Practical Theology Commons^™

Circle Of Courage, Jonathan Duffy, Gary Hopkins

180 Symposium Publications

This chapter promotes the “Circle of Courage” as a model for developing resilience in young people. Resilience in the context of this chapter refers to factors which contribute to the success of young people and protect them from participating in risk behavior. The “Circle of Courage” is a child rearing model used by Native Americans before white conquest and has four main components – Belonging, Mastery, Independence, and Generosity. The components are in alignment with what modern psychologists are promoting for young people today and are common to most indigenous groups.

A Study Of Youth Retention And The Challenge Of Delayed Commitment In The Norwegian Union, Victor Marley

180 Symposium Publications

A contributory factor in the increasing rates of young people going through the “back door” and out of our church is the extension of adolescence and the corresponding postponement of commitment. This paper will look at pluralism, the extension of adolescence, and the erosion of adulthood as some reasons why commitment is being delayed. Some fundamental questions will be addressed: Is there a need to focus on the age of commitment? What about rites of passage? Do we need some in the Adventist culture? This paper will, in conclusion, look at the experience of the Norwegian Union and the Absolute …

Burst The Bystander Effect: Making A Discipling Difference With Young Adults, A. Allan Martin

180 Symposium Publications

Decades of research continue to point to greater than 50 percent attrition of young adults from faith community, yet there appears to be minimal efforts to change this alarming trend. This article offers suggestions as to what you can do to foster authentic relationships and revive young adult discipleship in the Seventh-day Adventist Church context.

Youth Ministry: It Starts Sooner Than You Think! A Youth Ministry Case Study Report, Jiwan S. Moon

180 Symposium Publications

When does youth ministry really begin? It is a question we all need to ask to be effective in ministering to our youth. What really is youth ministry? These two questions come from a belief that there is a specific time frame and a particular way to minister to young people that is different from where they have come and where they are going. However, I would like to introduce a different idea. The idea that youth ministry really begins before childhood ends. It is a continuous mentoring and nurturing of children, helping them mature and grow in Christ from …

Where Have All The Youth Leaders Gone?, Timothy P. Nixon

180 Symposium Publications

Valuegenesis has been a tremendous tool that has given the Seventh-day Adventist church valuable information about youth and young adults. It represents a fair cross-section culturally and ethnically of our young people. However, the sample is of 16,000 respondents of Seventh-day Adventist Youth in Seventh-day Adventist schools throughout the North American Division during the 2000 school year (Gillespie, 2004). The majority of the expenses are borne by local parents and churches (Gillespie, 2004). Sixty percent of the students said there was a youth pastor at their home church (Gillespie, 2004). Monte Sahlin’s work in Adventist Congregations Today, says most Adventist …

Handing On Faith: Equipping The Next Generation To ”Leave Church”!, Peter Roennfeldt

180 Symposium Publications

In view of the continuing high attrition of next generations from the Adventist church, perhaps, like with effective parenting, the best the church can do is to equip the next generation to “leave church” — releasing them to give birth to the next generation of Adventism. This involves trust — trusting the next generations, and trusting God with the future of his church.

Bringing Home Our Adventist Prodigals, Paul Tompkins

180 Symposium Publications

Studies agree that the church is losing a significant proportion of its young people. This trend is hurting families, congregations and the church as a whole but very little seems to be done about it. Now is the time to do so. Back in the 1990’s the church last looked at restructuring youth ministry — following a commission on youth, the autumn council of 1992 voted a six point plan including revival, recovery, evangelism and nurture. A strategic plan was also authorized but the aspect of recovery has only recently begun to gain significant attention. Now is the time to …

Ennui, Entertainment, Or Encounter? Cultivating The Climate For A Transformational Approach To Leadership, Keren Toms

180 Symposium Publications

After studying the various qualities that have made for effective leaders, both in Bible times and in more recent church history, it is apparent that some were empowered by a guardian/guide mentality, others an entertainer/enabler mindset, and others possessed a difficult to define but easily recognizable cluster of virtues that enabled them, through their passion for mission and love for people, to be creative and observable role models for what recent leadership experts have termed transformational leaders. Creating a climate for the selection and the empowerment of transformational leaders is key for a successful youth ministry in the new millennium.

The Development Of Adventist Youth Groups And Ellen White’S Empowerment Of Youth In Evangelism And Service, Cindy Tutsch

180 Symposium Publications

How did youth work begin in the Adventist church? Did it start with “professionals”? What was the point of Adventist youth groups originally? And what is the point today? This provocative paper may generate some discussion with your youth and leadership team –and maybe even re-focus your ministry!

