starters to become more familiar with the different styles of leadership and to look for words, terms and phrases that might help you develop your search strategy.
Remember: the bibliography or works cited page of any work is a vital resource; it can lead you to other credible resources to use in your research!
Authoritarian, Democratic, and Laissez-Faire Leadership
Corporate Leaders as Volunteers
Leadership and social psychology
- You may perform an EBSCO Discovery Service search in order to access the library's eBook collection and almost all of the library's database subscriptions.
- You may also search through a specific database by clicking on the grey box labeled "Databases" on the right hand side of the screen.
Below you will find some of our top databases for your research topic. The links will take you to some general search results. This is a great place to start but remember to add some other search terms to limit your results even further and to create a list of resources that are even more specific to your research topic.
- Academic OneFile with InfoTrac Collections This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
Connect students to the information they're looking for with tools that make discovery fast and easy. This premier periodical resource provides millions of articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources. -- Gale Cengage
- Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
More than 6,600 active full-text journals and magazines in various disciplines. - ATLA Religion This link opens in a new windowProduced by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA), ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials provides coverage dating back to 1908 with indexing for some journal titles extending back into the 19th century. Full-text journal articles and reviews are selected for inclusion by leading religion scholars. -- Ebsco
When searching in the library's online catalog, remember to limit your results to items that are available as Material Type: EBOOKS.
I completed a simple subject search for the term "Christian leadership." Click here to see a complete list of my results. You will need to limit by Material Type: EBOOKS to see only those resources that are available electronically. View the short video below to learn how.
Church Reform and Leadership of Change by ISBN: 9780227905852Publication Date: 2016-12-29"Reforms and processes of change have become an increasingly pervasive characteristic of European Protestant churches in the last fifteen to twenty years. Driven by perceptions of crises, such as declining membership rates, dwindling finances, decreasing participation in church rituals, and less support of traditional church doctrine, but also changes of governance of religion more generally, many churches feel compelled to explore new forms of operations, activities, and organizational structures. What is the inner dynamic and nature of these processes? This book explores this question by applying perspectives from organizational studies and bringing them into dialogue with ecclesiological categories, seeking to provide a richer understanding of the field of processes of change in churches." -- Description from Amazon.
Pauline Theology of Church Leadership by ISBN: 9780567525277Publication Date: 2007-11-29"Scholarly studies consider Paul's views on leadership tend to fall into one of three camps: 1) the historical development view, which in large measure identifies developments in church practice with developments in Pauline and deutero-Pauline ecclesiology; 2) the synchronic, historical reconstruction, typically making use of Graeco-Roman, social context sources, or social-scientific modelling, focusing on a single congregation, and sometimes distinguishing between the situation to which Paul was responding and the pattern he sought to impose; and 3) the theological/hermeneutical analysis, identifying Paul's particular approach to power and authority, often independently of any detailed reconstruction of the situations to which Paul was responding. Andrew Clarke has explored in an earlier work, Serve the Community of the Church (Eerdmans, 2000), the distinctive, local and historical situations in the various Pauline communities and concluded that there is no evidence that they organised themselves according to a common set of governmental structures which clearly developed with the passage of time. Rather each community was influenced by its own localized, social and cultural context. The present project builds on this, and necessarily focuses on leadership style rather than church order. It seeks to recover from Paul's critical responses, his generic ethos of church leadership, including the ideal qualities, characteristics and task of leaders and the nature of appropriate interaction and engagement with church members. In the light of current, theoretical discussions about power and gender, the study focuses particularly on Paul's attitude towards hierarchy, egalitarianism, authority, responsibility and privilege." -- Description from EBSCO.
Reviving the Congregation by ISBN: 9781451489712Publication Date: 2014-09-01"Pastoral leadership has always been challenging, but leaders today face unprecedented challenges. In such times, leaders can benefit from a wise mentor who understands the terrain and can chart a way forward. In Reviving the Congregation, Michael W. Foss, bestselling author of Power Surge, steps forward as that mentor. Bringing decades of experience in congregational life and leadership and a winsome style to the work, Foss offers a compelling introduction to the new context in which we lead, and the personal and congregational strategies that will offer a way forward." -- Summary provided by publisher.
Servant Leadership for Church Renewal by ISBN: 9780585262055Publication Date: 1999-01-01"As we explore servant style leading, we will look at our basic understanding of leadership. We seek to develop a biblical leadership model that implements and reflects our faith in the Good Shepherd. In a vacuum of leadership or when leadership panics, tactics of fear and intimidation can be used to 'round up the flock.' Our style of shepherding directly impacts the results, whether in approaching one who has strayed from the fold or in handling a touchy issue at a board meeting. Our leadership style will be evident to the flock, and the flock will respond accordingly." -- From the introduction.
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