- Collection:
- Interdenominational Theological Center Theses & Dissertations Collection
- Title:
- A model for nurturing new converts at Faith Temple Church of God in Christ, Cartersville, Georgia, 1982
- Creator:
- Clarke, Verney Roydon Rolpheston
- Date of Original:
- 1982-01-01
- Subject:
- Dissertations, Academic
Degrees, Academic - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798
- Medium:
- theses
- Type:
- Text
- Format:
- application/pdf
- Description:
- Since the development of Faith Temple Church of God in Christ in Cartersville, Georgia in 1942, there has been a growing concern in the church for the development of a nurturing program for new converts, there has been several methods used to nurture new converts. These methods were primarily traditional tech-niques such as: prayer meetings, visitation, worship, and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Even with these good efforts, new converts were not established properly in the church. Several of the converts who have had no formal Christian experience dropped out. The pastor and congre-gation became aware of the seriousness of the drop out rate in July 1981 when ten converts out of fourteen converts dropped out after two months of their conversion. The Pastor, Brotherhood, and Missionaries are the main persons providing nurture for new converts. Nurture is provided orally and in the rituals and symbols of the church. The only written document which deals with training is the official manual of the Church of God in Christ for the clergy. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit plays a major role in the conversion experience of Church of God in Christ Converts. In spite of this experience and the good efforts of the pastor, brotherhood, and missionaries, new converts are dropping out of Faith Temple Church. There are several factors affecting the nurturing program of Faith Temple Church. 1. The aging and illness of the pastor. These crises have contributed to the ineffectiveness of nurture at Faith Temple. There is no more regular pastoral visits, no more house to house visitation and prayer meetings. Moreover, sermons are experiental and non-existential. 2. The aging congregation. At present only two percent of the membership lies between twenty-eight years and thirty years. Ninety-six percent of the membership lies forty-five years and eighty years. Two percent lies between thirty years and thirty-four years. 3. The dying of the community and the congregation does not seem to influence the ministry of the church. 4. The nurturing program lacks skilled personnel in planning and organizing. The thrust of this research paper is to address this situation by studying nurturing ministries of Jesus, the Apostles in the Book of Acts, Paul, and Faith Temple Church and develop a model for nurturing new converts. The first three chapters examine the historical and Biblical context of nurturing in the ministries of Jesus with His disciples, the Apostles in the Book of Acts with emphasis on Acts, chapter 2, the Apostle Paul in his epistles, and Faith Temple under Elder Simon Shuman, 1942 - 1981. The main thrust in these three chapters is to locate, and describe nurturing practices, leadership roles and the effects of the nurturing practices. Chapter four deals with the analysis of the present nurturing practices at Faith Temple Church through the Matrix Questionnaire Model. The thrust is to find out the attitudes of the membership on various aspects of the church's ministries in Christian nurture. The fifth chapter deals with a theory of ministry functioning as nurturing. It is followed by an evaluation of the entire paper up to this point. The phases of evaluation are? theological, ethical, functional, and psychological. The sixth chapter consists of a developed model for nurturing new converts. The model consists of two units. Unit One deals with new members and their relationship and responsibility to Christ. Unit Two deals with doctrinal instructional of new members stressing their relationship and responsibility to the church in commitment and service.
Date of award: 1982-01-01
Degree type: dissertation
Degree name: Doctor of Ministry (DMin)
Granting institution: Interdenominational Theological Center - Metadata URL:
- http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/itc.td:1982_clarke_verney_rr
- Holding Institution:
- Interdenominational Theological Center (Atlanta, Ga.)
- Rights:
-
