Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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question was as follows:
Table 1
2.3 to help students see God as the
ultimate source of preaching
2.4 to help students understand the
purpose of preaching
3.5 to help students develop a theology
which provides content for preaching
3.6 to help students develop
communications skills
4.6 to help students develop Christian
maturity
4.7 to help students understand the
world in which they serve
One readily noticeable characteristic of the
information in table 1 is that the responses divide the
six potential goals into three pairs. "Source" and
"purpose" receive highest priority from the lecturers
seen as a whole. "Content" and "communication factors"
constitute the second pair. while "settin g" ("the world
in which preachers serve") and "the preacher as a person"
("helpin g students develop Christian maturity") receive
the least priority of the six.
Various individual lecturers gave every possible
rankin g to each of the six potential goals. But, in
almost all groupin gs of lecturers to be considered below,
the same pairing and the order of the three pairs recurs.
The order is frequently reversed within each pair, but,
almost invariably, the three pairs (as units) reappear in
the sequence seen in table 1.
A second foundational survey question (no. 6) asked
each lecturer to state the number of hours his
institution's pre—ordination pro gram devotes specifically
to preaching. Unfortunately. the lecturers answered this