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Desarrollo E Implementación De Una Estrategia Para Mejorar La Asistencia Y Participación En El Culto Joven De La “Iglesia Nueva”, En La Asociación Central Dominicana, Yoel Lizardo

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The youth service, or “youth society,” of the “Iglesia Nueva” within the Dominican Central Association has experienced low attendance and participation among young adults between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. A preliminary study identified several contributing factors to this situation. These include program content that fails to capture sufficient interest, worship experiences that lack perceived relevance, limited opportunities for young people to discover and exercise their spiritual gifts and talents, a shortage of mentors, and inadequate planning and follow-up in ministry efforts.

Methodology

Theological foundations regarding the principles of youth participation in the church were examined. Contemporary literature …

Weeping In The Household: Equipping Pastoral Caregivers Among Grieving Families At Grace Presbyterian Church In Baltimore, Maryland, Charles Brandon Brewer

Doctor of Ministry Projects

This project sought to equip pastoral care ministry members of Grace Presbyterian Church to explore communal grief and deepen their own understanding of family systems in intergenerational grief. Participants engaged in a four-week training series aimed at reducing fear surrounding discussions of death, dying, and grief, empowering pastoral caregivers in the church to offer compassionate care to grieving individuals and families. Participants were trained to facilitate Bible studies, group discussions and were equipped with the skills necessary to guide and expand the church’s existing bereavement ministry beyond crisis intervention, strengthening pastoral care efforts, and the pastoral care ministry of the …

Programa Para Formar Líderes Jóvenes En La Iglesia Adventista Del Séptimo Día Hispana De Fresno, Edward Alexander Charles Smith

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Hispanic Seventh-day Adventist Church of Fresno faces a significant challenge in developing trained youth leaders capable of directing and sustaining the Youth Ministry. Despite having a large and active membership, the church lacks a structured leadership development process for young people between the ages of 18 and 35. This deficiency resulted in the inability of the Nominating Committee to appoint a youth director due to the absence of adequately prepared candidates. The lack of intentional leadership formation has limited the involvement of youth within the congregation.

Methodology

This Doctor of Ministry project employed an applied ministry approach focused …

Estrategia Para Fortalecer La Retencion De Jovenes En La Iglesia Adventista Central De Las Tunas, Cuba, Magdiel Larramendy Laurencio

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Seventh-day Adventist church in the city of Las Tunas, Cuba, from 2000 to 2015 has suffered for the loss of the youth ages 18 to 35 years old. A pastoral study of the congregation revealed that 70% of the youth that were born between the years 1990 and 2000 abandoned the church, indicating that it´s services were irrelevant and the absence of younger people and lacked youth in the leadership of the church. The congregation of Las Tunas has been a church centered in the accomplishment of the mission, and focused on the expansion of the gospel in …

History, Theology, And Implementation Of A Volunteer Lay Pastor Ministry In The Territory Of The North American Division Of Seventh-Day Adventists, José Cortés Jr.

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

This study examines the strategic necessity and implementation of a Divisionwide Volunteer Lay Pastor Ministry (VLPM) within the North American Division (NAD) of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA Church). The NAD oversees the church’s work in the United States, Canada, Bermuda, Guam, and Micronesia, serving over 1.2 million members across 6,300 congregations. Despite its strong presence, the NAD faces challenges reaching a diverse population of approximately 370 million. With 69 percent of its congregations either plateauing or declining, the church is at a critical point that requires proactive measures to maintain its mission.

Method

Our study begins with an …

Learning To Cope With Grief Through The Use Of Biblical Creativity With The Community Of First Saints Community Church, Patricia Watson

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Supporting those who are grieving has long been a complicated process for church communities and pastors. This project investigated whether introducing a creative activity to a grief support group could help participants view their loss through a lens of faith and clinical aspects of grief. Although further studies will strengthen this hypothesis, a four-week curriculum was conducted with five participants at First Saints Community Church in Leonardtown, MD. Results from quantitative and qualitative analyses showed that there was a benefit to those participants.

Ministry Strategy For Retaining Youth And Young Adults In The Australian Union Conference, Jeffrey N. Parker

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

In the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Australia (known as the Australian Union Conference) there is a significant loss of membership continuance by youth and young adults that falls into the category of the so-called millennials. Church attendance and membership loss of millennials is a problem in the Australian Union Conference.

