Qualitative Research in Practical Theology

In Charles Sherlock’s extensive 2009 review of Australian theological education, he suggests that it is theological study that “goes to the heart of personal and community identity,” rather than the methodology used to shape that study.92 Nevertheless, the methodology itself not only underpins the veracity of any analysis of research data but it locates its conclusions with scientific scrutiny. Hubert Blalock argues that methodology is implied in any substantial social inquiry because of the inability to enter social situations with a completely open mind.93

Qualitative research seeks to apply such a methodology to the systematic answer to questions through the examination of social settings and the individuals within them, thereby making sense of associated experiences.94 John Swinton and Harriet Mowat affirm as authentic and essential the idiographic understanding of subjective phenomena in effective practical theology.95 As such, though qualitative research is undertaken inductively, it is also built upon interpreted data and therefore simultaneously constructed.

Practical theology is expressed within this research through an assessment of CRC formation processes. Mark Cartledge sees Pentecostals typically expressing these in terms of experience, Scripture and pneumatology that emphasise relational epistemology by which a shared worldview is shaped in community.96 _{Examples of Pentecostal formation in the literature will} be examined further in chapter 3 and revisited in the discussion in chapter 5. For Cartledge, practical theology is understood in terms of two main categories, confessionally-oriented studies that reflect the praxis of the relevant researcher and non-confessional reflective studies by non-Pentecostal researchers.97 This study resembles the first of these, albeit in a non- confessional reflexive analysis of the CRC community within Australia as a case study of classical Pentecostalism that develops theory from data. As a case study for investigating

92 _{Charles Sherlock, Uncovering Theology: The Depth, Reach and Utility of Australian Theological Education}

(Adelaide: ATF Press, 2009), 59.

93 _{Hubert M. Blalock, An Introduction to Social Research (Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1970), 42.}

94 _{Tim Sensing, Qualitative Research: A Multi-Methods Approach to Projects for Doctor of Ministry Theses}

(Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 57.

95 _{Swinton and Mowat, Practical Theology, 44.}

96 _{Mark Cartledge, The Mediation of the Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 5-6.}

97 _{Mark Cartledge, “Practical Theology,” in Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods, ed. Allan}

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ministry formation, the CRC provides its own internally documented history and praxis not evident in external sources. As a bounded set, the CRC context is restricted to a relatively small network of Australian churches where the formation approaches applied to its classical Pentecostal praxis are those offered uniquely by the CRC within Australia. Paul Leedy and Jeanne Ormond advocate the value of such a case study for qualitatively researching changes over time, despite also cautioning against generalising conclusions with any certainty due to the limited pool of research data.98 The case study offers the opportunity to test and challenge preconceived notions as further described in section 1.5.2.4 below and therefore complements the Grounded Theory approach adopted in this research.

My personal involvement in the CRC movement was in the role of national training coordinator at the time of commencement of the research. However, the cessation of this role at the time of the interviewing of the ministers would warrant careful presentation of any results and recommendations if no longer overseeing their implementation. The methodologies used, and detailed below, include Action Research that properly locates a vision for formation within the culture of a movement predicated upon interdependent autonomy, not necessarily typical of comparison contexts. These methodologies also serve collectively to regulate any perceived bias through the use of data validation.

As a CRC minister, too, the role of researcher is enhanced via the professional capacity of pastoral listener. Career-based skills of active listening and boundaried self-awareness are brought to bear upon the conduct and analysis of interviews. The discipline of reflective practice enables any subjectivity to be contextualised, checked and carefully integrated as a support for the research. Swinton and Mowat rightly argue for the impossibility of the researcher standing outside the research context and for “reflecting upon the ways in which [their] own values, experiences, interests, beliefs, political commitments, wider aims in life and social identities [shape] the research.”99

Data is gathered from individuals with an array of experiences. A shared Christian praxis such as that advocated by Groome further warrants a location of such research within the scope of Practical Theology, as advocated by Don Browning, whilst also contextualising the interview subjects and the processes of ministry formation within existing Christian communities as suggested in Les Ball’s 2012 overview of theological education in Australia.100

98 _{Paul D. Leedy and Jeanne Ellis Ormond, Practical Research Planning and Design (Upper Saddle River, NJ:}

Pearson Education, 2005), 135.

99 _{Swinton and Mowat, Practical Theology, 59-60.}

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Jaber Gubrium and James Holstein identify four traditions of qualitative research: naturalism (understanding social reality in its own setting); ethnomethodology (understanding how social order develops though interaction); emotionalism (understanding subjectivity and experience within the social context); and postmodernism (understanding ways in which social reality is constructed).101 This research project intends to reflect the naturalistic tendency to depict reality of meaning without external imposition, thereby describing the world of the participants, notwithstanding a potential researcher bias due to being another of these ministers. The autonomous interdependent congregations and ministers of the CRC Churches International movement nevertheless potentially and collectively depict a complex milieu of competing ideologies and traditions in contextualising ministry formation. However, the CRC’s cultural nuances are perhaps best understood through its historical writings, with values and emphases shaped by the generationally influential leadership and ministry contributions of key CRC pioneers. Their experiences have shaped and intersected with the formational years of the movement’s growth and restructure since the death of its founder. They have also authorised and legitimised various contemporary ministry expressions in light of a classical Pentecostal past as custodians of the traditional values the movement espouses.

Inclinations inferred from the writings of, and interactions between, founding ministers therefore generate expectations and suggest ideal outcomes for formation which then warrant engagement by contemporary generations of leaders. Newer experiences and ministry contexts serve to reinterpret or reaffirm classical values and to thereby authorise contemporary understandings of what might constitute ideal denominational constructs in future ministry formation. In this sense, the threads of tradition not only emerge, but dialogue together in a Hegelian dialectic evolving from common traditions and concerns to suggest a best-practice model for optimised formation practices. This is explored later in this chapter.