Lynne Taylor

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Tag: faith formation

God attributes and personal aspirations

Written by Lynne on . Posted in faith formation, missional, research, Uncategorised. Leave a Comment

a woman sitting on a couch reading a book

Wow! A lot has happened since I last talked about my Birmingham fellowship project that explores the relationship between people’s perceptions of God and their aspirations towards living well. Jessica and I finished collecting and analysing our first set of data (thank you everyone who shared and/or completed the questionnaire!) and we presented our findings at the Ecclesiology and Ethnography conference in Durham. Just like last year, it was a pleasure to be part of the conference. There was so much to learn and so many good papers from presenters across the world.

In our presentation, we described the pilot study we have completed – what we did and what we discovered – and outlined what our next steps along this research journey will be. In summary, our pilot study, consisting of an online questionnaire completed by adults baptised in NZ Baptist churches in the last five years, found that people do want to be like God… The things they wrote they wanted to be like (for instance, more graceful, less “for myself”, and less independent) matched the attributes of God they most appreciated (the same person said: God is graceful, Jesus is servant-like, Jesus is fatherly, God is friend). Each of the seventeen people who responded to the qualitative questions showed at least one match between their aspirations and the attributes of God they appreciated.

We found matches within twelve different categories: self-giving, active, Christ-like, loving, faithful, mental wellbeing, patient, generous, relational, authenticity, forgiving, and other spiritual. Of these different categories, matches were most prominent in the self-giving (self-control, humble, self-less, obedient) category. Which is something we are very interested in! 

Just as interesting was that each of the twelve participants who responded to the question said that “reflecting on what God is like” made them “want to be more like God.” All but one also indicated that “reflecting on what God is like” made them “want to be a better person.” While five respondents noted that reflecting on God made them “realize that they weren’t very good,” three said that reflecting on God made them “realize that they [are] very good.” In fact, one of these respondents indicated that reflecting on God made them realize that they are both not very good and very good. Such a nuanced understanding of one’s humanity can certainly be understood theologically!  

So where to from here? We didn’t get enough responses to statistically analyse the quantitative data, so (having refined and simplified the questionnaire and our God Attributes Measure) we started gathering more data from anyone aged over 18 who considers themselves to be of Christian faith.

We’d love you to let others know about it:

Research on faith and spirituality

Are you aged over eighteen years and a person of Christian faith? If so, Dr Lynne Taylor and Dr Jessica Bent (from the Theology Programme, University of Otago) invite you to take part in a research study on faith and spirituality. It is part of ongoing research on contemporary faith formation.

If you choose to take part in our research, you will be asked to complete an online questionnaire (it will take approximately 15 minutes) that asks you questions about your perceptions of God and yourself.

You’ll find more information and the questionnaire here: https://otago.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1SVVC6AzVPdcwtg

Research on baptism, faith and spirituality

Written by Lynne on . Posted in faith formation, research. Leave a Comment

My neglected blog is up and running again, in perfect time to update you on research I am doing on contemporary faith formation! Last year, I was accepted as a Fellow on the University of Birmingham “New Perspectives on Social Psychology and Religious Cognition for Theologians” Fellowship. That’s a bit of a mouthful, but essentially the Fellowship is training theologians in psychological research methods and theories in relation to how God is seen and understood by people. Exciting, right?

I’ve been to Birmingham for two residentials with my fellow Fellows(!), where we all received loads of input and insights. I was also awarded funding and my fabulous research assistant (Dr Jessica Bent) and I embarked on an exciting new project…

In our research, we want to better understand the relationship between people’s perceptions of God and their aspirations towards living well. Many of you will already know about my doctoral research on why previously unchurched become Christians today. One of the interesting things that came up in the PhD was the match between what the new Christians I interviewed told me they appreciated about God’s character; and things that they aspired to be more like themselves. They told me that they saw God as loving, patient, accepting and forgiving. They also told me they wanted to be more loving, patient, accepting and forgiving themselves! Fascinating, right? Our current project extends that research (in exciting ways, we think!). In our current project, we ask if God representations of recently baptised adult Christians correlate with the attributes they aspire to live out themselves.

We hope that this research will not only contribute to theological and psychological theory, but also help churches and Christians understand how they can best support people towards flourishing.

At the moment, we are at the exciting stage of recruiting participants from NZ Baptist churches for the project. Through an online questionnaire, participants will share about their faith journey, their experiences of other Christians and of God, and their reflections on a series of virtues/characteristics. (We will also be running focus groups later on this topic.)

