Digital Commons Network^™

The Role Of Ministry Structure And Student Ministry Leadership In Retaining Students In Church Following High School Graduation, Brandon Scott Carter

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The thesis of this project is to validate the correlations between the staff's role, leadership development, ministry structure, staff tenure and student development as they relate to retention of students in the local church after high school. Aspects considered include staff role, leadership development, and student development. Staff role covers the tenure of the pastoral staff, unified vision, resources, and congregational support. Leadership development includes enlisting, equipping, encouraging, and evaluating workers. Student development includes evangelism, education, encouragement, and evaluation. Many churches lack a clear plan for students. Untrained volunteers often lead students, or an untrained and inexperienced person is hired …

The Sobramesa Dinner Group: Discipline Boomers In Active Adult Living Communities, James Divine

Doctor of Ministry

Over the next 25 years, the American Church will be in a unique position to impact the eternity of almost 77 million people. As the Baby Boomer population moves into the third age of life, the church has the opportunity to reintroduce this population to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Within this large mission field is the added dimension of a large migration of retired and semi-retired people into Active Adult Living Communities (AALCs). While AALCs represent the largest-growing urban segment of the USA, the church is doing little to evangelize these communities. What the church does for these adults …

Developing A Discipleship Program For Chinese Speaking People To Create A Core Team For The “Abiding Christ Net” Via Zoom Video Conference, Sung Sub Song

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Seventh-day Adventist Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research (ASTR) data in December 2019 showed that among the 1.4 billion population in the Mainland China, there were 467,516 Adventist members, and the population per Adventist member ratio was about 3,000:1. Furthermore, there are about 50 million Chinese people living overseas. As a result, there is a great need to efficiently and effectively spread the Gospel to nearly 1.45 billion Chinese people around the world. In July 2020, the online Chinese discipleship network, ACN, was established to create a global Chinese discipleship network by connecting and utilizing Spirit-filled human resources, …

An Evangelism And Discipleship Pathway To Address The Cultural And Worldview Distance Between The Preston Seventh-Day Adventist Church And The White British Culture In Preston, Jeff Keith Couzins

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem.

The UK Preston Seventh-day Adventist Church in the North England Conference is a predominantly Black church situated in a White British city. The Church has seen a numerical increase of almost 25% since 2013, but only one person from this growth was from the majority culture population, a group who tend not to be attracted to traditional Adventist forms of evangelism. The hypothesis for this project, therefore, is that when the cultural and worldview distance between church members and individuals in society is reduced, it is easier for the Christian witness to then explain the Kingdom of God. Also, …

Intentional Discipleship: Effective Disciple-Making For Church Growth In Liberia, George L. Suah

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Pastors of extremely effective disciple-making churches are conscious of the degree of church efficiency, and they recognize the significance of intentional discipleship for church growth. The purpose of this study is to investigate intentional discipleship for church growth in Liberia. An anonymous research study of 12 pastors and church leaders (evangelists) from Unity Light Ministry Network (UCC) in Kakata, Liberia, West Africa, was conducted to explore why Unity Light Ministry Network (UCC) in Liberia is struggling to grow their church numerically and spiritually. The study found that the Ministry does not have adequate and systematic training on intentional discipleship for …

The Sent Life: Discovering The Mission Of God And The Christian's Place In It, Cliff Roberts Jordan

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The church in the West today has separated something that was never intended to be divided. This critical error impacts the very core of who a Christian is which informs and empowers what a Christian does. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you,” and in doing so He designated all Christians as “sent ones.” This means living on mission as a sent one is not reserved for a special class of Christians, but is the very calling of all Christians. Since that is true, all Christians need to understand and be equipped for the mission …

The Effective Bi-Vocational Pastor, Cory A. Macneil

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Pastors fill an important role as they lead churches to fulfill the Great Commission. This is especially challenging for bi-vocational pastors who have jobs outside of ministry. Meanwhile, some church members view the bi-vocational pastor as the paid professional and misunderstand their role as members/ministers. The original design of God is for pastors and members to be disciples who make disciples according to 2 Timothy 2:2. The purpose of this project is to help bi-vocational pastors in the Northeast strategically equip their people to become effective members, ministers, and missionaries who realize the significance of being disciples who make disciples. …

Prayerlessness: Using Expository Sermons To Change The Way Believer's Pray, Joshua Kenton Smith

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

In America, the church is operating with less supernatural power than it once did or currently does in other parts of the world, especially as it relates to those like East Barbourville Baptist Church who belong to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). For example, the Annual Church Profile data of the SBC for the 2018 year reveals that its overall membership has reached a thirty-year low. Likewise, the data reveals a decline in baptisms for the tenth year in a row. Yet, the church has access to more ministry tools and better training than any previous generation, so what is …

Creating More Discipleship At Mount Olivet Baptist Church Through The Brotherhood Ministry, Kevin Ml Jefferson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Getting volunteers to serve in the Brotherhood Ministry will increase the opportunity to create more discipleship at Mount Olivet Baptist Church and better serve the Community. The purpose of this research is to address the problem through some sort of intervention and report the results based on the interventions provided. Research is needed on this particular ministry because it is the ministry that does outreach in the local community.

Strategies And Biblical Principles To Keep Church Plants From Closing Its Doors Within The First Three Years, Damian Billups

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Christians are commissioned to disciple the nations. Many attempts to fulfill this commission encounter variables that hinder the fulfillment of this dictum. Statistics indicate significant proportions of church planting endeavors are challenged to survive beyond one year. This project will expose reasons church planting efforts struggle to thrive and will provide strategies and biblical principles to remedy the identified obstacles. The data will be utilized for current and future church planting efforts. The goal of this project is to reduce factors that cause church plants to close prematurely. Church laity and clergy will be surveyed for their perspectives regarding church …

Transformational Leadership: Equipping Small Churches To Make Disciples By Integrating Wesleyan Principals, Ronald Kent Wise

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This ministry thesis project will use qualitative research to address Wesleyan Transformational Leadership and how to apply the principles to equip churches to make disciples for Jesus Christ. The principles addressed within the project are defined by the acronym L.E.A.D: L-Love, E-Educate, A-Adapt and D-Duplicate. In today’s politically correct culture, the persecution of the Christian worldview occurs in communities, politics, and the church. Transformational leadership introduces biblical principles in conjunction with time-tested leadership principles to promote and strengthen individual and corporate growth. Individual and corporate growth transforms lives of individuals as relationships and stories are shared. As transformation takes place, …

Universal Leadership Model, Derwin Lamont Hickman Sr

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The Great Commission is the call of Jesus to his people to go out into the world and make disciples. The universal leadership model presents an opportunity for disciples/leaders to step up and fulfill the Great Commission. The church should be involved in discipleship training, outreaches and supporting the issues that are aligned with Christian ideology and important to people in the communities they serve. An effective universal leadership model should include diversity, training, desired change, accountability and effectiveness of change. In so doing, the church can then find parishioners within the church who may be transformed into disciples/leaders and …

Healthy Church Multiplication In Modern Churches, William J. Burns

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Jesus’ command in Matthew 28:19 leaves no room for interpretation. The role of the followers of Jesus and of the church is decidedly clear. We are called to make disciples of all nations. An honest assessment of my local ministry context, Access Church, reveals that we, as a church, have fallen short of Jesus’ Great Commission. The intention of this research project is to understand the biblical mandate to make disciples as taught throughout Scripture, study Jesus’ discipleship methods in the book of Matthew, and, ultimately, create a new rubric to help Access Church—and other churches—understand how to measure its …

Fostering Self-Efficacy For Biblical Learning And Doctrinal Awareness With Micro-Teaching In A Brief Course On Bible Study, Robin K. Henson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Self-efficacy for biblical learning was explored in the context of a small group experience focused on how to study the Bible. After first developing a new instrument to measure self-efficacy for biblical learning in a pilot study, ten church attendees participated in a seven-week course designed around the hermeneutical principles of understanding a Scripture passage in textual and historical context, placing the passage in the grand story of God, and relating it to relevant doctrine. The small group process employed micro-teaching as a mechanism to facilitate challenge and mastery experience in learning. Micro-teaching places the student in the role of …

Technological Discipleship: How Modern Platforms Can Improve Devotional Habits In Core Church, Greg D. Phelps

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

In a society immersed and fascinated with technological devices and tools, the researcher explored the extent to which online platforms can provide a productive means to implement discipleship programs in a church plant through the use of internet video devotional materials. The relatively low practice of regular devotional habits in today’s Church has become an increasing problem. The purpose of this project was to examine the possibility of spiritual formation within the congregants of Core Church through the use of online video devotions. The project consisted of sixteen online video devotions that were created from four sermons delivered at Core …

