Developing Best Practices for Itinerant Ministry Through Interviews with Experienced Itinerant Ministers Using Self-Evaluation in a Cross Cultural Context

Abstract

This thesis reports on the derivation of best practices for my itinerant cross-cultural ministry. The project was undertaken because I wanted to improve my cross-cultural itinerant ministry in the three broad areas of preparing for, administering, and sustaining an itinerant ministry. Using action research, data was collected from interviews with twelve experienced itinerant ministers and mined to derive their best practices. As the research subject, I then applied these identified practices to my itinerant ministry. The results of implementing these best practices were observed using the methods of autoethnography in comparing a pre, mid and post-project qualitative evaluation of myself, the researcher. The discernible outcomes included improvements to my itinerant cross-cultural ministry in the areas of ministry preparation, ministry administration, and ministry health.