Practical Theology Commons^™

A Comprehensive Strategy For The Calgary Metropolitan Area Churches, Christopher L. Holland

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

In my 16 years of ministry, in every location I have pastored, the church has struggled to connect with the surrounding community. In Calgary, there are 14 Seventh-day Adventist churches and companies. These churches have, on occasion, worked in unity for evangelism. However, according to several of the local pastors, that has not happened for over 10 years. If the churches in Calgary are to fulfill the Great Commission, an effective way of engaging the community is needed. Because the communities that surround churches are growing increasingly secular, comprehensive evangelistic strategies may be an effective way of reaching them. …

Programa Para Confrontar La Disidencia Antitrinitaria En La Asociacion Central Amazonas De La Iglesia Adventista Del Septimo Dia, Abraao Vergasta Reis

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The task of this project was to develop, implement, and evaluate a seminar to confront anti-Trinitarian dissidence in the Central Amazon Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Brazil. In a historical study, Burt (2006) pointed out that the progression of Adventists from anti-Trinitarianism to a biblical Trinitarian view has been a difficult process (p. 126), and he also explained on the same year that “the last decade has seen an increased anti-Trinitarian agitation within the Seventh-day Adventist Church” (p. 125). Whidden, Moon, and Reeve (2002) point out that there are “increasing reports” of anti-Trinitarianism in North America and around the world, …

Development And Implementation Of An Effective Training On Servant Leadership Among The Youth In The Gekomu Ii Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Fred M. Okemwa

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Gekomu II Seventh-day Adventist Church has a membership of about 1,500. The youth account for 35% of this membership; however, many of these young people are unwilling to play active leadership roles in the church. The absence of leadership trainings for the youth to develop skills and acquire knowledge to enhance their leadership abilities is one of the causes for their lack of involvement in the leadership roles. As a result, the leadership strengths and talents possessed by these young people are underutilized thus affecting the overall leadership quality of the church.

Method

In response to the above …

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 …

Expanding The Ecclesiastes Worship Center In Sacramento, California By Using A Documentray Of The Russian Reform Movement, Udo Sokolovsky

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

During the last decades of the twentieth century, the Greater Sacramento area of California became one of the largest Russian-speaking communities in the United States. According to Russian American Media, there are approximately 300,000 Russian-speaking residents. Many of them came to America as victims of religious persecution. However, today only about 30,000—just 10% of the total number of immigrants—are active members in different Christian churches. One reason for this is that the Russian Orthodox Church is trying to intensify its impact on Russian immigrants by linking all that is Russian with Orthodoxy. As a result, many Russian immigrants do …

Training The Members Of The Hacienda Heights Seventh-Day Adventist Church To Create Missional Communities, Brett Poynter

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

A 2011 analysis of the Hacienda Heights Seventh-day Adventist Church revealed it had poor missional health in it, was not outreach focused, small group oriented, or a discipling community. This attributed to plateaued church growth with a congregation consisting largely of boomers and a significantly low percentage of GenX’ers and millennials.

Method

An intervention to train the members of the Hacienda Heights church to create missional communities was developed and applied as a means to improve the church’s missional health and growth. The intervention was developed by studying missional church literature and assessing the church and community. The resulting …

A Singles' Ministry Project At The Mt. Rubidoux Seventh-Day Adventist Church In Riverside, California, Ekele Nwankwo

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The purpose of this study was to discover, develop, evaluate, and implement a supportive singles’ ministry at the Mt. Rubidoux Seventh-day Adventist church by way of planned activities and educative programs designed to serve the needs of singles in that congregation. The study was designed to determine the impact the singles’ ministry has on the church and how to shape the ministry in the future. Although society has viewed singles in different ways, depending on time and place, in traditional societies, women and men who did not marry were viewed as imperfect and lacking. Singles battle with strong expectations …

A Process For Implementing Devotional Patterns For Members Of The San Diego Central Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Limuel M. Liwanag

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

A church with declining membership for over 20 years and almost devoid of additional new member through baptism is a pastoral concern. Such is the situation with San Diego Central Seventh-day Adventist church. This scenario appears contrary to the biblical formula for individual as well as congregational health that Jesus emphatically stated in John 15. Connectedness to Jesus, the Vine, naturally results in fruitfulness. When a person does not bear fruit, it may indicate a lack of or no connection to the Vine at all. Connection to Jesus is nurtured and sustained by a devotional pattern. A process that …

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 …

A Parental Management Strategy For Single-Mothers With Adolescent Boys In South Chicago, Philip C. Willis Jr.

