Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Worship Music As Spiritual Identity: An Examination Of Music In The Liturgy Among Black And White Adventists In The United States From 1840 To 1944, David A. Williams

David Williams

The Topic

This study examined Black and White Seventh-day Adventist music in the liturgy in the United States from 1840 to 1944. Little scholarly attention has been given to the development of Adventist liturgical practice, the function of music in the liturgy, and the effect of music upon the spiritual identity. This study utilized liturgical history, ritual studies, musicology, and liturgical theology to derive and compare the spiritual identity fostered through music in the liturgy by these ethnic groups. This study considered both the shared and distinct spiritual identities of Black and White Adventists, as cultivated by the music in …

A Case Study Of The Culturally Diverse Worship At The Florida Hospital Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Richard Edwin Hickam

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The Florida Hospital Seventh-day Adventist Church (FHC) is a multicultural, multigenerational church in Orlando, FL. This case study will examine the history of the worshiping community with particular attention to the change in the culture of the worship services enacted in 2014 and its ongoing impact. The church moved from a traditional and a contemporary service to two identical culturally conscious worship services. This format is unusual in the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) denomination. Seventh-day Adventism was named in a Pew study as the most diverse religion in the United States, but that does not mean its people are racially worshiping …

Adventist Demographics In North America: Briefing For Journalism Class At S.A.U., Monte Sahlin

Interviews & Video Recordings

No abstract provided.

The Christian Debate On Same-Sex Marriage And Taylor’S Immanent And Transcendent Goods: Lessons From Adventist Approaches, David J. Hamstra

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

Arguments made for and against affirming same-sex marriage in Christian communities rely on typical moral background preconceptions about immanent and transcendent goods identified by Charles Taylor in A Secular Age. Arguments made only in terms of marriage’s immanent goods have the potential to diminish the plausibility of a uniquely Adventist way of imagining the transcendent good: apocalyptic consciousness focused on the imminent-immanent restoration of Eden by Jesus Christ following the second coming. Comparing marriage to divergent sets of Sabbath-keeping practices—those that provide benefits exclusive to this world and those that aim at goods beyond this world—foregrounds the availability of …

That They May All Be One: Historical And Contemporary Ideologies Of Regional Conferences In The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Debbie-Ann Francis

Master's Theses

The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church has been known for its wide diversity along with its struggles in racial relations within the Black SDA community in the United States. The SDA Church established regional conferences for Black SDA leaders as an alternative to full integration within the denomination. For this analysis, an ideological criticism was performed on two videos that focused on the topic of regional conferences. The hegemonic ideology that surfaced was that separation within the church organization based on race is necessary in order to fulfill the mission of the SDA Church and that issues such as racism will …

A Strategy To Reach Families With Children In Calgary, Alberta, Ghenadie Girleanu

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

During the last decade, Calgary Central Church has not been intentionally involved in reaching families with children. They have done many different types of evangelism and community outreach programs but nothing to attract this specific segment of the population. With a large number of unreached families with children in the community, the need for a specific outreach project like this was obvious.

Method

A 12-week program to reach families with children was developed and implemented during 2016-2017. The approach of this project was to reach the parents by reaching their children first. For this purpose, Kids' Discipleship Club was …

Educating Young Adults In The Conejo Valley To Choose A Godly Spouse, Simon Liversidge

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

Divorce rates and marital satisfaction rates are similar in both Christian and non-Christian young adults. Yet increases in church attendance, religious commitment and spirituality have been shown to make significant differences in divorce and marital satisfaction rates. However, many young adults have no framework to understand how to choose a potential spouse, or what factors or characteristics are most important in making such a choice. Almost all premarital education is aimed at young adults who have already chosen their spouse, but have no education aimed at understanding what matters most in making this choice.

Method

A weekend seminar was …

Desarrollo E Implementacion De Un Programa De Entrenamiento Para Predicadores Laicos En Las Iglesias Adventistas Del Distrito De Fort Washington, Nueva York, S. Yeury Ferreira

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

The task of this project was to develop, implement, and evaluate a training program for lay preachers in the Seventh-day Adventist churches within the district of Fort Washington, New York, where the author of this document has served as pastor since 2014. Given that this missionary district comprises three churches (Fort Washington, Washington Avenue, and Luz y Esperanza), it is impossible for the pastor to always preach in every one of those congregations, Therefore, the preaching responsibility falls on the shoulders of church elders and other lay preachers. Pastoral observation indicates that, out of the 400 church members who …

A Strategy For Empowering Parents In Family Discipleship At The Philadelphia Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Hubert A. Wilkie

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

Although the Bible clearly calls parents to train their children in the faith and pass on faith to the next generation (Deut 6:4-9; Eph 6:4), few parents at the Philadelphia Seventh-day Adventist Church seem to be involved actively in their children's spiritual development. As a result, the way God designed the family to function is being inadvertently abandoned. This apparent lack of faith and values transmission has resulted in a very high attrition rate among our youth, who are usually disengaged by age 15 and leave the church by age 25. This perceived crisis over the dropout rate has …

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

Professional Dissertations DMin

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 …

Development And Implementation Of A Community-Based Health Evangelism Strategy At Fellowship Seventh-Day Adventist Church In Tallahassee, Florida, Daphnis Ricardo

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

The Fellowship Seventh-day Adventist church desired to reach its community but did not have a strategic plan on how to do so. The lack of a strategic plan hindered the effectiveness of the church in making an impact in its neighborhood and left the members with a sense that they were not making a difference in their community. Initial observations done through formal talks with church leaders suggested that health ministry was a focus where their church had a strength and was a means by which to reach the neighborhood.