Attractional To Missional: A Strategic Transition Plan For Anastasia Baptist Church, Samuel F. Thigpen

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Anastasia Baptist Church (ABC) has existed for fifty years and has grown into a church of roughly sixteen-hundred regular worshipers. Over the last five years, ABC has plateaued in growth due to its focus on maintaining an attractional church structure. For ABC to grow and be healthy again, it must shift from an attractional model of discipleship to a hybrid one that utilizes both attractional and missional models of discipleship. This thesis seeks to investigate how ABC can strategically shift from an attractional to a hybrid model of discipleship. Research for this project will examine a biblical model for discipleship, …

Maximizing Discipleship Via An Adult Small Group Ministry, Wendell Jeff Jackson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Since its inception in 1996, First Redeemer Church has been firmly committed to Jesus’ commission to make disciples. While all of the church’s ministries aim to do this, First Redeemer Church relies heavily on its adult small group ministry to facilitate discipleship. One indication of this ministry’s strategic importance is the considerable financial investment the church has made, and plans to make, to provide on-campus spaces for adult education. Such investments have been considered worthy in light of the expected spiritual growth of the ministry’s participants and their involvement in and financial support of the church. This study will evaluate …

The Cultural Appropriations Of Organic Church Leadership, Rhythms, And Methodologies Into The Traditional Church Model, Aaron Lewis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Within this thesis project an engagement with organic church structures, in relation to elements of leadership replication and natural rhythms of life, which are foundational to organic church expressions, will be explored. The metanarrative of leadership replication strategies and methodological elements which are foundational to the bio-communities contained within the context of simple and organic church expressions will be evaluated for their replication within the traditional church context. The intention of this thesis is to provide traditional church communities with crossover methodologies from organic church gatherings for the development of replicating leadership as well as holistic biblical communities.

Cultural Based Discipling According To The Strategies Of Jesus, Jonathan Smith

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Many newly planted and existing churches in America have difficulty developing a discipleship culture. They focus on weekly worship gatherings and Bible Study classes. Gathering for worship and Bible Study is needed and right, but when this is the only activity, discipleship and a holistic healthy church culture is not occurring. Unfortunately, many churches engage in a consumer-driven culture with people unwilling to be in a sacrificial discipleship process for the Gospel’s sake. Jesus had four primary strategies for developing disciples. They are the gathered strategy, the small group strategy, the mentoring strategy and the sending strategy. Each is part …

Spiritual Transformation At Austin Christian Church, David Hooper

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project was designed to meet a need at the Austin Christian Church (ACC) for enhancing the spiritual formation of new converts to Christianity by providing clear direction for mentors seeking to disciple others into the image of Christ. The scope of this project is focused directly on taking the first steps toward a deliberate pathway for spiritual formation by establishing the foundational principles. The apostle Paul’s pastoral theology provides the theological rationale for the project. Theosis, the theologically rich description of the Christian transformative process, also informs the theological foundation for the project. Drawing on the work of Richard …

Disciple-Making: Key Ingredients For Building God’S Kingdom, Sid Emory

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The first century Church was founded in response to the disciple-making processes of Jesus. His disciples were transformed by following Jesus in a way that obedience, transformation, community, education, worship, and the expansion of God’s kingdom became the central themes of their lives. This study addressed the need to understand the disciple-making process found in Scripture in a way that will yield the results that are found in the Book of Acts primarily those found in Acts 2:42-47. Christian churches of every denomination, tradition, model, and size have been called to make disciples. The Scripture, literature, interviews, and surveys researched …

An Examination Of Art In The American Evangelical Church For The Purpose Of Discipleship And Evangelism, Joshua Dugan

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Christianity, in previous eras, has been the foundation of the art community. But, it has surrendered that role over the past three centuries and with it a significant potion of its influence on culture. In addition the church is not effectively reaching an entire demographic of people, those who would define themselves as creatives and artists, because it has distanced itself from the arts. This paper will research the previous methods employed by the church and the current limitations of art within the American Evangelical church through applied academic research as well as interviews with church leaders and artists. The …

Creating And Sustaining A Missional Movement In America, Bradley Milks

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This project seeks to create a paradigm and plan that would generate a sustainable missional movement in America. America, since her founding, has been home to many revivals. However, there have only ever been two missional movements, the Methodist and Baptist in the 18th and 19th century. For decades, the American Church has watched the general population increase while church attendance, participation, and involvement decrease. While the American Church loses its impact on society, the Global South and Global East are experiencing missional movements. A new missional paradigm and plan is needed to reach America, especially as culture increasingly becomes …