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Mizpah and Brunswick Heights Seventh-day Adventist Churches are located in a predominately low-income community in the South side of Chicago. The church has many single mothers who face the challenges of raising their children without the presence of a father or male figure. This has had a devastating impact on the family and the children. Single-mother families are more likely to suffer from economic insecurity than two-parent families (McLanahan, 2004). Father-loss causes object hunger in males (Herring, 2005) and 75 % of all drug users and 65 % of all suicides (Sowers, 2010) come from fatherless homes.

Method …

Technology Training For Administrators And Pastors In The Greater New York Conference Of Seventh-Day Adventists, Rohann D. Wellington

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Greater New York Conference (GNYC) is located in what is considered the media capital of the world. Media and technology have changed our lives in meaningful ways, both globally and locally. The church in its local context, in this technological age, is struggling to adapt technology in meaningful and effective ways to impact discipleship and evangelism practices. I observed that the administrators and most of the pastors in the GNYC do not understand how to adapt today’s media technology effectively, and therefore, lack a vision regarding how this tool can be effectively adapted for ministry delivery.

Method

A …

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 …

A Cross-Centered Evangelistic Preaching Strategy For The Seventh-Day Adventist Church In Canelas, Portugal, Daniel F. M. Gouveia

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Bible reveals that evangelistic preaching must be Christ-centered and cross-centered (1 Cor 2:2). However, in recent years the evangelistic series in the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Canelas have been mainly of a doctrinal nature. As a consequence, my pastoral observation indicates that attendance, baptisms, and decisions for future baptisms at the end of the meetings are few. One of the factors that contributes to this condition is the lack of evangelistic preaching that focuses on the love of God revealed in the cross of Christ.

Method

A cross-centered evangelistic preaching strategy was developed in order to present the …

Transitioning The Waldorf Seventh-Day Adventist Church To An Integrated Multiethnic/Multicultural Ministry, Kleyton Feitosa

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Charles County, Maryland, is an ethnically and culturally diverse community. The only two Seventh-day Adventist churches in the county are mono-ethnic – one White and one African-American – and do not reflect the multiethnic composition of the community. In the beginning of this study the Waldorf Church had the following ethnic composition: 81% White and 19% of all other major ethnic groups. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2008), Waldorf city was made up of 40.6% White and 59.4% of all other groups combined. In light of this reality, being a monoethnic White church presented significant church growth challenges …

Creating A Leader Development Strategy For Lay Church Plant Leaders In The Texas Conference Of Seventh-Day Adventists, Elton Demoraes

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Texas Conference has a strong emphasis on church planting. Since 2001 more than 115 churches have been planted throughout the conference. This rapid growth was possible because 107 of those churches were started by lay planters supported by an assigned coach. However, after studying the Texas Conference Church Plant database, we discovered that only 45% have experienced growth and 55% have plateaued or are declining. It appears that the reasons for this difference may be the lack of adequate coaching and training for the lay leader to enable effective leadership in the church plant.

