Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Project Report

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

David Penno

Second Advisor

Ricardo Norton

Third Advisor

Manuel Moral

Abstract

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 Seventh-day Adventist Bible beliefs in a Christ-centered and cross-centered way. After a five-month preparatory period, a two-month series was held. A total of 24 meetings occurred on weekend nights in the church’s main auditorium. The efficacy of the project was evaluated by the attendance, numbers of baptisms, decisions for future baptism, and inscriptions for Bible studies.

Results

The implementation of the cross-centered evangelistic preaching resulted in a higher number of baptisms, and of decisions to study the Bible, when compared to previous evangelistic series. It especially resulted in a higher number of decisions for future baptism, and an increase in attendance. Through the broadcasting of the series in the internet, positive feedback also arrived from other places in Portugal and from other countries in the world. The testimonies of the attendees indicate that the Seventh-day Church of Canelas has been revived. The other churches that belong to the same pastoral district have shown interest in these meetings and experienced similar results.

Conclusions

Based on the results of the implementation of this strategy, a cross-centered approach to evangelism in the church of Canelas does seem to be effective in order to growth the attendance in the meetings, the number of baptisms, the decisions for future baptism, and the requests for Bible studies. This strategy also appears to have had a very positive impact on the spiritual climate of the church, and of other churches. Thus, centering evangelistic messages on the cross of Christ in the future of this church is recommended. Studying the possibility of implementing this strategy in other churches in Portugal and abroad is also merited.

Subject Area

Evangelistic work--Seventh-day Adventists, Evangelistic work--Portugal--Canales, Preaching, Seventh-day Adventists--Portugal--Canales

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/290/

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