Method

After consulting Scripture and current literature on families and family values, this researcher developed a quantitative and qualitative survey for Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Australian Millennials. It used a professional survey program that guaranteed the anonymity of each person. Embedded within the 18-question survey was space for personal responses. …

A Strategy For Planting A Growing Seventh-Day Adventist Church In Rivers West Conference, Nigeria, Smart B. Maduagu

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Rivers-West Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Church, like most Seventh-day Adventist Conferences in Nigeria, is growing at 1% (GC Statistics 2020) while the population of Nigeria is growing at 2.5% (The World Bank Data, 2021). The local Adventist church membership growth is not matching the country's population growth when compared to the obvious spontaneous growth of other Christian churches like the Redeem Christian Church of God (RCCG) which began thirty-eight years after the advent of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Nigeria; they have about twenty thousand (20,000) churches (History and Growth of RCCG, 2014) while the Seventh-day Adventist Church in …

A Cross-Cultural And Cross-Ethnic Model Of Integrated Ministry To Second-Generation Immigrant Youth In The Seventh-Day Adventist Church In Dublin, Dan-Gheorghe Serb

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Dublin, like most major cities in Western Europe, is a multicultural and multiethnic city. Most members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Dublin are first-generation immigrants who tend to import their native brand of Adventism into Dublin local churches. Moreover, outside the church worship experience, immigrant members are inclined to gravitate toward mono-ethnic and mono-cultural interactions. Their children are the New Irish and are thus better integrated into Irish culture and society. This situation seems to destabilize young people in the church, with many second-generation immigrant Generation Z youth showing disinterest in church life, and some of them leaving …

Parental Engagement In The Baptismal Process At Florida Hospital Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Gregory Creek

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Baptism, one of the few spiritual milestones in the life of a young person, is not experienced at Florida Hospital Church with the intentional inclusion of parents, a group that has a greater spiritual influence for their children than any other person.

Method

To help engage parents in the process, a baptismal preparation program was developed that provided training and resources for parents who then prepared their children for baptism. The program consisted of a session with parents, children, and the pastor; two sessions with parents and the pastor; and four sessions done by parents in the home with …

A Strategy For Collaborative Leadership At Mt. Sinai Seventh-Day Adventist Church In Orlando, Florida, Herman Leon Davis Sr.

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Organized as a Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1899, Mt. Sinai was the first Adventist Church for people of color in Orlando. Although Mt. Sinai gave birth to several other churches in the Central Florida area, Mt. Sinai lost its ability to build a successive and collaborative leadership, giving way to conflict and dysfunction. Clashes arose between African American and Caribbean cultures related to leadership, worship, and doctrinal interpretations.

Methodology

The church was asked to help identify areas of concern related to types of conflict, conflict management, and conflict resolution as identified by the project proposal. The church was asked …

Strengthening Intergenerational Bonds Through The Practice Of Learning And Mission At First Baptist Church Valdese, Nc, Joshua Lail

Doctor of Ministry Projects

An education program was designed to encourage intergenerational unity among a mixed group of youth and adults at First Baptist Church in Valdese, NC. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed to determine the effectiveness of the program on the intergenerational experimental group. There was movement toward intergenerational unity from the pre-test to post-test in the experimental group. Insights were learned from the data, particularly that there were different rates of growth between the youth and adults, and the observation that participants may have liked the idea of working together more than actually working together. The younger participants …

Developing Spiritual Disciplines In Youth And Young Adult Leaders Through Mentoring At The Peachtree City Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Nathaniel E. Elias

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Peachtree City Seventh-day Adventist Church (PTC) leadership and parents of teenagers expressed concerns regarding the lack of spirituality and church involvement of their youth and young adults. Church appointed youth and young adult leaders had not received consistent spiritual equipping to share with the youth and young adults of the church. Youth ministry primarily focused on recreational fellowship and lacked spiritual focus. The church approached the associate pastor to provide spiritual equipping for youth and young adult leaders.

Method

Six church nominated youth and young adult leaders participated in a 10-month mentorship program that equipped them with spiritual …

Minister As Mentor: A Biblical Model For The Preparation Of A Mentoring Ministry At First Baptist Church In Reidsville, North Carolina, Thomas Leroy Barksdale Ii

Doctor of Ministry Projects

A preparation model was developed to equip mentors to effectively engage, encourage, and guide community youth. Members of the Christian faith have a responsibility to reach out and impact positively the next generations of leaders. Potential mentors were led through developmental sessions to prepare for the mentor relationships. Surveys, journal entries, pre-posttests, and questionnaires measured the effectiveness of the developmental weekly sessions and engagement.

Ministering To Youth And Young Adults Through A Sports Initiative In The Normandie Avenue Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Michael S. Jenkins Jr.

