Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

1977

Document Type

Project Report

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

Benjamin F. Reaves

Second Advisor

Elden M. Chalmers

Third Advisor

Donald G. Jacobsen

Abstract

In the Seventh-day Adventist church there is a percentage of adult members who are single. It is the purpose of this project to study the possible needs and problems of this segment of the church's membership with a view to the development of an approach in ministry to this group.

This project presented a survey of current comments and findings of literature with respect to certain problems that may confront the single adult. This survey of literature was limited to a consideration of whether peer-group association, loneliness, social pressure, anxiety, sexual morality, and marriage are indeed problematic in the experience of singlehood. Also, a questionnaire, to elicit the subjective perspectives of the single adult toward these problems and the relationship of these problems to peer-group association, was administered to members of the single adults' club in Berrien Springs, Michigan.

The observations gathered from both the questionnaire and the survey of literature indicate there are single adults who axe confronted with the problems under consideration in this project. Further, in observing the responses to the questionnaire items, it appears that the respondents do express confidence in the beneficial role that a well-organized, properly.structured club for single adults designed to provide them with satisfying peer-group association, might play in ministering to their needs. Confidence iii the potential beneficial role of the club was expressed in five areas: providing for the single adult's need for peer-group association, lessening his loneliness, helping him better tolerate the pressures of society that he should be married, lessening his anxiety, and helping him fulfill his desire for marriage.

A further examination of the responses to the questionnaire reveals that the Berrien Springs club reached its potential in three of the five stated areas. The data reveals that the club did play a beneficial role in providing the members with peer-group association, that it was an asset to those experiencing loneliness, and that it helped its members more easily tolerate social pressures. It was concluded that clubs well organized and properly structured, designed to promote peer-group association for single adults, may indeed have a potential as a form of ministry to single adults who may also experience similar problems to those considered in the project.

Subject Area

Church work with single people

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/337/

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