Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

1999

Document Type

Project Report

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

Kenneth Stout

Second Advisor

James North

Third Advisor

Barry Gane

Abstract

Problem

The Moline Seventh-day Adventist Church, with a regularly attending membership of approximately 65, has fifteen Baby Boomer members in a county of over 160,000, of whom at least 44,000 are Boomers, with over 30,000 of these being unchurched. This project sought to develop a strategy for attracting Baby Boomers to the Moline church.

Method

A strategy was developed and implemented to attract Baby Boomers to church based upon six valid and transferable principles drawn from existing literature and the successful programs of the Willow Creek and Saddleback churches-and the clearly established legitimacy of targeting specific groups for evangelism. This strategy included: (1) a prayer offensive using door hangers to invite community members to pray for the community; (2) a community survey to ascertain felt needs; (3) a Seeker Service; and (4) an evangelistic series using satellite downlink technology.

Results

While the strategy is based upon valid foundational principles and assumptions, it met with varying degrees of acceptance by members of the Moline Adventist church, and with little success in reaching out to Baby Boomers in the targeted community. While the concepts of targeted evangelism were accepted on an intellectual basis by most members, there was little or no personal involvement in the evangelistic outreach as needed for the strategy to succeed. The major hindrance to the project’s success was not, therefore, the principles employed, or the overall strategy itself, but the inability to illicit commitment from the members or to moboilize active support for the strategy by the host church.

Conclusions

A major change in organizational methodology such as this project sought to bring about requires significant time, careful planning and implementation, and a sense of urgency that the changes are needed. Without these elements, the change will not succeed. Church leaders and members need to develop a sense of eschatological urgency based on the promise of the soon return of Jesus and the sense that many of those in our communities will be lost unless they come into relationship with Jesus.

Subject Area

Evangelistic work--Illinois--Rock Island County; Church work with the baby boom generation--Seventh-day Adventists; Evangelistic work--Seventh-day Adventists--Illinois--Rock Island County

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/dmin/702

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