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

Ricardo Norton

Second Advisor

Erlo Braun

Abstract

Problem

The work of district pastors of the Southeastern Brazilian Union Conference is typically coordinated by a team of eight to twelve administrators and departmental leaders. This structure, in practice, entails the responsibility of implementing an annual average of 48 official church programs with their respective materials, which takes up almost all of their weekends, the period in which has the most access to members. As a result, local church pastors do not have time to make disciples according to Jesus’ mandate in Matthew in the Great Commission (Mat 28:19-20). This study aims to create a discipleship program that answers the following question: How to meet the demands of a departmentalized church and still provide free time for pastors to make disciples in the local church?

Methodology

This research is related to discipleship, and in the line of applied theology. The research draws insights from biblical literature, the writings of Ellen G. White and contemporary literature. In addition, it analyses the pastoral context of the Southeastern Brazilian Union Conference, more specifically in the Espirito Santense Conference, in which a discipleship pilot program was presented by the researcher. In addition, field research was carried out to find answers to the research question.

Results

The research showed that it is possible for the pastor to work directly with his local church leaders and carry out the Conference's projects. Almost all Conference's projects were headed by district pastors. This new job structure allows pastors to organized his ministerial responsibilities in a manner that gives them the liberty to include time to form disciples in their districts.

Conclusion

Both pastors and district leaders of Seventh-day Adventist Brazilian Union understand the importance of the programs and literature organized and distributed by the Conference and Union administrators. However, the local church needs time to make new disciples in the communities where they are located. This investigation successfully accomplished both tasks.

Subject Area

Discipling (Christianity); Church management--South America; General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. South American Division. Southeastern Brazilian Union Conference; Southeastern Brazilian Union Conference

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