| Summary: | This thesis proposes a 5-fold theological theory that has the power to explain how the laypeople in the Kenya Assemblies of God local churches help one another. The theory was empirically generated and grounded. It explains why the laity engaged in various acts of mutual service, in the light of existing or emerging relationships. It evaluates how the laypeople were trained, as to the role which awareness of their gifting played in comparison to the kind of influence socio-cultural and ecological contexts exerted upon the quality and type of mutual service provided. The theory establishes the existence of a multiplicity of motivations for lay ministry and relationships, as influenced by diverse attitudes, lay training as largely disconnected from the kind of spiritual gifts present or known, socio-cultural contexts as largely negatively influencing the form of praxis provided and ecological contexts as mostly determining the types of needs present. A multi-method approach that applied the praxis model of doing theology, and that employed grounded theory methods, case study research designs, open-ended questions and qualitative interviews helped to generate the 5-fold theological theory. A multi-layered analysis of the KAG lay ministry praxis was made possible because diverse contexts, churches and circumstances were considered. The emergent theory takes significance from, claims relevance for, and communicates, or questions, the usefulness of various practices in the KAG denomination, as well as other local churches around the world. The theory, therefore, has potential for wider international, cross-contextual, theological and ecclesiological relevance, application and generalization. This is because the factors influencing lay mutual ministry dynamically interact with, and significantly stem from, existing congregational identities of any given local church and are influenced by commonly shared factors, such as surrounding cultures and leadership abilities.
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