If you would like to partner with us in the work we are doing, please pass on the link below to anyone over the age of 18 who has been baptised in the last five years. (We’re keen to hear from both those who are active and regular members of their worshipping communities as well as people who have changed churches or denominations or even stopped attending. The stories and reflections of all our participants are needed!)

Here’s the link to the Information Sheet about the project: https://tinyurl.com/baptism2024info

Contact lynne(dot)taylor(at)otago(dot)ac(dot)nz if you have any questions!

Our doing becomes us…

Written by Lynne on . Posted in missional.

This article recently went up online on Practical Theology.
If you can access journal articles for free through your institution, you can find it here:
https://doi.org/10.1080/1756073X.2019.1595317
If you’d otherwise need to pay, there is a link at the bottom of the abstract that you can use to access it for free.

ABSTRACT
Actor, Andrew Garfield ‘fell in love with Jesusʼ as he engaged in Ignatian spiritual practices in preparation for playing Father Rodrigues in the movie, Silence (directed by Martin Scorsese, Paramount Pictures, 2016). While the importance of spiritual practices for faith formation is well recognised, spiritual practices are generally associated with developing spiritual maturity rather than with such pre-conversion engagement. This paper considers Garfieldʼs account of meeting Jesus alongside the lived experiences of other recent converts who similarly engaged in spiritual practices before their conversions to Christianity. It argues that understanding the Christian faith as performative helps explain how Christian faith is formed and made real through such embodied acts of ritualised practice.

Access the article for free here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/PrDXNGjbeS6HajjvUMXf/full?target=10.1080/1756073X.2019.1595317

Why are previously unchurched people becoming Christians today?

Written by Lynne on . Posted in faith formation, missional, pastoral. 8 Comments

Why are previously unchurched people becoming Christians today?

That was the BIG question that I explored in my PhD.

What did I discover?

Here’s a bit of a summary… Within each of these brief headings and summaries lies much additional material!

Why ask the question?

Christian church attendance and religious affiliation in Western countries is declining. Decreasing proportions of people are raised in the Church. However, Christians are called to bear witness to the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ. The purpose of this research was to investigate why some previously ‘unchurched’ people become Christians: thus, encouraging and enabling more effective engagement by Christians in conversion. Combining social scientific practice with theological reflection revealed a substantive theory of religious conversion contextually located in late modernity/postmodernity.

What did I do?

The research began with the lived experiences of previously unchurched Australians, who recently converted to Christianity. It used critical realist grounded theory to answer research questions about the conversion process; the roles of other Christians and God in conversion; and the deep processes occurring within these converts. Semi structured interviews generated rich data, which was analysed using iterative and in-depth grounded theory methods.

What did I discover…

About the conversion process?

The research found that following initial exposure to Christianity, participants experienced a catalyst that encouraged them to further explore Christianity. They began to engage in various spiritual practices, usually following a specific invitation. Having made a series of decisions to continue to explore and engage, they reached a point where they called themselves ‘Christian’.

About how they perceived other Christians?

Converts generally had a positive perception of other Christians, and understood them to have been helped by their faith; to live differently because of their faith; to share openly with others; to be deeply hospitable; and to allow room for complexity, doubts and questions in their faith.

About how they understood God’s role in conversion?

God was understood to be loving, powerful, patient, accepting and forgiving. In addition, God was seen to work through others; curate unique conversion experiences; be present; speak; help; grow the participants; and to have acted in the past in creating, sacrificing, redeeming, and Jesus dying.

What was going on deep inside?

Converts experienced ‘affects’ as they journeyed towards Christian faith. a yearning or wanting more; a desire to live better or become who they are; a sense that faith relates to everyday life; a sense of welcome, warmth, belonging and homecoming; a sense of knowing; and, because of their fledgling faith, they saw things differently.

So, what is it all about?

For those I interviewed, conversion can be understood as resulting from their desiring, observing and experiencing relational authenticity. Religious conversion is fuelled by a desire for authenticity. God enables authenticity to develop and flourish. Religious conversion is resourced by Christians who embrace and exhibit authenticity in their personal, social and spiritual lives. This genuine authenticity is relational in nature: focusing not (just) on the self but also on relationship with God and significant connection with, and responsibility toward, others. This understanding rightly challenges the notion of authenticity as a narcissistic actualisation that prioritises the self over external relationships and responsibilities. When relational authenticity is sought, and realised, healthy transformation results. This transformation sees new converts ‘becoming’ the people they were created to be: unique persons who see their worth and their responsibilities in the light of their relationships with God and with others.

Want to hear more?

There is a very brief article in here on the role of other Christians in faith formation.

And yes, so much more to write!