A Study of Protestant Clergy''s Work Roles, Tasks and Information Behavior
Date Issued
2009
Date
2009
Author(s)
Chuang, Hsiu-Chun
Abstract
Clergy professionals of Protestant church, like many other professional groups, must constantly consume knowledge in order to perform their work tasks. Their work is precariously poised between the sacred ideals of "God''s call" and the secular demands of professional career.he purpose of this study is to explore the process of clergy training and the relationship between work roles, associated tasks and information seeking behavior of clergy professionals in Christian church. Due to the reason above, four questions were investigated in this study: (1)What is the process of clergy training? And how many factors influenced their traning? (2)How many work roles and associated tasks do they take in their work place? (3)How many types of information sources do they pursue to fulfill their work tasks? (4)How many means do they use information to finish their work tasks? his study adopted the qualitative approach and used in-depth interview method to collect data. The interviewed objects are experienced Protestant clergy who was employed by megachurch and large church in Taipei. Seven clergy professionals participated in this study. The interview data of all participants and publication of one participant were collected in this study. Investigator analysed and organized these data by the unit of work task. he findings of this study were outlined as follows: (1)There are three stages in the process of clergy training. The first stage is the early nurture before theological education. The second stage is the religious training of theological college. The third stage is the practice of church work. Clergy professionals were mainly trained and affected by four dimensions in the third stage. These four dimensions are church work, the context of church, interpersonal relationship and self-study. (2)Clergy professionals performed six work roles and took seventeen associated tasks in their work place. These six work roles are administrator, publisher, teacher, care giver, public relations, and learner. (3)For the requirements of associated tasks, six types of information sources are sought in order to complete tasks. These sources include interpersonal information (such as colleagues), work documents, written materials (including paper copy, electronic text and manuscript), audio-visual materials, personal knowledge (such as experiences of the ministry), and revelation from God. (4)Clergy professionals apply interpersional communication, oral dissemination, and writing to perform their work tasks. ccording to the above findings, suggestions are proposed to the theological college and theological information providers. This study suggests that clergy professionals need more practices in the ministry, competencies of interpersonal communication and conflict treatment, and administrative skills. This study also suggests that theological information providers could rearrange space according to the task needs of clergy professionals, provide an announcement service of professional information, build a integrated platform of network resources, and offer the network program which is applicable to church work. Finally, this study suggests that future investigation should foucus on clergy professionals who are employed by medium church or small church, and the utilization of computer network technology of clergy professionals needs to be concerned as well.
Subjects
Protestant clergy
clergy professionals
work roles
work tasks
information seeking behavior
Type
thesis
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