Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Dissertation Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Intercultural Studies

College

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

Program

Doctor of Missiology DMiss

First Advisor

Petr Činčala

Second Advisor

Wagner Kuhn

Third Advisor

Andrew Tompkins

Abstract

Problem

Romanian Seventh-day Adventist students on secular campuses have a high potential to participate in cross-cultural missions, but only a small number of them actually do. This study aims to identify factors that influence participation in cross-cultural missions of Seventh-day Adventist university students in secular university centers in Romania and to develop a strategy to facilitate cross-cultural missionary involvement in the Middle East and North Africa.

Method

The present study employed a research design that comprised theological, bibliographical, and survey research. A survey based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen 1991) was created to assess students intention to participate in cross-cultural missions. The survey was administered using the QuestionPro program to the entire population of students studying on twelve secular campuses in Romania. One hundred fifty-two university students completed the survey.

Results

The survey results show that Romanian SDA university students expressed a weak to moderately positive attitude toward participating in cross-cultural missions, reported a relatively weak positive social pressure to engage in, and partially felt in control of participating in cross-cultural missions. The intention performance, which was an overall assessment of the intention to participate in cross-cultural missions, showed that university students have a low interest to spend a university year as a missionary student on a foreign secular campus or humanitarian project, only 12% of them scoring high (5%) and very high (7%). However, the intention to participate after graduation increased, with 29% of the students scoring high (13%) and very high (16%).

Conclusions

The Romanian SDA students have a low participation in cross-cultural missions, despite a high potential. The students believed that participating in cross-cultural missions they would get to know new cultures, grow intellectually and spiritually, and contribute to the sharing of the Gospel. They considered that knowing a foreign language and possessing 4 an attitude to serve would facilitate participation in missions. However, they said that interrupting their studies for one year constituted a major impediment. The strategy to empower students to participate in cross-cultural missions described five stages of missionary preparation that could facilitate increased involvement: creating eschatological awareness, assistance for experiencing worldview transformation, pre-departure and in-ministry training, “taste and see” participation, and the commitment for at least six months of cross-cultural participation in an academic setting or for a humanitarian project.

Subject Area

Romanian students; College students in missionary work; Seventh-day Adventists--Missions

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