The Family Model: A Possible Solution to Avert the Current Crisis in the Church

Seminary Commons

If an organization loses more that 50% of its clientele, the management will do all it takes to ensure that the trend is reversed. The Seventh-day Adventist church faces this dilemma. Young people are leaving the church in large numbers. Strategies have been developed by church leaders, but the problem still persists. We believe that more still can be done to make the Adventist church a family of which everyone yearns to be a member. The proposed Family model refines and adapts elements in the theology of family relationships developed by Jack and Judith Balswick, that involves four sequential but non-linear stages: “Covenant, Grace, Empowerment, and Intimacy,” and applying it in the local churches as a possible solution to avert a current crisis.