Digital Commons Network^™

Faith Leaders’ Guide To Adolescent Protection, Population Council, Zambia Interfaith Networking Group (Zingo), Faith Mother Bodies

Adolescents and Young People

No abstract provided.

Establishing The St. Paul Ame Church’S Community Youth Chaplain Ministry To Equip African American Youth To Manage Their Mental, Emotional, And Spiritual Health, Michelle A. Creer

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

African American youth face a myriad of challenges that negatively impact their well-being. As such, this study explores the role of community youth chaplaincy interventions in helping African American youth manage their mental, emotional, and spiritual health. The study focused on training the trainers who will guide and support the young people. The training and self-application/intervention centered on building resilience, identity formation, addressing racial trauma, and nurturing spiritual growth through understanding that God created participants in His image and their identity is in Christ. Nine adult participants who are engaged in churches and activities within the African American community, contributed …

Faith That Lasts: How Local Churches Can Support Families In Passing On Their Faith To Their Children, Andrew Corbyn Thompson

Doctor of Ministry

NPO Statement

More than ever, children raised in Christian homes leave their faith by adulthood.

A major contributing factor to this tragic exodus is the North American ministry model that outsourced discipleship from the home to age-segregated church programs and professionals. This project responds to the urgent need to equip and empower parents in their foundational role as their children's first disciplers.

Key Benefit or Insights that Emerged from the Research Overall

The research for this project, grounded in biblical and theological foundations and sociological observation, highlights that lasting, authentic faith is fostered in a holistic home environment where parents, …

Transformation Of Spirituality: Religious Practices Of Ukrainian Youth During The Full-Scale War, Tetiana Bevz, Olena Hazizova, Viktoriia Kapustina, Serhii Maiatskyi

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article examines the transformation of spirituality among Ukrainian youth during the full-scale war and the changes in religious practices, motivations, and individualized faith in the context of existential crises, social upheavals, and mass population mobility. The impact of war on the role of religious institutions, including the development of institutional adaptability, the shift to horizontal communication models, and the decolonization of religious narratives, is analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the formation of “social religiosity,” when faith serves not only as a tool for individual spiritual practice but also as a tool for civic participation and volunteer initiatives. The …

Youth Discipleship Reimagined Through Digital Media, Julian L.V. Joyner

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation examines the development and implementation of MeXHim.com, a youth discipleship website designed to address the pressing need for accessible, relatable, and culturally relevant tools to engage middle and high school students in their spiritual journeys in Christ. The platform focuses on three core areas: Salvation, Prayer, and Church connection opportunities, providing a digital space where youth can explore faith-based areas and take actionable steps in their relationship with Christ. The project emerges in response to the growing disconnect between traditional church outreach methods and the digital-first lifestyles of younger generations, highlighting the need for innovative approaches to discipleship …

Identity Restored: High School Students Overcoming Social Media’S Influence To Embrace Their Identity As Sons And Servants Of God, Daniel M. Christiaans

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The research question for this action research project relates to the impact of social media on the identity formation of believers through their high school years. As a youth pastor of 20 years and father of four teenagers, I’ve noticed that high school students maintain many of the social media habits and addictions seen in the secular world. This regular interaction with social media is detrimental to their identity formation; they are not adopting the identity provided for them in Christ as communicated by the Word of God. This project will discuss the roles and responsibilities of the believer's identity …

Wholely: A Youth Ministry Program To Develop Life Skills For Students, Brenda Antigua

Christian Ministries Senior Capstone

Churches usually focus primarily on people's spiritual lives. The mission of youth ministries is to foster a relationship with God among young people from an early age, but the church is called to do more because God cares holistically for his children. Wholely is a ministry that works with the academic, educational, and professional needs of students in Humboldt Park, Chicago, IL, providing them with monthly workshops that teach them life skills to prepare them for the future; mentorship from devoted leaders; inductive Bible study to learn what the Word says about them and what they are learning; a resource …

Returning To The Edge: Religious Education, Affiliation, And Accompaniment, Patrick R. Manning Ph.D.

Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology Publications

The aim of this article is to envision approaches better suited to facilitating an encounter with God’s love for those who find themselves at the edges of church affiliation. The first part of the article involves an exercise in pastoral listening, endeavoring to understand the present concerns and realities of such people as they experience them. The second part offers principles and examples of the kind of accompaniment that current research and practice suggest is better suited to our present situation and the needs of people who do not feel at home in the Church.

