Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

1998

Document Type

Project Report

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

Nancy Vyhmeister

Second Advisor

Atilio R. Dupertius

Third Advisor

Eduard Schmidt

Abstract

The biblical instruction commands us to evangelize every person without discrimination. Nevertheless, the evangelization of the higher classes has not been highlighted enough. The purpose of this thesis was to prepare a manual that would enable pastors in Buenos Aires to accomplish this task. Throughout the Bible, different types of evangelistic methods to reach the higher social status people are described. The writings of Ellen G. White present health related evangelism, person-to-person and small group evangelism, and public efforts as effective methods to evangelize the higher classes. Very little has been written by Evangelical authors about evangelism of the higher classes, and nothing has been written about the evangelization of those classes in Buenos Aires. Some of the principles and methods suggested for the evangelization of people with secular minds, extracted from the bibliography, may be applied in Buenos Aires.

The study of this human sector indicates that high middle class individuals in Buenos Aires show a defensive, narcissist, individualistic, competitive, arrogant and authoritarian attitude. Although most of them are Catholic, they tend to have a secularized disposition and utilitarian ethics. To know the evangelization already conducted by the Seventh-day Adventist Church among this population, interviews and surveys were conducted among people involved in the evangelization of the higher classes in Buenos Aires, and among high middle class people who have been evangelized. It was perceived that a secularized mind, the threats to their social status, social and family pressures, and biases obstruct their evangelization. Based on the research conducted, a manual was prepared to use in a pastoral equipping seminar in Buenos Aires to enable them to evangelize the higher middle class. The seminar, whose objectives are organized in the areas of knowledge, value, and activity, emphasizes relational evangelism and small groups as appropriate methods to evangelize that social class. The manual uses the "andragogical" teaching theory, which respects the initiative and decision capacity of the student.

Subject Area

Rich people--Argentina--Buenos Aires--Religious life; Middle class--Argentina--Buenos Aires--Religious life; Evangelistic work--Seventh-day Adventists--Argentina--Buenos Aires

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/617

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