Methodology

A leadership development …

A Training Program For Non-Chaplain And Volunteer Chaplains Conducting Spiritual Care At Feather River Hospital In Paradise, California, Brad B. Brown

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Responsibilities of chaplain services at Feather River Hospital (FRH) primarily include completing its mission of whole-person care by providing spiritual and emotional support to the patients and staff. However, the challenge of meeting this goal historically is due to insufficient funding to hire adequate staff chaplains to provide this service. Per conversation with fellow chaplains of other hospitals, this same staffing challenge in meeting the spiritual and emotional component of whole-person care is consistent. However, there is a potential solution. Staff and community volunteers with a spiritual bent have shown interest in filling this gap of spiritual and emotional …

Equipping The Members To Lead Cell Groups Into Emotional Health In The Nonsan Seventh-Day Adventist Church In South Korea, Kyungbo Byun

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Korean society is in a state of serious emotional distress. This is evidenced by the fact that South Korea had the highest suicide rate among the 34 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for the years 2002-2013. Despite this alarming state of affairs, there has been no extensive or long-term plan incorporated into the discipleship and small group ministries of the Nonsan Seventh-day Adventist Church in South Korea to equip the members with the skill to improve their emotional health. If the members could be equipped with such skills, they would be empowered with …

A Strategy For Planting Missional Churches To Include And Disciple The Postmodern People In The South Of Brazil, Natal Gardino

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

In spite of the fact that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is growing in Brazil, the traditional evangelistic methods have not significantly reached people with a postmodern worldview, who (in this country) are generally younger, wealthier, and more educated. This present study was to mobilize the churches in the South of Brazil with information and strategies to include postmodern people in their evangelistic efforts both in the local church and in new planted churches as well.

Method

Curitiba Central Church was informed about the reality of the contemporaneous worldview, and leaders of the church and volunteers were trained, making the …

Using Illustrations And Storytelling Via Incarnational Ministry To Reach Post-Christian Young Adults, David J. Resendes

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Post-Christian young adults are generally not interested in Christianity and therefore are unlikely to attend church or hear preaching. Therefore, a preaching strategy must be developed and implemented to reach post-Christian young adults in their setting.

Method

The subjects of the study were 24 young adult males from the community who attended the weekly open-gym basketball outreach. They ranged in age from 16 to 34 and were of various races and some of mixed race. All were born and raised in the United States and spoke English. Of these subjects only two were from the church I pastor. One …

Seminario Para Fortalecer La Vida Devocional De Los Jovenes De La Iglesia Adventista Centra De Miami, Bernardo Rodriguez Trivino

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The task of this project was to develop, implement and evaluate a seminar to fortify the devotional life (Bible study, prayer, and Christian witnessing) of young people of the Central Miami Adventist Church. A study undertaken with a stratified random sample (organizing the whole population into groups and then taking a random sample) of 1,544 Seventh-day Adventist young people revealed four basic deficiencies: Social relationships within the church, devotional life, pressure from secularism, and apostasy. These deficiencies bear the potential of negatively affecting the church’s mission. A statistical analysis of the results of these surveys reveals that a consistent …

Making And Training Disciples Of Christ Using The Pursuit Of "Life... To The Full" As The Catalyst For Mission In High Springs Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Mark Swaisgood

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Task

In the Spring of 2012, the High Springs Seventh-day Adventist Church had about 29% of its membership "active in ministry," meaning these members were involved in "ministry activities outside of Sabbath morning" or they served in "leadership responsibilities during Sabbath school and worship time" (i.e. I did not consider mere attendance as "active in ministry"). Approximately 9% of the membership was "missionally engaged," meaning they were participating in activities through "service to others outside of our denominational affiliation" (I considered serving people within our church membership as "active in ministry" not "missionally engaged"). The goal of this project was …

Developing The Educating For Discipleship Model To Be Used In Sabbath School In South Korea, Sun Il Kim

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Sabbath School is designed to be a system in which people are engaged in the process of becoming disciples, however, the church tends to operate in a formal and mechanical manner. As a result, the Sabbath School cannot be an agency to produce Christ’s disciples and the church cannot be a community of discipleship. Both of these conditions can be addressed by attending to the health of the faith community which allows the process of discipleship to accomplish transformation of the members of the community. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has Sabbath School, which is a great system for the …

Reviving Family Worship In The Rocky Mountain Indonesian Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Purasa Marpaung

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Seventh-day Adventist immigrants struggle to maintain Indonesian Adventist family worship practices in the process of assimilating to the United States culture. In particular, the family worship practices of the Rocky Mountain Indonesian Seventh-day Adventist Church have been adapted to fit the American environment and lifestyle. The practical family worship activities that were an essential component of the culture and identity of the people of Indonesian heritage are disappearing through exposure to new ideas and methods of worship. This lack of family worship in immigrant families must be addressed through cultural as well as theological perspectives.