Reaching The Thai People Of Southeast Asia: A Model For Discipleship And Leadership Training, Duane D. Carmody

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This thesis addresses training the Thai national leadership in discipleship and leadership qualities to develop a church planting movement with the main goal of evangelizing the unreached people groups throughout the countries of China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. The Thai have become dependent on foreign funds and though they are an independent people, they are beginning to realize that there are strings attached—with money comes control. The model will be built around a sustainable farm, which will help in developing vocational skills in order to become indigenous and autonomous. In this thesis it is my purpose to present a …

Missional Communities: Why They Are Failing And How To Help Them Thrive, Matthew L. Murphy

Doctor of Ministry

Missional communities are failing. Missional communities are failing because they do not contextualize the nature, function, and historical forms of the church. Specifically, missional communities fail due to lack of leadership, gospel proclamation, incarnational living to a particular people, and mission dependence on the Holy Spirit. All of these things stem from not putting the nature, function, and historical forms of the church before modern forms.

Missional communities will begin to thrive if communities will not just copy forms of other missional churches, but if they will contextualize the nature, functions, and historical forms of the church in their own …

Formulating A Covenant Of Discipleship For The Membership Of The Gwinnett Church Of Christ, David Chisholm

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project addressed the lack of a covenant of discipleship for the membership of the Gwinnett Church of Christ (GCC). The purpose of the project was to develop such a covenant document to help all the members of GCC better live out the process of becoming more like Jesus. To provide a theological foundation for this project, I explored discipleship in the exhortation sections of the book of Hebrews, which specifically addresses the need for greater commitment and intentionality amongst a community of faith. I also explored the theoretical framework of how formulating a discipleship covenant document could create progress …

Developing A Strategy To Make Young Adult Disciples In Korean Churches: Focusing On God’S Word In A Discipleship Process, Hyun Park

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

There are many discipleship programs in Korean churches; however, the programs have not had positive effects on young adult for the purpose of developing disciple makers. Discipleship for young adult requires many elements in the process including God’s word, fellowship, training in Christian habits, and spiritual maturity. The purpose of the thesis is to examine Jesus’ and the Apostles’ discipleship processes and to suggest a strategy for making young adult multiply in Korean churches, focusing on God’s words as a discipleship making process. This study will explore discipleship processes of the New Testament and discuss how God’s Word has an …

Reframing The Imperative Of The Great Commission In The Haitian Context: Discipleship Strategies To Impact Haiti For Christ, Dieufort Dieujuste

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Haitians generally identify themselves as Christians. According to World Factbook, Haiti is 80% Catholic and 16% Protestant; however, nearly all the population practices or believes in Voodoo, which is now a national religion. Idolatry permeates every segment of life while the Haitian Protestant Church remains powerless and disengaged. The purpose of this thesis project is to develop key strategies of discipleship for Haiti in view of Matthew 28:18-20. The author proposes to survey 300 Haitian pastors, seminarians, and lay leaders in order to gauge the status of discipleship and to identify hindrances to the gospel in Haiti. The survey will …

Leaving Decline And Towards Growth: Discovering The Keys To Church Regeneration In South Wales, Elizabeth M. A. Linssen

Doctor of Ministry

This paper highlights the current spiritual climate of Christianity in Wales today, calling for urgent attention to certain deficits within the Church. Section one begins by examining the claims of secularists who believe that Christianity is in a terminal condition in Britain, and whether that is an accurate view. We then progress by looking for signs of new life in UK churches and what it actually means to be a healthy church.

From there, we turn to the great commission Jesus Christ entrusted to His church prior to His ascension, and look at the relationship between growing healthy disciples of …

Transformation Of The Prescott Foursquare Church: Becoming A Church Planting Church, John W. Gooding

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study is a qualitative study of the Prescott Foursquare Church and its transformation from a small, broken denominational church to a disciple making and church planting fellowship of churches. The project sought to discover the key trigger events or processes that brought about church growth in the Prescott church and led to the growth of a fellowship of over twenty-two hundred churches in one hundred and sixteen countries. The result of interviews of pastors and review of historical data of the church and Christian Fellowship Ministries was the discovery of a discipleship culture in the local congregation in Prescott …