Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

1997

Document Type

Project Report

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

Bruce L. Bauer

Second Advisor

R. Clifford Jones

Third Advisor

Norman K. Miles

Abstract

Problem. The Seventh-day Adventist Church was established in Jamaica in 1903. Since then, the church has grown with membership totalling 162,831 by 1995. In 1995, there were 2,500,000 inhabitants in Jamaica, with 1 in 15 claiming to be a Seventh-day Adventist. Jamaicans can be divided into nine social classes; the Seventh-day Adventist Church has been successful in reaching mainly two of these classes, the poor and the lower-middle. Presently the SDA Church and the upper classes are insulated from each other. This dissertation suggests an approach to establish contact with the upper classes so that they can be reached with the SDA message.

Method. The research shows that, while the method of evangelism commonly used in Jamaica is successful in reaching the lower classes, it has been ineffective in attracting or making contact with the upper classes. Intentional Ministries (any social ministry, instrument, or program created and designed by the church to make a deliberate impact within the local community) is suggested as a method of evangelism to establish contact with the upper classes and make the way possible for personal evangelism to take place.

Significance. There has never been a deliberate attempt by any denomination in the history of Jamaica to reach the upper classes with the gospel. The Seventh-day Adventist Church, in developing an approach to reach the upper classes, would be attempting a form of evangelism that is unprecedented not only in the SDA Church but in the history of all other denominations in Jamaica. All people, groups, and classes need to be reached with the Seventh-day Adventist message; the upper classes are no exception. Intentional Ministries can be the bridge that the church can use to establish contact with the upper classes and make it possible for evangelization to take place.

Subject Area

Upper class--Jamaica--Religious life, Evangelistic work--Seventh-day Adventists--Jamaica

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/107

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