| dc.description.abstract | Good preaching has always been vital to the health of Christ's church. hl
order to strengthen preaching, this project designed a comprehensive program in continuing
education in preaching for pastors of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS).
To assist in designing an educationally sound program, this project has drawn
on the insights of continuing professional education in the United States, all the while evaluating
those insights through the lens of Scripture.
The research focused on designing a program that meets the unique needs of
preaching in the WELS in the 21 8t century. The research included a survey of active parish
pastors; interviews with pastors, church administrators, and homiletics professors; and a Delphi
group of congregational members, both men and women. Based on that research, ten key issues
for growth in preaching were identified as the central focus ofthe plan.
The core of the comprehensive program will be delivered through twelve issues
of the bimonthly Preach the Word newsletter that is received by all WELS pastors. The
newsletters will be supplemented by online resources found on the Wisconsin Lutheran
Seminary web site as well as by in-person and online courses and workshops delivered
through the seminary's continuing education program.
hl keeping with the confidentiality promised to all who were interviewed for
tIns project, all quotations included from those interviews are anonymous. Therefore, the reader
will find no parenthetical references in the body of the project or any listing of the interviews
in the reference list. When such quotations are used, any peliinent infonnation that can be
shared (identifying, for example, whether the one interviewed was a pastor, professor, church
administrator, or lay person) is incorporated into the text surrounding the quotation. | en_US |
