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

Douglas R. Kilcher

Second Advisor

Walter B. Douglas

Third Advisor

Bruce C. Moyer

Abstract

Problem

This dissertation focuses on church planting in the Central Zimbabwe Conference. While impressive results have been achieved in evangelizing the lower classes of the society, there has been meager success in reaching the upper classes of the Black community as well as the White, the Indian, and the Colored minorities. A strategic church-planting approach to church growth hopes to not only target the least promising population segments served by the Central Zimbabwe Conference, but also to increase the effectiveness of the other church methods currently being employed to reach the more responsive classes in that conference.

Method

A diachronic analysis of the various church-growth methods that have been and are currently being used in the Central Zimbabwe Conference is conducted, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. Data gathered from interviews and a survey sent to the Central Zimbabwe Conference authenticate the need for a paradigm shift in church growth that is driven by a church-planting consciousness.

Conclusion

The Central Zimbabwe Conference has much to gain by embracing a strategic church-planting approach to church growth. Placing church planting at the core of the conference's mission enhances lay participation in evangelism and is cost effective.

Subject Area

Church growth--Zimbabwe--Seventh-day Adventists; Central Zimbabwe Conference; Seventh-day Adventists--Zimbabwe

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/dmin/697

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