Terry White, publisher of BMH Books and former executive director of the Brethren Missionary Herald Company, Winona Lake, Ind., was awarded an Ed.D. degree in Organizational Leadership on August 11.
His dissertation was “An Analysis of the Relationship of Transformational Pastoral Leadership to the Seven Practices of Transformational Churches Among Grace Brethren Congregations.” He surveyed pastors and congregations of 18 Grace Brethren churches to see whether there was a relationship between pastors whose leadership style is transformational, and congregations who exhibit the seven practices of Transformational Churches. The theoretical base for the study was transformational leadership theory, as developed originally by James MacGregor Burns, Bernard Bass, and Ronald Riggio. Pastoral leadership style was determined through administration of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire short form (MLQ5X) and the level of transformational practices in the congregations was determined through administration of the Transformational Church Assessment Tool (TCAT). Statistical procedures were used to test the null and research hypotheses for statistical significance. The findings did not indicate a significant statistical relationship between pastors whose leadership style was primarily transformational, as measured by the MLQ (5X) and congregations who were transformational in character, as measured by the TCAT.
Terry continues to work part time at BMH, where he oversees editing and publishing of book projects. He is also the founder and primary contributor of this blog. He and his wife, Sharon, are members of the Winona Lake, Ind., Grace Brethren Church (Bruce Barlow, lead pastor), where he is currently the Moderator and serves on the Board of Overseers.