Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

2014

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

David Penno

Third Advisor

Wagner Kuhn

Abstract

Problem

Public evangelism has been a successful way of bringing converts to the church, and by using public address systems the church has been able to reach those who are afraid or too skeptical to come and sit in the meetings. Some have actually made a decision and have been baptized as a result of listening from a distance. But with time the public address systems have been misused with people complaining of noise pollution. This concern has forced the government to pass a bill in parliament banning loud noises in public places. This change calls into question the public evangelism mode of recruiting members. There is a need to come up with a new way of doing evangelism that will not conflict with the law against noise pollution.

Method

The development of a new way of doing evangelism in the Nyamira Conference was explored through the introduction of one-on-one evangelism in the Nyambaria pastoral district.

Results

The intervention resulted in 188 church members being trained as Bible instructors who are actively involved in giving Bible studies to friends and neighbors. This method replaced public evangelism in the district as the primary way to recruit new converts. After two years that the Bible instructors conducted Bible studies on a one-onone basis 410 people have been baptized and only 8 have backslidden.

Conclusions

One-on-one evangelism is a strategy that can be used to bring many to faith in Jesus Christ. It is effective in that not only does it recruit new members, but nurturing and retention is also positively affected by this approach. The method is less expensive and it is conducted throughout the year without having to worry about the need for good orators for public evangelism. Many more members are now involved in the recruitment process.

Subject Area

Evangelistic work--Kenya--Seventh-day Adventists, Nyamira Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. East-Central Africa Division. East Kenya Union Conference. Nyamira Conference.

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/256/

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