Professional Dissertations DMin

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

David Penno

Second Advisor

Roberto Ianno

Abstract

Problem

Due to the outbreak of a civil war in Libya in 2011, Italy has been experiencing a great influx of immigrants. Many are scattered throughout Italy, including Gaeta. A majority of the Italian members of Gaeta Church do not understand and engage in the call of God to bring all people into the fellowship of the church. This causes a lack of interest in building bridges to reach immigrants.

Method

The task of this project was to develop, implement, and evaluate a strategy to equip some members of Gaeta church to build bridges with immigrants to draw them toward the fellowship of the congregation. The basis for the development of the strategy came from the knowledge gathered from the theological and literature review chapters. The project was intended to be implemented in two phases. The first phase was the Project Sermons and consists of 12 sermons on the following topics: (a) mission towards immigrants, (2) Jesus, the apostolic church, and the issue of immigrants, (c) ministry practice and foreigners. The second phase was the Project Seminars. This was designed to train and deploy a group of 16 selected members to build bridges with immigrants. The training focuses on five seminars regarding the issue of: (a) bias, (b) overcoming cultural enmities, (c) having knowledge and tools on cultural intelligence, (d) understanding how to interact in a multicultural group, and (e) how to become a healthy multiethnic church. During the seminars, each member would be asked to engage with a person of different ethnicity to learn more of the person’s culture. The final phase of the project was to have a group interview with the 16 selected members to measure their knowledge, ability, and level of involvement in building bridges with immigrants.

Results

All the 16 selected members that were trained and deployed to build bridges with immigrants manifested their interest in the 12 sermons that were preached and in the content of the five seminars, but at the conclusion of the project strategy only 18.75% of the participants decided to engage themselves to build bridges with immigrants to draw them toward the fellowship of the congregation. One and a half month after the conclusion of the project one more participant started interacting and built friendship with an immigrant colleague that decided to visit the Gaeta SDA church. Therefore, at the end of the strategy project 25% of the participants were able to complete the task.

Conclusion

Building bridges with immigrants to draw them toward the fellowship of the congregation is a mission task that requires awareness of the biblical mandate, knowledge and training about the scientific, political, and sociological implications, and faith, love, consistency, and effort in achieving the task. During the training process, the 16 selected members learned about the effect of mixophobia (the fear of the unknown and the uncontrollable dislike towards the massive presence of unknown individuals) and mixophilia (the attraction or pleasure of the natives to encounter and engage with foreigners). Five weeks were not enough to build a deep friendship, but enough to begin meaningful interaction and dialog with a foreign person. From the outcomes of the interactions with immigrant people it was evident that it requires an investment of time and persistence to build bridges with immigrants or foreign people. Therefore, training to sensitize the church members on multicultural and multiethnic mission and ministry should be periodic in order for them to get use to the idea and practice of the latter.

Subject Area

Church work with immigrants--Italy--Gaeta; Seventh-day Adventists--Italy--Gaeta

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