Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Project Report

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

John Mathews

Second Advisor

Larry Evans

Third Advisor

Boubakar Sanou

Abstract

Problem

Pastoral observation suggested that one third of the Roundup-Lewistown Seventh-day Adventist district membership struggled with personal financial management issues. It was suggested that the root causes for the inability to manage financial resources was a lack of financial literacy and education and a lack of understanding of basic financial concepts, including misunderstandings about biblical concepts about wealth, borrowing, and stewardship of resources.

Method

In order to assess, improve, and observe the basic knowledge of the financial literacy and education of the Roundup-Lewistown Seventh-day Adventist church membership, a pre-financial literacy seminar assessment survey (PREFLAS) was administered. The PREFLAS was followed by a seven-part financial literacy seminar (FLS) based in large part on Christian principles. A post-financial literacy seminar assessment survey (POSTFLAS) was also administered to assess the potential changes (if any) in perception and behavior as it related to improving the financial literacy of the Roundup-Lewistown Seventh-day Adventist church membership.

Results

The data from the PREFLAS and POSTFLAS indicated that only 6% of the questions (six questions) in the survey had a statistically significant difference. The vast majority of the questions did not have a perception or behavior change in the respondents due to the FLS information.

Conclusion

In this research, based on a conservative statistical analysis, 94% of the intervention proved to be ineffective. It is encouraging that nearly half of the respondents gave answers that suggested a positive upwards trajectory in financial literacy perception changes. This research suggests that cognitive information alone is not enough for perception and behavior change as it relates to finance. Other factors such as adequate time, clarity of the assessing instruments, personal motivation, and environmental factors that are, for example, economic, political, and socio-cultural, all affect a basic understanding of financial literacy concepts.

Subject Area

Financial literacy; Finance, Personal; Christian stewardship; Roundup Seventh-day Adventist Church (Roundup, Mont.); Lewiston Seventh-day Adventist Church (Lewiston, Idaho)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/dmin/439/

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