Psychological Principles
Social Psychology Ministry Application. a.Purpose: An important part of working with people is understanding the internal responses that are influenced by external psychological factors, both in yourself and others. Therefore, it is important to adjust the environment of a person to help them cope well and become the best that they can be. For this assignment, the student will take the following scenario and analyze it from the perspectives of social psychology, health and stress, and biblical truth. The student will express self understanding and demonstrate this understanding by coming up with a clear plan to use the social psychologyprinciples to work through this situation presented with clear attention to caring for yourselfand others. b.The Scenario: You are the lead pastor of a church. The church has experienced significant growth over the last few years and so the church leadership has chosen to start a building project. You are about six months into the project and difficulties have started to arise. It started within the leadership team as they could not agree on what the add-on structure should look like. The team has split right down the middle and meetings include more conflict than planning. This has leaked into the church body and most recently, a specific group of people in the church have heard about this and started expressing a lack of confidence in your leadership because of the conflict. Even people that you trusted seem to be against you. It feels like this movement is gaining momentum. Use the principles from weeks 9 and 10 to understand what may be going on inside you and others, to come up with a plan that will help to pull the team and the church back together. Your choices must integrate biblical truth with sound psychological science. c.Organization/Headings (The questions and issues that should be addressed are specified under the headings) i.SocialDynamics and Principles 1.What is going on inside the leadership team and church body causing them to make the choices that they make? 2.Howisthe environment around the leadership team and church body influencing how they respond? 3.What are the issues between groups of those for and against the project? 4.What are the needs of your leadership team? 5.Include information from weeks 9 and 10 to complete this section. ii.Personal Impact 1.What impact is this having on you personally and how you will address your own health as you go through this time? (Assume whether you are single or married and set your plan accordingly). 2.How are the environment and others reactions impacting you? 3.What are your personal needs that need attention through this time? iii.Application of Psychological Principles: 1.What are the psychological principles that you will use to address this? 2.What are the biblical principles that apply and how do they integrate with psychological principles? 3.How will you use these principles to deal with the social dynamics effectively and bring greater cohesion in the church? iv.Plan of Action 1.Describe a biblical and psychologically effective plan that you will follow as you take the church through this time. 2.How will you work toward building stronger and deeper trust and healing among the leadership team and the church? 3.How will you care for yourself and your team during this time? d.Requirements: Use at least six high quality resources (articles from peer reviewed journalspreferred), as well as class notes or discussions. Students will be expected to useresources that are no more than ten years old (2009 2019) and that demonstrate a competent level of scholarship (i.e. PeopleMagazine is not a proper reference). Text books are not considered a valid resource. No online or Internet (website) sources allowed, with the exception of statistical information gleaned from a government-sponsored website. Some places beyond our library consortium for good references are Google Scholar, Pub Med, and the Edmonton Public Library. Also include citations from class notes or personal in-class communications as well as applicable biblical principles; always with proper citations! f. APA Requirements: i.Citations and references ii.General formatting (ie: title page, heading levels, etc.)iii.Formal academic writing (ie: No contractions, personal pronouns, etc.) g. Length: 8 -9 pp.excluding title page and reference
