Rate My Professor Lynne Taylor

Dr. Lynne Taylor serves as the Jack Somerville Senior Lecturer in Pastoral Theology within the Theology Programme at the University of Otago's School of Arts. She earned her BSc and BA (Hons) from the University of Canterbury and her PhD from Flinders University, with her doctoral research examining the conversion experiences of previously unchurched Australians. Taylor brings over two decades of hands-on experience in pastoral ministry, including church planting, congregation development, and roles in established congregations. Concurrently with her academic appointment, she has conducted congregational and denominational research and presently directs research for AngelWings Ltd.

Taylor's research focuses on contemporary religious conversion and faith formation, spirituality and well-being, congregational studies such as church responses to COVID-19 and other crises, pastoral care, chaplaincy, pastoral transitions, and research methodologies in practical theology and missiology. Key publications include 'A Multidimensional Approach to Understanding Religious Conversion' in Pastoral Psychology (2021), 'Making Room for the Missio Dei in Missiological Research' in Mission Studies (2020), 'Our doing becomes us: performativity, spiritual practices and becoming Christian' in Practical Theology (2019), and co-authored 'Presence and Personhood: Investigating Christian Chaplaincy Care in Two Residential Dementia Units' (2024). She also contributed the chapter 'Sharing faith, imaging God, nourishing hope: Faith and hope that is relational, mysterious, and transformational' to the book Hope: Growing flourishing church communities that transform and heal people (2025). Taylor received the Psychology Cross-training Fellowship for Theologians at the University of Birmingham (2023-2024), funded by the John Templeton Foundation. She teaches papers including PAST216 Current Perspectives on Pastoral Care, PAST321 Missional God, Missional People, and MINS413 Missional God, Missional People (Advanced).