Method

Couples, with at …

Development Of Lay Leadership Through Teleconferencing In The Early Bird Bible School, Choong Hwan Lee

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

As a pastor in local South Korean Adventist churches in the United States, I tried several times to train and nurture members, but there was not much fruit. I discovered that the activities of lay leaders in these churches were steadily declining. Although there are many causes, the most serious challenge is a lack of leadership development training for lay leaders. And then, when leadership training is provided, the program fails to promote an evangelistic passion and ultimately causes a deficit of training for future church leaders. Even when churches do provide the program, many Korean Adventists cannot attend …

A Seminar For Building Strong Marriages And Healthy Relationships In South Bend Hispanic Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Ronald Rojas

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Despite the high biblical ideals for marriage and the divine power that is available to enable marital commitments to endure, the Seventh-day Adventist church recognizes the possibility that some individuals will not survive in marriage. Over the past 35 years (1974-2009) there has been a decline in the percentage of couples still in their first marriage (from 81% in 1974 to 58% in 2009) among Adventists in North America, which is very similar to the decline in percentage of married couples (from 82% in 1970 to 48% in 2010) in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). As a …

Persuasive Appeals For Decision: Preaching The Distinctive Seventh-Day Adventist Beliefs In The Michigan Conference, Daniel Paul Towar

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Personal observations while serving as a pastor and evangelist indicate a need for more effective and persuasive appeals for decisions following sermons. This is especially important when preaching the distinctive truths of the Seventh-day Adventist church. It is both a challenging and rewarding segment of my own preaching experience. For this reason it is my desire to improve on the delivery of appeals by including "prophetic preaching" strategies for reaching the heart issues that most concern those attending the Discover Revelation seminar that I present as an evangelist for the Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

Method

This project was …

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 …

Connecting Daily Christian Living With Adventist Doctrines Through Christocentric Preaching At The Kingsboro Temple Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Donnett Mia Blake

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Kingsboro Temple Seventh-day Adventist Church was an active congregation; however, there was a disconnect between spirituality and the knowledge of and commitment to the distinct Adventist fundamental doctrines. Many viewed the distinct doctrines of Adventism as irrelevant to the Christian experience and daily lifestyle choices, resulting in a nonchalant attitude to the distinctiveness of the Adventist message and the purpose and mission of the church.

Method

The purpose of this dissertation project was to develop and preach a series of Christocentric doctrinal sermons that would impact spiritual growth, doctrinal knowledge, and foster personal evangelism at Kingsboro Temple. Based on …

The Development And Implementation Of A Community-Based Evangelism Model In The Word Of Life Seventh-Day Adventist Church In Memphis, Tn, Fred Batten Jr.

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Studies (Arn, 1988) reported that over 80% of churches in America are in a period of stagnation or decline relative to growth. Despite the mega-church trend in America, most churches will not add one person to the membership rolls in a given year (Sylvia, 2004). A safe conclusion is that attendance is also on a downward trend. Research (Burrill, 2007) suggests that from historical bases the Seventh-day Adventist church does a good job in the area of evangelism. In 2006 the statistical report of the world Adventist church highlighted that over 3,000 people joined the church through baptism on …

A Strategic Marketing Plan For Community Ministries At The Toronto West Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Allan Roy Chichester

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Toronto West Seventh-day Adventist Church is a large church that has a membership of 1,306, located in a very diverse urban community of Etobicoke North in Toronto, with variety in ethnicity, language, culture and religion. In the church’s neighborhood, there is a growing immigrant population that is currently in flux due to the constant demographic transition. This certainly poses a number of challenges for this church because there are so many varying ethnic and cultural groups that make ministering to this community very difficult. The church has tried to reach its neighbors by hosting community services events such …