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Normandie Avenue Seventh-day Adventist church is centrally located among other nearby Seventh-day Adventist churches in south Los Angeles, California. The presence of youth and young adults in worship services has diminished. Ministry participation among this group at Normandie has also diminished. Adventist and non-Adventist youth and young adults are not being attracted to the church or its ministries. Youth and young adults who do attend worship service and or participate in ministries do not have a strong relationship with the pastor or other spiritual figures. A 2008 study shows the median age of Adventist congregations is 51 while …

Equipping Adventist Community Services Directors As Leaders For The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Sung Kun Kwon

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Adventist Community Services (ACS) broad scope of services increasingly demanded competent leadership that was not always readily found in local churches. For this reason, ACS leadership began to plan an advanced leadership development program for the ACS personnel, pastors, and church members at the union, conference, local levels, and worldwide. Up to that time leadership development programs within ACS tended to be haphazard and inconsistent. While there were several conferences that provided local leadership development for ACS leaders, there was no centralized leadership development program. To effectively lead the organizations that served the various communities, it was necessary …

Cooperation, Not Competition: Utilizing A Shared Small-Group Discipleship Experience To Create Interchurch Partnerships Between First Baptist Church And First United Methodist Church In Elizabeth City, North Carolina, Thomas Paul Batson

Doctor of Ministry Projects

The future of ministry will involve many churches forming interchurch partnerships to share resources to maximize ministry effectiveness and stewardship of assets. A small group between members of First Baptist Church and First United Methodist Church in Elizabeth City, NC, was formed to explore biblical themes of partnership and discuss logistical issues and how they might be obstacles to partnerships. Surveys measured participants’ perceptions of their doctrinal knowledge, attitude toward partnership, and perceived difficulty in dealing with the logistics of partnership. Discussion, reflection, and interviews contributed to the interpretation of survey data. Results indicated that a shared small group experience …

Strategies For Retention Of New Members In The Ebenezer And Gethsemane Seventh-Day Adventist Churches, Keith Woodard

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Ebenezer Seventh-day Adventist Church of Greenville, North Carolina, was organized 33 years ago and is located on the periphery of Pitt County. In the past five years, the church has baptized 27 people; however, 15 of them are currently missing. As a result, growth has been inconsistent and members have become concerned about the growth of God’s kingdom. A possible factor in this situation is the lack of a structure to retain members after baptism. The Gethsemane Seventh-day Adventist church in 2013 held an evangelistic meeting in which 15 people were baptized. Only one person from the 15 …

A Discipleship Model For Youth At The Paradise Adventist Church, Milton Daniel Marquez

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

For more than a decade the Paradise Adventist Church had been experiencing a common problem facing most churches in North America: approximately 60% of the youth were leaving the church. Rainer and Rainer (2008) argue that one of the factors in two-thirds of young adults between the ages of 18 and 22 leaving our churches after high school is the lack of a simple and effective discipleship process. Pastoral observation concurs that a primary contributing factor to the loss of Adventist youth is that the youth are not being discipled effectively and thus not rooted in Scripture, connected to …

An Action Plan For Youth Involvement Leadership At Francois In Martinique, Louise R. Nocandy

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Youth involvement leadership in Seventh-day Adventist local churches remains an issue of concern. Part of the vision of the Seventh-day Adventist World Church and the local church is to encourage the youth to be faithful disciples of Christ and to teach, train, equip, and involve them in the Seventh-day Adventist local churches. However, the Annual Local Churches Strategic Plan is not intentionally oriented towards youth involvement leadership and the Annual Youth Strategic Plans are generally not based on the vision for the entire church. This gap reveals a lack of partnership between the youth department and most other departments …

Developing A Structure To Strengthen Youth Ministry In Florida Conference, Pedro E. Perez

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem.

Florida Conference did not have a way to connect the Youth Ministries Department to local churches to support the churches’ teen ministry. There was a need for a structure to create a connection between the conference and local churches to strengthen youth ministry in the local church. With over 300 churches in the conference, the youth director could not achieve this alone. Furthermore, there was not even a contact list to know which churches had a youth leader or young people. Developing a structure would be a means of gaining access to local church youth leaders so that the …

A Strategy For Developing Outreach-Oriented Small Groups For Millenial Students At Georgia-Cumberland Academy Church, Greg Hudson

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Millennial students at Georgia-Cumberland Academy (GCA) are not being inspired and equipped to actively engage in community outreach. GCA is a boarding school with 80% of students having homes in other locations, limiting their opportunity to develop connections with any local community, both at home and at school. The result is that students are graduating without needed skills to spiritually interact with their community and to share their faith in Jesus in meaningful ways. About 60% of Adventist youth are leaving the church, and part of the problem may be their lack of connection to the outreach ministries of …

Grief In Community: The Establishment Of Bereavement Ministry Teams From The Congregation At Sandy Run Baptist Church In Mooresboro, North Carolina, Andrew S. Rawls

Doctor of Ministry Projects

The Church is to be the expression of hope through the various contours of the human story. Too often congregations have difficulty expressing this hope during the time of death and extending that hope to ministry with the bereaved. In this project I studied the increase in self-efficacy in bereavement ministry with the congregation of Sandy Run Baptist Church in Mooresboro, North Carolina. The research focuses on the teaching of a curriculum that explores the biblical, theological, and clinical aspects of grief. The results of my research show this was an effective means of increasing self-efficacy.

