Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

2003

Document Type

Project Report

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

R. Clifford Jones

Second Advisor

Walter B.T. Douglas

Third Advisor

Trevor O'Reggio

Abstract

Problem

In spite of the urgent need to train and equip the laity for ministry in the West Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, no serious strategy has been developed to prepare the pastors to meet this problem. This study seeks to evaluate the current practices that are being used by pastors and to suggest strategies that will help them to identify their role in equipping the laity for ministry.

Method

Current literature was reviewed on the principles, strategies, and programs related to equipping the laity for ministry. Valuable to this study were books and literature written in Jamaica which provided a historical framework of the Jamaica context. On May 2002,1 traveled to Jamaica, where I conducted a survey involving the thirty-six pastors who serve the 196 churches of the West Jamaica Conference. These churches include 61,858 members. A survey was conducted involving a sampling of the members in at least two of the churches assigned to each pastor. A descriptive analysis of the data is included in the study. A strategy to help pastors equip the laity for ministry was developed.

Conclusions

This research has shown that training the laity for ministry is an important part of the pastor’s role in the local church. Therefore, the strategies that are outlined in this research will help prepare the pastors to train the laity. It is expected that the strategies suggested will mobilize the entire church for total participation. The principles can be adapted to meet similar needs in other conferences.

Subject Area

Seventh-day Adventists--Jamaica--Clergy; Laity--Training of; Lay ministry--Seventh-day 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/578

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