Method

The methods used were to develop a team …

The Development, Implementation, And Evaluation Of A Preaching Discipleship Training Program For Church Members In The Knoxville First Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Marcus Alden Swearingen Bates

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

The Knoxville First Seventh-day Adventist Church has members endowed with the spiritual gift of speaking (preaching). However, no training program was available for these gifted members to develop and practice their preaching skills. The senior pastor, associate pastor, and guest speakers handled the preaching responsibilities, while these members were not edifying the congregation through the exercise of their preaching gift. The absence of a preaching training program also revealed a neglect of the pastoral responsibility to disciple members in the area of preaching. This project was an effort to train gifted members in the preaching craft for a potential …

Strategy To Retain Second Generation Immigrants At The Bethlehem French Seventh-Day Adventist Church In New Jersey, Emile Duvivier

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

Bethlehem French Seventh-day Adventist Church in East Orange, New Jersey, has been facing the challenges of any typical church located in urban environments in this post-millennial world. The church is confronted with member depletion in general, and the young people, in particular. The problem of retention has plagued our congregation in a manner that stagnated our exponential growth. A large percentage of the children who were born and raised in the church is leaving the Seventh-day Adventist faith after college. The Bethlehem French Seventh-day Adventist Church has not been exempted.

Method

To resolve the problem, I have put in …

Desarrollo E Implementacion De Un Programa De Administracion Para Pastores Distritales Con Multiples Iglesias En La Union Peruana Del Sur, Enzo Ronald Chávez Idrogo

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

The South Peruvian Union-Mission has seven fields and 227 district pastors. Every pastor serves an average of 11 local churches, and the financial reality of local fields makes it impossible to add more pastors. Although ministers meet the evangelistic goals of the local fields, some administrative deficiencies have become evident in areas such as planning, administrative meetings with the entire congregation, church board meetings, integral visitation program, church budget, discipline for erring members, etc. Besides the positive impact expected from this project in the South Peruvian Union, the lessons learned from the development and implementation of this project has …

Servant Leadership: A Study About Organizational Health, Leadership Styles And Practices In Missao Bahia Sudoeste Of The Seventh-Day Adventist Church And The Possible Relation Between The Ministerial Areas Low Engagement Level In The Small Groups Program, Osmar Borges Lima

Master's Theses

Problem

Due to the low engagement of the pastors of Missão Bahia Sudoeste (MBSo) in the Small Groups program as compared to other field within the União Leste Brasileira (ULB) it was decided to investigate the organizational health, the leadership practices and styles, as well as the job satisfaction on the part of the MBSo’s pastors.

Method

The study was conducted among 52 pastors who represented the three levels of leadership designated by the OLA research instrument (Top Leadership, Management and Work Force) which analyses the perception of the participants six key areas of leadership, as well as six levels …

Facing The Challenge Of Mobile Technology: A Seminar On Strengthening Intimacy In Families At The Hendersonville Seventh-Day Adventist Church, David Nicholas Wright

Professional Dissertations DMin

The Problem

The new wave of smartphones and other forms of mobile technology presents an always available Internet connection that is hard for many families to manage. Without sufficient awareness of technology's subtle impact on relationships and without appropriate boundaries, many suffer loss of face-to-face interaction, communication and intimacy within their family circles.

The Method

The purpose of this project was to investigate whether a five-session educational seminar would create greater awareness and motivate changes in mobile technology usage that is seen as beneficial to parents and family.

The Results

Of the 11 families who committed to coming to the …

Transforming The Lexington Seventh-Day Adventist Church Through Spirituality And Prayer, Pavel Goia

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

Often in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as in many other Christian churches, while there is a lot of talk about transformation and growth, spiritual and numerical growth seems lacking. There is a tendency to try new programs and methods that may seem to lead to success or growth, yet many of those projects use the resources and energy of the church with no real lasting results. This often leads to frustration and lack of hope for real change. Growth in the first-century church and in other times throughout history was real, and such growth is still possible.

Method

At …

A Collaborative Leadership Strategy To Develop A Missional Focus At The Anderson Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Murray L. Miller

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

The problem addressed in this project was the lack of missional focus at the Anderson Seventh-day Adventist Church. Four symptoms were correlated to this problem. First, from 2010 to 2013 the Anderson Seventh-day Adventist Church witnessed a slight decline in tithe and a drop in mission offerings. Second, conference archive data from 2003 to 2013 showed that the membership had remained steady while attendance had gradually been in decline. Third, though no formal surveys were available at the initiation of this project, anecdotal evidence from the conference to the local level showed varying opinions concerning the focus of the …

A Training Program For Members To Minister To Hiv/Aids Patients At The Nyagiki Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Kenya, Job Ogoti Getange

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

During my pastoral experience at Nyagiki, I observed that although HIV/AIDS was a big threat in the church and society, many of the church leaders were not involved in addressing this crisis. There were no intentional church training programs to warn the members about its danger. The church did not make a budget of time or money to address this pandemic. The root problem that caused this situation was lack of health information literacy on HIV/AIDS to equip these leaders with knowledge and skills to deal with this crisis.

Method

The Doctor of Ministry Research Project was conducted at …

Improving Family Satisfaction Through Conflict-Management Training For The Immanuel Seventh-Day Adventist Church In Toronto, Canada, Anthony M. Reid

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

The Immanuel Seventh-day Adventist Church is a multiracial congregation with members from over 35 countries, with approximately 200 families in regular attendance. Twenty percent of these families are interracial families, while 80% are a balanced mix of ethnic makeup. Reports from leaders and members, as well as pastoral observation, led us to the conclude that many families were affected by family squabbles and separation due to unresolved conflict. Consequently, there was a high level of stress and family dissatisfaction. This resulted in declining participation in ministry and mission.

Methods

A 10-hour conflict-management education-training program was developed and implemented. The …