Enriching Christian Hospitality At Malaby's Crossroads Missionary Baptist Church In Knightdale, North Carolina, Barbara Starr Barner

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Hospitality is the welcoming of strangers, family, and friends. In the early biblical and historical traditions, hospitality focused on welcoming the alien and extending resources to them. Hospitality, however, need not be limited to the basic physical needs of the stranger, but spiritual needs are to be addressed as well. In the reflection of Jesus’ work on the cross, Christian hospitality should be the intentional, responsible, and caring act of welcoming or visiting strangers, enemies, the distressed, downtrodden, without regard for reciprocation. The goal of this project was to enhance Malaby’s Christian hospitality culture and take our personal interactions to …

Developing Men/Fathers As Spiritual Leaders In The Home In Kitsap County, Washington, Tobin K. R. Dodge

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Adventist church, along with most religious organizations today, struggles to develop a multigenerational faith vision and practice among its believers. Fewer Adventist youth and young adults appear to have an Adventist worldview or share the churches core values. They are often absent from general church life and worship. The research that has led to this project addresses men/fathers as being a primary solution in faith transmission and spiritual nurture of the next generation. Yet, the current vacancy of fathers in the homes and churches has created some of the greatest social needs in American society today. Literature is …

Making Disciples: Applying Steps To Christ In The Glenorchy Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Mark Falconer

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The spirituality of a large percentage of church members at the Glenorchy church in Tasmania, is primarily based on knowledge about God with little concept of how biblical spirituality interacts with daily life. A recent Natural Church Development survey revealed passionate spirituality and loving relationships scored extremely low and revealed a profound need to engage spiritually with God on a daily basis. The members of Glenorchy Church have a high regard for Scripture and the writings of Ellen White, and therefore have read Steps to Christ, but few have experienced the transformational presence of God in their daily lives …

Testing A New Method Of Teaching Homiletics At The Seventh-Day Adventist Theological Seminary: Chmn 505, Micheal Lawrence Goetz

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Preaching has always been at the center of Christianity and the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is the most visible part of a pastor’s ministry, and it has a significant influence on the spiritual journey of a congregation. It is the express desire of the homiletics teachers at the Seventh-day Adventist Seminary to guide students to be the best preachers possible. However, the problem that is a review of the dissertations at the James White Library revealed that in the last 35 years no attention has been given to evaluating the effectiveness of methods used in homiletic classes at the …

A Soul Care Teaching And Discipling Model To Aid Millennial Youth In Developing Healthy Relationships With God, Self, And Others In The Nottingham Central Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Georgina Miller

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

A large proportion of youth and young adults classified as Millennials (also known as Generation Y) within the Adventist Church worldwide are hurting because of lack of acceptance, love, and healthy self-worth. This youth group has issues with trusting others, especially society at large and authority figures, due to negative experiences in their past, which has painfully scarred them. They have an unhealthy view of who God really is based on the dysfunctional role models they have grown up with and see around them. The church’s limited ability to connect and relate with the postmodern culture, due to a …

A Training Program For The Mentoring Ministry At Spencer Baptist Church In Spindale, North Carolina, Bruce Ray Caldwell

Doctor of Ministry Projects

A training program was developed to equip adult volunteers to be mentor/encouragers to adolescents. Believing Christian adults have a responsibility to nurture and encourage the church's children and youth, adult volunteers were led through training to enable them to give this support. Surveys and questionnaires measured the effectiveness of the weekly training sessions. Following the training, the mentor/encourager program was initiated.

Learning Together: Integrating Worship, Education, And Personal Devotion At Oakhurst Baptist Church Of Asheboro, North Carolina, Hunter Duncan

Doctor of Ministry Projects

The hypothesis of this project is that an integrated worship experience that engages church members with one biblical concept each week through various interactions will strengthen the community of faith. The ministry experiment sought to accomplish this goal by integrating weekly worship, Sunday School, daily devotions, and an internet-based discussion forum. Data was collected from project participants before the project began, weekly to measure the ongoing impact, and again at the project's conclusion. The results of the project revealed that integrating worship elements does improve engagement with the community of faith and the overall satisfaction with the weekly worship experience.