Doctor of Ministry Projects

Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Ministry DMin

First Advisor

Rudolf Maier

Second Advisor

Bruce Bauer

Third Advisor

Wagner Kuhn

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop a contextualized model for an ethnic church planting process in large cities such as Berlin.

Statement of Problem

The unchurched population of foreigners in Germany stands at around seven million with 450,000 of them living in Berlin. A few existing ethnic Adventist churches in Germany have been established in the past but no strategy has been developed to reach new foreign groups. Although there are some Adventist ethnic churches in Berlin, they have not developed a coherent strategy to reach the rest of the foreigners. The German attitude toward integration of foreigners has been to ask them to become Germans. This same attitude is also widespread in the Adventist Church, where many believe that foreigners should learn German first before the Church will witness to them. This method is clearly inappropriate and ineffective.

Methodology

A number of steps will be followed in developing a strategy. First, the issue of foreigners in Germany and Berlin in particular will be analyzed in order to learn more about the trends of recent history in this country. Fundamentals of the church planting process, church growth, cross-cultural evangelism, and ethnic churches will also be studied mainly through library research. Data about the foreign community in Berlin will be collected from various statistical sources in Germany. Second, the English-speaking New Life Church (NLC) will become the base for a church planting process among foreigners in Berlin. Through this church an outreach strategy for foreigners will be developed and implemented over a three-year period. The financial resources will be provided through the Global Mission department of the Berlin-Brandenburg Conference, North German Union, and Euro African Division. Periodic evaluations will be conducted to determine the success of various stages of the project and to identify lessons learned. A monitoring process will help identify milestones reached and progress achieved or lack thereof. Regular reports will be submitted to the sponsoring organizations and to the Adventist media in Germany such as, the Advent Echo (official German church paper) I; and Stimme der Hoffnung (German Voice of Prophecy).

Expectations from the Project

This researcher expects to plant two new ethnic churches in Berlin providing a venue for the German Seventh-day Adventist Church to grow in membership.

Subject Area

Church growth--Germany--Seventh-day Adventists; Church development, New--Germany--Seventh-day Adventists; Multiculturalism

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