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

Russell Burrill

Second Advisor

Jonas Arrais

Third Advisor

Boubakar Sanou

Abstract

Problem

In spite of the fact that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is growing in Brazil, the traditional evangelistic methods have not significantly reached people with a postmodern worldview, who (in this country) are generally younger, wealthier, and more educated. This present study was to mobilize the churches in the South of Brazil with information and strategies to include postmodern people in their evangelistic efforts both in the local church and in new planted churches as well.

Method

Curitiba Central Church was informed about the reality of the contemporaneous worldview, and leaders of the church and volunteers were trained, making the members and leaders of church departments more concerned about adapting their language and approach as much as possible within the limits of a traditional church, to reach postmoderns. Then a plan was made to plant a new church from within Curitiba Central, which would be focused specifically on including postmodern people, who are very unlikely to attend a conventional church at first. The new church plant was open every day and featured different events for the good of the community. The worship services had their place every Saturday morning, as well as Sundays and Wednesdays at night, and they consisted basically of three or four worship songs, prayer and the presentation of the Bible principles for the everyday life. Two different Bible classes were always available during the week for those who wanted more information.

Results

At the end of two years, the new church plant, which began with 39 trained members from the Curitiba Central Church and volunteers from other churches as well, baptized 26 people and counted 134 members. Though these numbers may not be much impressive in Brazil, the profile of the people baptized certainly is for being in the difficulty range of postmodern-prone people in Brazil: young adults and formally educated people. When considering the proportions, the new church plant has much more members in this category than any other church in the local Union Conference (although less than churches on university campuses). And these members are constantly trained to keep this configuration increasing by always inviting their friends and colleagues to the church community.

Conclusions

Church members in Brazil must learn about the reality of the postmodern reality and learn how to include people with this worldview in their evangelistic efforts. The local church can be adapted as much as possible in order to make their programs more interesting through the use of clear language, relevant lectures, more interaction with people, and the creation of different new ministries to involve every member in active services to the community. Planting new churches is also very important to reach and include people who would normally never attend a traditional church.

Subject Area

Postmodernism--Religious aspects--Seventh-day Adventists; Church development--Brazil--Seventh-day Adventists; Evangelistic work--Brazil--Seventhday Adventists

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/500/

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