The Liminal Church: Why Navigating Thresholds Between Us Leads to Thriving

Through the discovery, design, and delivery stages of the doctoral project, I centered my work on the following NPO: Churches can thrive when they understand, navigate, and leverage the liminality existing between people, the community, and where God is leading. Despite the myriad of different contexts among local churches, whether polity, worship style, belief statements, and geographical locality, congregations are still composed of people living in relationship to one another and the community around them. Relationships, no matter their nature, are complicated. For the relationships within a local church to thrive, they require intentionality, coaching, effort, openness, and vulnerability. My vocational calling drives my research and project to serve Christ’s church. For over two decades, I have served as a local church pastor, congregational consultant/coach, and denominational leader within the Cooperative Baptist tradition. I cultivated an interactive book to address my NPO. The book is The Liminal Church: Why Navigating the Thresholds Between Us Leads to Thriving. The book examines social and cognitive science through a theological lens to enhance the church’s capacity for thriving. The book\u27s goal is not to provide an anthological background of each topic but a starting place for healthy dialogue and exploration of how to navigate these challenges together as a local church. The book currently consists of seven completed chapters, with a strategic plan to write ten more. There are four main facets of each chapter: (1) Primary learning content; (2) Chapter recap; (3) Personal introspection; (4) Group design exercise. The remaining ten chapters will examine the role of differentiation, the psychology of fear and othering, the challenges that arise with personality types within a church, the social science of political tribalism, various communication and conflict management styles, understanding intergenerational gaps, the power of presence, and the essential ingredient of fun within a congregation

A proposed community college two year hospitality program relative to the needs of the Mammoth Lake community

Purpose. It was the purpose of this study to assess the educational, technical, and managerial human resource needs of the primary economic business activity in Mammoth Lakes. Furthermore, the study addressed perceptions and attitudes of managers regarding education within the primary business activity in Mammoth Lakes; Methodology. The methods chosen for the study were informal and formal needs assessment techniques. The informal technique was used to determine the primary business activity in Mammoth Lakes. This was done through a demographic and economic analysis. The formal technique utilized a survey instrument with a descriptive method of reseach for analysis. The population surveyed were the lodging and foodservice (hospitality) managers in Mammoth Lakes. The instrument was developed using modified excerpts from two previous studies; Findings and conclusions. In examining the economic and demographic variables in Mono county and Mammoth Lakes, it was determined that the primary business activity in this area was hospitality. The survey instrument received a 92.42 percent usable response rate from the 64 foodservice and 80 lodging operations. The study found that a large percentage of hospitality management would hire graduates of a proposed Mammoth Lakes community college two year hospitality program over individuals without this degree. Hospitality managers would also be willing to pay these graduates more money relative to individual who did not graduate from this program. Furthermore, the study suggests that hospitality managers have difficulty hiring and training individuals in several functional areas and positions. Moreover, they perceive that there is a significant shortage of hospitality trained labor in Mammoth Lakes. These results conclude that there is a prevalent educational, technical, and managerial human resource need by the primary business activity in Mammoth Lakes; It was therefore concluded by the researcher, that proactive steps should be taken in the area of hospitality education to serve and address these needs. Furthermore, the researcher believes that a program emphasizing hospitality education in the developing Mammoth Lakes community college could address and serve these needs

Impacting Science Observation Skills Through Drawing Training

The research addressed was, how does drawing training impact the observational abilities of students? The list of motivating factors for this capstone includes students exhibiting a lack of ability to sit still and observe details of the world around them as well as exhibiting a lack of ability to design and communicate through drawings used in engineering. The author teaches art and science and has experienced these deficiencies. The author used an in-class project currently in the curriculum as the basis for the research. This project involved observing a reptile habitat as a subject for drawing. Betty Edwards’ book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (1999) was a key influence and resource for analyzing and supporting the impact drawing training has on observational skills in science class, but also in being a more complete observer of the world these students live

The Effects of Coupon Promotion on Repeat Visits in Restaurants

Will customers’ intention to return to a restaurant increase with coupon promotion? To answer this question, this study examines the hypothetical effects of coupon promotion on return visits to restaurants. Based on a literature review, three hypotheses were developed to test the effect of a coupon, its face value, and a patron’s prior dining experience on return intention. The authors found that neither coupon use nor coupon face value contributed to explaining respondents’ return intentions. However, repeat customers have a greater likelihood of returning to the restaurant than new customers. The study also showed that the quality of food and service were key indicators of return intention

Community Peer-Led Exercise Groups: Reasons for Success

Purpose: This paper considers reasons for the successful maintenance of community based, falls-prevention programs. While the physical achievement of such programs has been demonstrated through randomized trials, other features influential in ongoing membership have received less attention. This study examined the sustainability of a specific model of a community-based program in a New Zealand city: SAYGO, the strength and balance classes for older adults lead by older volunteer leaders recruited from local communities. Method: A qualitative, descriptive approach was used and first-hand knowledge of the experiences of those involved in the groups gathered. Data collection methods included individual interviews of two group organizers and seven focus groups: six with the members of the exercise groups (57 participants) and one with the peer leaders from these same groups (6 participants). Results: Three major themes emerged from the interviews. Two were related to the outcomes of the groups (ie. physical and social benefits). The third was concerned with the support needs of the groups to ensure their on-going maintenance. The aspect that most invigorated the participants was the social value of the group. Conclusions: A major feature that contributed to the sustainability of the peer led exercise groups was the positive social connectedness created by the modeling of a caring culture by the peer-leaders. This caring culture involves support and inclusion of every member and acting as a resource and confidant for individual issues. Because group leaders are similar in age and physical problems, it is expected that they will empathize with participants, and because of their community and agency links, it is expected that they will be able to act as a resource for information on issues related to the participants, therefore, stand between the formal and informal domains and are perceived to have knowledge and connections in both. This, we suggest, is a major, previously unconsidered feature in the sustainability of these groups

Does Campaigning on Social Media Make a Difference? Evidence from candidate use of Twitter during the 2015 and 2017 UK Elections

Social media are now a routine part of political campaigns all over the world. However, studies of the impact of campaigning on social platform have thus far been limited to cross-sectional datasets from one election period which are vulnerable to unobserved variable bias. Hence empirical evidence on the effectiveness of political social media activity is thin. We address this deficit by analysing a novel panel dataset of political Twitter activity in the 2015 and 2017 elections in the United Kingdom. We find that Twitter based campaigning does seem to help win votes, a finding which is consistent across a variety of different model specifications including a first difference regression. The impact of Twitter use is small in absolute terms, though comparable with that of campaign spending. Our data also support the idea that effects are mediated through other communication channels, hence challenging the relevance of engaging in an interactive fashion