Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Project Report

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

Ricardo Norton

Second Advisor

Antonio Rosario

Third Advisor

Eduard Schmidt

Abstract

Problem The Fresno Spanish Seventh-day Adventist Church has a 65 year history in the city of Fresno. From the year of 1995 until the year of 2005 when I became the pastor for this church, I realized that the numeric growth rate in this congregation had dropped significantly. I soon became aware of the urgent need for a comprehensive analysis that would enable the Fresno Spanish Church to regain its growth momentum. Method The solution and the vision to solve the problem was the development and the implementation of a small group program that would help train, equip, and mobilize church members for ministry. The research began with the study of the literature on church growth and on how to turn around declining churches. A small group program was developed and implemented with as well trained team composed of dedicated church members. The recruiting and equipping of the team leaders took six months and once equipped and organized, the program was launched for a period of one year. Results The small group program to foster numeric growth at the Fresno Spanish Church was implemented in the year of 2007. The results were outstanding. The program impacted the life of the church and the congregation experienced much success. The morale among member improved and the church experienced numerical growth. On the year the small group program was implemented, the church experienced a 300 percent growth in membership. In addition to numeric growth, different outreach ministries were established and new leaders were developed to assist in the various community church programs. Conclusion The small group program implemented in the Fresno Spanish Church to foster numeric growth, I believe, can be replicated in other churches with similar challenges,especially in those churches were its leaders have a desire to positive impact their communities with the gospel of Christ

Subject Area

Small groups--Religious aspects--Seventh-day Adventists; Small groups--California--Fresno; Church growth--Seventh-day Adventists; Church growth--California--Fresno; Fresno Spanish Seventh-day Adventist Church (Fresno, Calif.)

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/324/

Download

Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS