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oai:mountainscholar.org:10217/801862025-12-30T03:22:25Zcom_10217_100532com_10217_100000com_10217_100405com_10217_100303col_10217_100538col_10217_100410

Veliquette, Abigail J., author Lynham, Susan A., advisor Gloeckner, Gene, committee member Mumford, Troy, committee member Smallwood, Steve, committee member 2007-01-03T05:54:05Z 2007-01-03T05:54:05Z 2013 Veliquette_colostate_0053A_11838.pdf http://hdl.handle.net/10217/80186 https://doi.org/10.25675/3.018517 Western Protestant churches measure success through member engagement. Waning church member engagement has led some to argue that ineffective leadership structures are to blame. While the possibility of shared leadership has been advanced to this end, its use in Western Protestant Church settings has yet to be explored and understood. Thus, this study sought to inform and illuminate how member engagement occurred in Western Protestant house churches that practiced shared leadership. This study was conducted within the Naturalistic paradigm, utilizing the embedded methodologies of hermeneutic phenomenology and ethnography to (a) understand the lived experience and in situ culture of individuals who attend Western Protestant churches where shared leadership is practiced and its perceived effect on their resulting engagement as members of those churches and (b) based on these findings, offer thick description for deep understanding, informed action, and further study as to how shared leadership might be utilized within Western Protestant churches to foster member engagement. Findings indicated that he culture of the house churches selected could best be described through the practiced mediums of the house church including meeting in homes, fellowship time, the physical set up, the flexible structure, and the study of scripture. These mediums were indicative of the underlying beliefs, values, and assumptions of the house church culture. Additionally, the adaptive nature of the church has, in notable part, instigated this shift towards house churches. Some of the manifestations of this shift are seen through the enactment of shared leadership as visible through decision-making and the ways in which church members take initiative to be involved. Additionally, the manifestation of church member engagement is visible through how these members construct, shared and individual, the experiences of participation in the weekly gatherings, interaction throughout the week, and an increased sense of ownership and responsibility. Finally, the themes that had emerged were predominantly confirmed via a final quantitative member checking survey and enabled me to develop contextualized definitions for shared leadership and engagement. born digital doctoral dissertations English eng Colorado State University. Libraries 2000-2019 Copyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright. organizational leadership leadership Western Protestant Church engagement human resource development Shared leadership and member engagement in Western Protestant house churches: a naturalistic inquiry Text Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Doctoral Education Colorado State University This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). open.access