Professional Dissertations DMin
Date of Award
2019
Document Type
Project Report
Degree Name
Doctor of Ministry
College
Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary
Program
Doctor of Ministry DMin
First Advisor
Baraka G. Muganda
Second Advisor
Orville Brown
Third Advisor
Allan Chichester
Abstract
Problem
Many youths within the Canadian city of Lacombe, Alberta, are having difficulty finding traditional church attractive, engaging, relevant, and meaningful. Because of the prevalent postmodern mindset of youth in the community, thoughts toward church, religious gatherings, and organized religion are pessimistic and skeptical. Research has pointed out that faith-based community initiatives have been either lacking or ineffective in addressing the disengagement and disillusionment being demonstrated by postmodern millennials.
Method
The purpose of this study was to see if an urban missional small group made up of 10 to 15 youth would have a positive social spiritual impact on their personal lives. The focus was to bring postmodern youth together for a period of 12 weeks to create an urban missional small group intended to foster a sense of community and belonging. It was to employ open dialogue but also allow for discourse and debate, and it was to facilitate individual and collective spiritual development and growth. The dialogue would center on studying and reflecting on the life of Christ; however, the dialogue would also remain open to natural discussion points and personal sharing as raised by the participants.
Results
The results were reviewed and evaluated by conducting entry and exit surveys. The results of the survey evidenced that implementing a 12-week urban missional small group in an urban city had a substantial spiritual impact on the group participants. The key six areas evaluated were (a) personal life, (b) community life, (c) spiritual life, (d) urban life, (e) church life, (f) church experience/small-group experience. Each of these six categories included a series of questions. The study showed, overall, that 64% participants’ responses indicated positive and constructive improvement since before the participants had joined the small group. This ultimately revealed that urban missional small groups can have a positive, meaningful, constructive, and measurable impact on young urban churched and unchurched postmodern millennials. Hence, a new urban missional church plant is scheduled to be planted September 2019.
Conclusions
In business, the term disruptive innovation means an idea that disturbs the status quo and changes the nature of the previous model or version that came before it. One may consider urban missional small groups as a type of disruptive innovation because they have the unique power to reach postmodern millennials. Small groups are a new and different way for young unchurched urban youth to meet spiritually, they focus specifically on mission in the city, and they foster a sense of diversity inclusivity, and they are, above all, user friendly. As a result of this small group endeavor is that there is currently a core group of new urban missional leaders who are empowered and equipped to (a) share the gospel with others, (b) disciple new believers, and (c) successfully lead other small groups that will ultimately attract this niche demographic and impact it spiritually for Christ.
Subject Area
City missions--Alberta--Lacombe; Small groups--Religious aspects--Seventh-day Adventists; Postmodernism--Religious aspects--Seventh-day Adventists; Church work with youth--Seventh-day Adventists; Evangelistic work--Alberta--Lacombe
Recommended Citation
Notice, Lyle Milton, "A Cosmopolitan Theology for Creating an Urban Missional Small Group to Reach Postmodern Generations in the City of Lacombe, Alberta" (2019). Professional Dissertations DMin. 724.
https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/dmin/724/
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/dmin/724
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
DOI
https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/dmin/724/
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