Leadership Formation in Ministerl4l Education-part I: Assessment and Analysis of Leadership Traits in Seventh-day Adventist Pastors in North America

The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) church in the North American Division @AD)' expects pastors to complete a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) program prior to their ordination.' Graduatelevel ministerial education is designed to contribute to the development and success of a candidate for professional ministry. The purpose of this research is to discover possible correlations between graduate ministerial education and successful pastoral leadership. This is an extended project with several stages. The initial stage will address two questions. First, What are the measures of success in pastoral ministry? Second, Is there a relationshp between leadership practices and these measurements of success? Stated differently, Are leadership practices a predictor of success in pastoral ministry? If a correlation is established between leadership practices and success in pastoral ministry, then the formation of those practices is one important and appropriate goal in graduate education. This stage of the project will provide a qualitative assessment and analysis of pastors in the NAD of the SDA church to discover if key leadership practices accompany success. Development of success criteria, definition of a framework for leadership practices, an assessment tool, and a