Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

1978

Document Type

Project Report

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

Steven P. Vitrano

Second Advisor

Arnold Kurtz

Third Advisor

Leona Running

Abstract

Considering that the subject of worship is of very unique significance to the Seventh-day Adventist church, the writer proposed to determine with respect to the Seventh-day Adventist churches in Montemorelos, Mexico, the following: 1. The attitudes of the church members toward public corporate worship. 2. The church members' understanding and awareness of the value of the various components in public corporate worship. 3. The church members' ability to correct erroneous concepts concerning public corporate worship.

The study was an important undertaking for the following reasons: 1. There is a dearth of worship material in the Spanish language. 2. It would give the writer, teacher of the worship class at Montemorelos University , a clearer understanding o f the church members' concepts of corporate worship. 3. It would provide an opportunity for the churchgoer to increase his awareness and understanding o f the various components of public corporate worship. 4. I t would seek to develop a teaching model in public corporate worship for theology students a t Montemorelos University . The attitudes and understanding o f worship were studied by use of an anonymous questionnaire on a total of 154 respondents from three Seventh-day Adventist churches at Montemorelos, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. An abridged form of the questionnaire was administered to the same population three months after concluding a worship seminar designed to improve the understanding of worship. This seminar provided practical experience in worship for the writer and the senior theology students of Montemorelos University . As a whole, there appears to be a good understanding of worship. However, some specific points such as reasons for going to church, consciousness o f God's prior presence and Divine invitation, some aspects of corporateness of worship (such as fellowship), and the role of giving, were misunderstood not only by the laity but also by the ministry . The seminars provided to correct erroneous views showed little effect when measured three months after the instruction. This suggests that worship concepts are difficult to change. The solution is perhaps to direct one's attention to the very young through parents and the ministry.

Subject Area

Worship., Public worship

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/160/

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