Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

2002

Document Type

Project Report

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

Alfonso Valenzuela

Second Advisor

Ricardo Norton

Third Advisor

Edwin Hernandez

Abstract

The task of this project is narrative preaching in the context of the Hispanic Seventh-day Adventist Church, in Vista California. It is a present reality that different voices compete for its attention, and in such an environment God’s Word frequently goes unheard, and is not necessarily understood by the different generations of Hispanics in a given church. Thus it is of critical importance that the gospel be heard in a language this culture readily understands. Because it is specifically attuned to the contemporary sensibility of human beings, narrative and narrative forms of preaching have particular power to assist individuals in coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

This project seeks to develop a model for narrative preaching, to implement the model through a series of narrative sermons presented in a Hispanic church, and to evaluate the impact of the sermons on a representative group of listeners. Another goal of the project is to enhance the researcher’s skill in the development and performance of narrative sermons. Sources for this project include a select list of books, periodical articles, and dissertations, on theories of narrative structure, foundational, historical, and practical theology, the Bible as literature, hermeneutics, general homiletics, and comparative narrative homiletics. Data pertaining to the evaluation of the narrative sermons and their presentation to the congregation were gathered by way of an evaluation instrument constructed specifically for this project.

The general conclusion is that narrative preaching is an effective means of reaching contemporary Hispanic listeners, even for some who may not consider themselves narratively inclined. The photo echo-narrative model presented in this project is based on a synthesis of the elements of several established models and appears to be a useful approach to narrative preaching. Further deployment and testing of the model are merited, based on the initial evaluations.

Subject Area

Seventh-day Adventists--Sermons; Preaching to Hispanic Americans--California--Vista; Seventh-day Adventist preaching; Narrative preaching

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/528

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