The content of this book splits roughly into two sections and, as it is meant to serve both scholarly and practice-based leadership audiences, the style of each section has intentionally been matched with its purpose. The first section dealing with research and methodology (Chapters 1 and 2) retains its academic identity as a basis for those who wish to draw on or develop the approach. The second section dealing with the main topic at hand (Chapters 3â5) is no less scholarly â for example extensive footnotes and references have been retained for the purpose of academic rigour â but the writing style relaxes somewhat and becomes in places more conversational. Those without an academic interest may wish to give the chapters on research and methodology a miss and skip straight to these chapters dealing specifically with the history, leadership and culture of the AoG. These chapters â dealing with AoG historiography â are formatted chronologically wherever possible but within those chapters there are on occasion thematic sections which, for ease of reading, override the chronology. The remaining discussion section (Chapters 6â9) bridges between the two styles and whilst retaining its academic feel, on occasion draws on personal insights (a âliteâ form of autoethnography) to illustrate certain points. It is only fair at this stage for me to confess to being an eclectic ecclesiologist which finds expression more in these latter chapters. In these chapters, although some authors are drawn on quite heavily (whose work is allied and sympathetic to the ecclesiological foundation of the study), there are others whom some might consider âunusual bedfellowsâ theologically or other authors where there is merely a single quote from them. To explain, the litmus test in this book is not whether full agreement is held with the broad position of a particular theologian (or the epistemological and ontological basis of their view), but rather, does the particular quote ring true with the particular subject under consideration and does it add an insight that would otherwise make this book less rich?
Where quotations from field research interviews are included they tend to lean towards âexpositoryâ; reporting the views of those participants interviewed with only a modest level of interpretation. This âunder-authoringâ is intended to grant more space to the views of participants, allowing their own analysis to speak in a more independent way than if they were subjected to significant analysis at that stage.1 However, their perspectives are combined with the
As this book goes to press, AoG seems to have reconciled its precarious position and leadership crisis that placed it on the edge of a precipice at the time
CF Desmond Ryan, The Catholic Parish: Institutional Discipline, Tribal Identity and Religious Development in the English Church (London: Sheed & Ward Ltd, 1996). and Mark J. Cartledge, Testimony in the Spirit: Rescripting Ordinary Pentecostal Theology (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2010).