Religious Priests/Pastors
OBJECTIVE The purpose of this research was to assess and analyze the effect of graduate education on the leadership practices of persons in pastoral ministry in the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America. METHODOLOGY Respondents were selected from 26 of the 56 local conferences in the North American Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, where ministerial directors supplied the names of five pastors who possessed graduate theological education and five who did. Pastors generally had 4-10 years of ministerial experience. Three lay leaders were selected from each congregation and asked to complete the Leadership Practices Inventory (Observer), resulting in a sample of 160 responses on pastors with a graduate theological degree and 126 responses on pastors with only an undergraduate degree.
KEY FINDINGS The frequency to which pastors were observed using the five leadership practices did not significantly vary between those pastors with a graduate theological education and those with an undergraduate degree. There were statistically significant but small correlations between the five leadership practices and age of the lay leader.