Intergenerational Christian Community: A Vision For Spiritual Formation For All Ages, Robin Pyles

Doctor of Ministry

For decades, American churches have been struggling with shrinking attendance, particularly among young people. An increasingly polarized society that elevates individualism and secularization, along with widespread escalating age segregation, has contributed to this trend. In response to these societal norms, many local churches have defaulted to a primarily age-segregated programming model. This model results in the absence of a sense of community and belonging, and a lack of Christian spiritual formation growth among both youth and adults within the church. This research revealed that creating regular opportunities for meaningful cross-generational interactions that combine shared experiences of play, creative expression, intentional …

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 …

The Need For A Spiritual Reboot In The Youth Of Great Commission Church, Jean Max B St Louis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The decline of the youth attendance is evident in many Protestant churches. This research paper examined forty-three young believers from three Haitian Baptist churches, respectively, located in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. These data results help develop a suitable spiritual program that includes the six key influencing factors for spiritual growth: discipleship, mentoring, parental influence, church attendance, personal devotion, and ministerial involvement. This spiritual program was tested on a small group of young people from Great Commission Church in Queens. This research uses a mixed-method methodology, which is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze the data. The …

Evangelistic Mentorship To Address Youth Decline At Dawn Baptist Church, Rickey Wesley Dover

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This paper presents an intervention addressing young adults’ tendency to leave the church after adolescence. This thesis project proposes that false conversion in a person’s formative years drives young adult church departure. For those who have a relationship with Christ, the most probable cause for departure is the lack of sanctification and growth due to an absence of biblical training. Therefore, this project designed and implemented an evangelical mentorship program specifically designed for youth in the church. While the research approach focuses more on quantitative methods, it also has qualitative elements. This research is qualitative in many of the self-reflections …

Children Are A Heritage From The Lord: A Procreation-Centric Approach To Christian Marriage And Family Education, Nicholas Lee Hagerman

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

Hagerman, Nicholas L. "Children Are a Heritage from the Lord: A Procreation-Centric Approach to Christian Marriage and Family Education." Doctor of Ministry. Major Applied Project, Concordia Seminary, 2022. 242 pp.

As youth and young adults are being raised in the church, they are often taught about issues related to sex and marriage. However, procreation and raising families are rarely mentioned in such teaching, which tends to focus instead on relational issues between spouses, the avoidance of sexual sins, and the marital institution's reflection of the relationship between Christ and His church. This project seeks to remedy this deficiency by taking …

Theological Education And Spiritual Formation In The Lives Of Engaged, Emerging Adults, Markus David Colbert

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This thesis seeks to answer the following question: What is an effective discipleship method for emerging adults who are already engaged in IChurch? The method chosen was multi-layered and utilized corporate discipleship which involved a classroom setting geared toward theological and doctrinal education based on Bloom-Anderson’s taxonomy of educational objectives, communal discipleship which was concerned with small group activities and peer-to-peer accountability, and personal discipleship geared toward individual spiritual formation given an edited list of Whitney’s personal spiritual disciplines. Participants were asked to take an introductory Theological examination which plotted them from analyze level to the create level of Bloom’s …

Discipleship On The Role And Responsibility Of A Youth Minister, Warren Douglas Choice

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The thesis project is designed to equip the congregation at Cary’s Baptist Church to understand the role and responsibility of a youth minister. Cary’s Baptist Church is an older congregation located in Yorktown, Virginia. The congregation was established in the 1800’s and has served the community by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and serving individuals who live in the Yorktown community. Throughout the years of serving the community, the congregation has been effective in evangelism and open for youth to be a part of the congregation. However, there has been a decline in youth attendance and involvement in the …

The Role Of Civil Society Organizations In Youth Inclusion Reforms In Post-Uprising Tunisia, Amal Tobich

Theses and Dissertations

Tunisia has a large youth population; more than half of the population are youth aged between 15-30 years in 2011. Tunisia has long faced challenges adopting serious reforms for youth inclusion and participation. Young people, especially since the Arab Spring, are driving social and economic innovation, challenging policies, and representing governments. More connected than ever, young people exert a greater influence on their fellow citizens and their country and youth inclusion is a central aspect of the post-2015 global development agenda. This study seeks to determine the role of Civil society Organizations in youth inclusion by drawing on extensive literature …

Christian Change Agents : Analyzing The Effectiveness Of A Christian Leadership Program Among Students In A Central Kentucky Restoration Church, James W. Bush

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Decline Of Youth At Ministry Under The Sky, Wanda Elaine Belvin

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The decline of youth attending their services is no secret for many churches. The influences of the world, technology, wanting to fit in are just a few reasons youth find other things to do than attend their church services faithfully. Ministry Under The Sky is a small ministry with a big heart. At its birth in 2001, Ministry Under The Sky’s start was in the researcher’s home and her husband, the Overseer of the ministry. God blessed Ministry Under The Sky with its first building in 2007. The church outgrew the first two buildings less than two years each. The …

Connecting Youth To The Gospel: The Role Of Theology And Apologetics, John Wesley Sales Iv

