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The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore if and how practitioners in faith-based organizations in the southeastern United States who use music as therapy perceive the influence of music on the comfort of recipients. The faith-based organizations in this study consist of medical, educational, and church facilities. The theoretical foundations for the study were Fry’s Spiritual Leadership Theory and Kolcaba’s Comfort Theory. There were two research questions: (1) How do practitioners in a faith-based organization in the southeastern United States who use music as therapy, perceive the influence of music on the comfort of recipients? (2) How do practitioners in a faith-based organization in the southeastern United States who use music as therapy describe best practices for using music to provide comfort to recipients. Twenty practitioners participated in the study. The research data was conducted through interviews, focus groups, and surveys. The resulting themes were (a) Comfort is extremely important; (b) Recipient’s needs are critical; (c) Faith enables a person to accept comfort care through non-pharmaceuticals; (d) Practitioner and recipient have to be able to connect; (e) Organization’s expectations are influential; (f) Regardless of the setting, the focus of providing comfort remained the same; and (g) The right musical sonority evokes the right emotional mood and advances best practices.

Keywords: Comfort, Healing, Love, Spiritual Leadership.

It is not known if there is a statistically significant difference in Christian worldview scores between mature adult participants who have completed the Fellows theological training program and adult participants who have not. The Fellows program is an andragogy-based, 33-week long theological training program developed by church leadership. The purpose of this study was to ascertain statistically significant differences in the Christian worldview scores according to the cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions as delineated by Sire and as measured by the 3-Dimensional Worldview Survey, Form C. Malcolm Knowles’ theory of andragogy and James Sire’s concept of 3-dimensional worldview were this study’s theoretical and conceptual foundations. 131 mature adult participants (ages 24-64) participated in this research study. Results of a 2-tailed independent samples t test revealed significant positive differences in the cognitive (p = .004), behavioral (p = .029), and composite (p = .003) Christian worldview scores. Although no statistically significant differences were detected in the affective dimension by t test (p = .071) or Mann-Whitney U test (p = .076), a trend in the data was still apparent. Mean scores for participants who had completed the program were higher, and there was less variance overall in the data spread for participants who had completed the Fellows program.

Keywords: Christian, worldview, Andragogy, adult learning, 3DWS, Fellow

This theoretical reflection was developed from three online Christian university instructors’ expectations and experiences within a paradigm shift from safe to brave spaces. We explored this through the framework of 1. personal, 2. Christian worldview, and 3. academic progressions. We came to the conclusion that this brave academic environment, in a Christian university, must support growth mindsets fostered by individualized yet inclusive discourse and progressively challenging inquiry. Instructors can foster perceivable personally safe and socially brave spaces with reflections, feedback, and other support to allow for positive learner engagement and development. In a brave Christian world-view space, we discovered that students seem to perform well when they honor their own and others’ beliefs stretching beyond idiosyncratic views and immediate ideology. Recognizable critical thinking development and nonjudgment lead to positive student perceptions of brave spaces.

Keywords: brave space, safe space, online classroom, pedagogy, critical thinking, positive student perspectives, Christian worldview