Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

2015

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

Zebron Ncube

Third Advisor

Boubakar Sanou

Abstract

Problem

The Toronto West Seventh-day Adventist Church is a large church that has a membership of 1,306, located in a very diverse urban community of Etobicoke North in Toronto, with variety in ethnicity, language, culture and religion. In the church’s neighborhood, there is a growing immigrant population that is currently in flux due to the constant demographic transition. This certainly poses a number of challenges for this church because there are so many varying ethnic and cultural groups that make ministering to this community very difficult. The church has tried to reach its neighbors by hosting community services events such as a free mid-week community supper and an annual thanksgiving dinner; however, many of the community services events are not well attended by people from the community.

Method

In this project, marketing research was used to develop and implement a strategic marketing plan for the Community Ministries Department at the Toronto West Seventh-day Adventist Church. The process included acquiring information from primary and secondary sources, and the results of the data analysis were used to develop and implement a sound and effective marketing strategy. The effectiveness of the marketing strategy was also analyzed for rate of success.

Results

The development and implementation of a strategic marketing plan for the Community Services Department led to an increase in attendance of over 300% to a sponsored program of the department. It also led to the identification of recommendations to help the church become more effective in its mission to reach the community.

Conclusions

Strategic marketing can be used to help churches become more effective in the accomplishment of their mission. It can be used to market programs and services that address the welfare needs of the community.

Subject Area

Church public relations; Church work--Seventh-day Adventists; Toronto West Seventh-day Adventist Church (Toronto, Canada);

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/438

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