An Adventist Identity For Postmodern Youth, Jeroen Tuinstra

180 Symposium Publications

During the teenage period, a youth shapes his or her identity in confirmation with the group he or she belongs to. The identity our church provides at that stage is a particular modern identity shaped by a modern rational world-view. At a later stage, our youth will find themselves in conflict with the identity provided by the church and their own mainly postmodern world-view. In this paper, I will explore the possible changes in our identity that will have to take place in order to accommodate the postmodern world-view. I will also argue that the church has to accommodate this …

Resolving Young Adult Attrition, Martin Weber

180 Symposium Publications

Many Seventh-day Adventist clergy suffer the loss of their adult children to denominational attrition, and their pain is shared throughout the general population of North American Adventist parents. To identify the causative factors and design remedies, I devoted a Doctor of Ministry project involving active and retired clergy couples in the Mid-America Union. A 111-point questionnaire was mailed to each of 222 active and retired clergy who have adult children. Data requested was based on the research question: What influences from Seventh-day Adventist clergy parents in Mid-America may affect whether their children experience attrition from that denomination upon becoming adults? …

Skeleton And Source Of Life (The President's Desk), Roy Gane

Perspective Digest

No abstract provided.

Creation Care And The Christian, Jo Ann Davidson

Perspective Digest

No abstract provided.

Doing Justly (The President's Desk), Roy Gane

Perspective Digest

No abstract provided.

Creation Care And The Christian, Jo Ann Davidson

Perspective Digest

No abstract provided.

Recruiting And Equipping Postmodern Immigrant Youth Preachers In Emmaus, Christian Fellowship, And Community Tabernacle Seventh-Day Adventist Churches, Anthony L. Usher

Doctor of Ministry Projects

After spending over six years at Emmaus SDA church, on January 1, 2004, the author was assigned to Christian Fellowship SDA Church and Community Tabernacle Mission. He observed that the fierce shifting winds of postmodernism have fueled the retardation of youth evangelism. If the trajectory of this dreaded trend goes unchecked, youth preaching in these churches will spiral downward into the obscure corridors of oblivion. A relevant profile, as well as a specific demographic composition of all three congregations, enhanced the development of an empowering argument that potentially could reverse the momentum of this encroaching tide back to God’s side. …

An Investigation Of Mentoring Preference Of Employees At The Adventist Information Ministry And Implications For Empowerment, Christopher Vernon Fritz

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Customer Service Representatives at the Adventist Information Ministry (AIM), the call center for the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventist Church media ministries on the campus of Andrews University in Michigan, have a passion for ministry but lack mentoring models to make their ministry effective. There is a great need to understand mentoring models operational at AIM and to develop a master plan for mentoring and empowering employees at Adventist Information Ministry.

Method

The purpose of this study was to discover the mentoring styles preferred by employees within the Seventh-day Adventist community of faith working at Adventist Information Ministry …

Encouraging Hispanic Fathers To Become More Effectively Involved In Their Children's Lives, Enoch Aguilar

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

When Hispanic people immigrate to the United States, they come with their own traditions, ideas, and values. Many of these values and teachings are different from North American values, however, each system strives to achieve similar goals in forming functional families. Many of these values conflict with traditional North American values. This natural conflict can make the transition from their native countries to the United States difficult, especially when analyzing the different ways each country’s government intervenes on behalf of children. If parents are unable to modify the social norms of their native country to allow the child to …

Curso Introductorio Para La Educación Integral De Maestros Y Funcionarios De La Universidad Adventista De Colombia, Gamaliel Florez

Doctor of Ministry Projects

The Colombia Adventist University, UNAC, is an institution of higher education that belongs to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. The philosophy of the institution comes from both the Bible and the writings of Ellen White, cofounder and ideologist of the Seventh-Day Adventist education. UNAC expects that its instructors develop their teaching work inspired and based on a deep knowledge of this philosophy. Due to its philosophical position, UNAC aims to educate students in all of the Human Being aspects: spiritual, intellectual, physical and social. These aspects are denominated by Adventists as holistic education.

In this paper, a bibliographical research was done …

Spiritual Coaching: Helping People Develop And Implement Their Own Growth Strategies, Jenny E. Mcbride

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

In spite of a plethora of discipleship programs and good preaching, the church in general has failed to empower believers who consistently re-present Jesus and His ministry in the earth today; nor are they reproducing other disciples. The limiting factor appears to be internal fears and beliefs within the disciples, rather than a lack of knowledge or skills. A more effective disciple making process whereby both pastors and congregants can move people of varying levels of maturity, knowledge and experience toward God is imperative if the church is to fulfill the Great Commission to “go and make disciples.”

Method …

Creating A Relational Model Of Evangelism In The Texas Conference, John L. Dubosque Jr.

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Seventh-day Adventist evangelism has attracted fewer postmodern Generations X and Y persons in the recent past due to a lack of understanding subgroup culture and the church’s tendency to accommodate only didactic preaching in a public evangelistic series. Complicating transformation are some Builders and Boomers who are resistive of the needed deep changes in public evangelism ministry which includes small groups. Researched principles that could readily be applied without alienating the older generations had to be field tested in six evangelistic campaigns in order to determine if success could be obtained in reaching Generations X and Y.

Method

Three …

Programa De Formación Espiritual Para La Preparación De Líderes En Universidades Adventistas, Walter Alana

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Theological Seminary of the Adventist Technological Institute of Ecuador (ITSAE) provides a practical theoretical education to its students. Its fundamental purpose is to produce spiritual leaders that might appropriately cope with the different ecclesiastical challenges they may find in the field, once their career is completed. To accomplish this goal, students visit the local churches on weekly bases to integrate theory and praxis and to develop their leadership skills in a progressive way. Preliminary observations suggest that in spite of students accomplishing the assigned hours of their pre-professional practicum in different local churches, they have difficulty understanding how …

A Lay Mobilization Program For The Seventh-Day Adventist Church In Zimbabwe, Cuthbert Machamire

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The church in Zimbabwe involves lay people in ministry, but the proportion of people involved is small compared to the total membership of the church. Further, while the church believes in the biblical teaching on spiritual gifts, this concept is not given enough emphasis in enlisting members for ministry. This results in some members experiencing frustration as they serve in ministries for which they are not gifted. Others stay uninvolved either because they are not personally invited to take part, or because they do not find a ministry in the church that matches their gifts.

Method

In this dissertation, …

Strategies Of Team Formation In A Multi-Staffed Church, Larry C. Becker

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

This project sought factors that bring about the formation of pastoral teams.

Method

Methods included the study of current literature, testing a hypothesis, administering a self-developed survey with pastoral teams in the Southeastern California Conference of Seventh day Adventists, and work with the Redlands Seventh-day Adventist Church pastoral team. Data was gathered from 30 churches, totaling 77 pastors and results were tabulated with SPSS software.

Results

Analysis of the teams in the main cohort and Redlands revealed both support for the hypothesis and factors of team formation. These pastoral teams formed in a culture, in relationship, with trust, mutual …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Summer Day Camp In The Local Church As An Opportunity To Encourage Youth In Their Spiritual Growth, Church Identity, And Service, Michael J. Stevenson

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Large amounts of time and effort are expended by youth directors in providing camp related opportunities for employment. It is widely hoped by these youth directors that the experience of being a camp staff person will increase spirituality among the staff, that it will strengthen their identification with the Seventh-day Adventist church, and that, in the future, these same staff members will desire more opportunities to serve in the mission of the church. The purpose of this project is to qualitatively study whether staff are affected positively or negatively in the ways mentioned above, by being staff members of …

A Description And Analysis Of The Implementation Of A Strategic Leadership Team In The Oerlikon Sda Church, Paul N.T. Wright

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Oerlikon Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church in a suburb of Zurich, Switzerland declined from a total of 204 members in 1975 to 103 members at the end of 2008. This represents a membership loss of nearly fifty percent in thirty years. It is a hypothesis of this paper that a lack of strategic leadership at local church level is one reason for this decline. The task of this paper is to describe and evaluate a Strategic Leadership Team which came into existence in 2006 as a means of promoting growth in that local church.

Methods

The project begins by …

An Evaluation Of The Implementation Of Natural Church Development Within Seventh-Day Adventist Churches In The United States And The Resulting Church Growth, Rodney Jon Mills

Doctor of Ministry Projects

The Problem

Natural Church Development (NCD) is a church health paradigm that is being used in Seventh-day Adventist churches across the United States as a tool for increasing both church health and growth. One question that needs to be addressed is whether the implementation of NCD within Seventh-day Adventist churches results in church growth.

The Purpose

The purpose of this dissertation is to establish a validation of the NCD process by evaluating the church growth experienced at the Milwaukee Central Seventh-day Adventist Church and compare that growth with Seventh-day Adventist churches across the United States which have participated in taking …

A Discipleship Model "Go And Make Disciples" For The Hispanic Hoover Seventh-Day Adventist Church In Alabama, Ezequiel Osorio

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Statement of the Problem

The concept of discipleship is not well understood in Christendom including in the SDA church. Many churches are adding new converts to their membership, but these new converts are not being trained and equipped to become true disciples. This phenomenon is having effect in the Hoover Hispanic Seventh-day Adventist Church (HHSDA)1. A better understanding of the discipleship concept is necessary, for that reason, a discipleship seminar named “Go and Make Disciples” was created for the members at HHSDA.

Method

A seminar method was used in this project. The researcher used the sanctuary of the HHSDA church …

Church Planting To Reach Postmodern Generations: Launching A New Church In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Jeffrey T. Potts

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Henderson Highway Seventh-day Adventist Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba, was failing to attract unchurched young adults (ages 18-35). Many of the young adults who had grown up in the church were lapsing into irregular worship attendance. Attempts were made to help the congregation become more relevant to postmodern generations. However, these attempts failed to create a church environment that truly engaged young adults.

Method

Under the direction of its senior pastor, the Henderson Highway Church decided to plant a new congregation to reach unchurched young adults. The church was designed to be relevant to the postmodern context. Launched at …

Bringing Home Our Adventist Prodigals: A Strategic Plan To Reclaim Youth In The Trans-European Division, Paul David Tompkins

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Seventh-day Adventist church is losing far too many of its young people. This trend is hurting the world-wide church, the local congregation, and individual families. Yet very little is being done about it! The purpose of this study is to address this issue and to specifically formulate a Strategic Plan for reclaiming inactive youth in the Trans-European Division (TED).

Method

The TED territory is extensive, covering over thirty-five countries, therefore, a local pilot project was conducted. This involved identifying young people who the local church listed as inactive, or non-attending, and then contacting them with a questionnaire as …