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Connecting youth to the Gospel sounds like a basic undertaking. However, evidence shows students know very little about the Gospel. While they grow up in church and attend Sunday school, there is still a lack of desire from students to want to know who God is. There needs to be a path to teaching students the genuine and deep teachings of the Gospel. This topic is important because as students grow older, they may grow apart from what they learned in Sunday school. When they are challenged and distracted by the world, they need a strong anchor to keep them …

Development Of Future Leaders In The Christian Church, Albert Lee Crout

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The thesis project, Development of Future Leaders in the Christian Church, was developed to address the decline in youth attendance, retention, and participation in The Mountain Christian Church in Nicholasville, Kentucky. There has been a consistent decline in the number of youths who attend and participate in the church after high school graduation. After a review of literature and case study, which included a survey, questionnaire, and roundtable discussions, this researcher determined that the cause of the problem was that the church lacked programs for youth that lead them to Christian maturity and an opportunity for leadership skills training. The …

Online Projects For Adventist Youth During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Valentyna Kuryliak, Mariia Ovchar

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article explores and presents the first online projects that were organized by young people who are members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ukraine. It was found that the initiators of the launch of the projects were the believing youth themselves, who, faced with the problem of the lack of weekly offline communication in churches, resorted to alternative methods of interaction. Online communication was developed in a youth style and focused on the interests and problems of young people, such as finding a life partner, learning to organize their time, complications in the development of spiritual life, etc. During …

Strength For The Journey With Youth: High School Theology Programs And The Universal Apostolic Preferences, Darby Ratliff, Stephen Chanderbhan

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

In 1993, the Lilly Endowment launched an initiative for seminaries and divinity schools to host high school theology programs (HSTPs) with two goals: to engage youth in theological learning and to foster a generation of youth interested in vocations in Christian ministry. This initiative was then extended in 2015 to include colleges and universities. This paper examines one such program, the Be the Light Youth Theology Institute (BTLI) at Canisius College, as a case study to illustrate the synergy between these programs and the Society of Jesus’ four Universal Apostolic Preferences. By considering well-established research about high school theology programs …

Now, Tomorrow Is Leaving Yesterday : Departure Of Campus Youths From Church, Ayobamiji Joseph Oluwagunna

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Discipleship Band : Evaluating The Transformative Potential And Best Practices For Seedbed's Model Of Discipleship Bands Among Students At Asbury University, Mark A. Benjamin

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Walk Beside Me: A Look At Theology Of Accompaniment With Youth On Retreats, Carla Nunneri

LMU Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Faith Development Study On Parents As Primary Faith Influencers, Caarne L. White

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research study intends to address a problem parents face as the assumptive primary faith influencers in their children's discipleship and spiritual development. The goal is to discover the support parents receive as World Changers Church International members while growing in the Christian faith as a family. The problem manifests when youth pastors and workers struggle to help student ministries make real-life connections through discipleship and mission. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the physical church closure is considered in exploring the study and further augment parents' struggles. In the discovery process, the study will assess how guidance through the Christian …

Preparing The Next Generation For A Pluralistic World: The Need To Teach Systematic Theology To Christian Youth, Terrance Jermayne O'Neil

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The continuation of Christianity is rooted in the historical practice of the preceding generation theologically educating the next generation. This process has led to the spreading of the gospel throughout the world. However, in recent years, the Christian church has watched an entire generation walk away from the faith. Many youths who affirmed their faith in Christ are abandoning their confessions and practice. The challenges and skepticism of a pluralistic and relativistic culture have questioned historic Christianity. Regretfully, Christian youth are unable to respond theologically and accurately with confidence. The church has failed to prepare them. This study sought to …

Engaging With New Generations : Integration Among Young English-Speaking Hispanics In A Spanish-Speaking Congregation, José W. Pimentel

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Creating Vocational Curriculums For Youth Ministries: Challenges And Opportunities, Chris Keeton

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

This essay reflects on the creation of a vocational curriculum produced by the author's doctoral project. The goal is to explore the value in vocational reflection among teenagers in youth groups, and to offer an example of how youth ministries may implement extended and holistic teaching programs regarding the theology of vocation.

This essay begins with an assessment of the ministry context. Second, It reviews templates for vocational curricula used on some college campuses and how the author implemented those strategies into the project. Two key strategies were a common curriculum and a mentoring environment. Such templates were found in …

The Intergenerational Worship Model: Youth-Specific Benefits, James Alan Lott

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

King David declared that one generation should proclaim the goodness of the Lord to another, yet what David writes of cannot take place in an age-segregated setting. Multiple generations must be present. Much progress has been made regarding the church’s acknowledgment of the significance of an intergenerational worship (IGW) model. Though each generation is precious to God and created in His image, IGW holds considerable benefits for churched youth, as it is one of the few places in society where youth can intentionally connect with older generations. Despite the importance of youth engagement in IGW, there is a limited amount …