A Statistical Model for Seventh-day Adventist White English-Speaking Church Growth in the United States

<p>Problem. Until 1983 there was no statistical model for projecting church growth among white English-speaking Seventh-day Adventist churches in the United States. The purpose of this study was to identify a forecasting model based on the variables that were gathered from pastor and local church reports. Thegeneral hypothesis was that a significant predictive relationship existed between some combination of report variable/factors and the rate of church growth or decline. This hypothesis was subdivided into four specific hypotheses.</p> <p>Method. One hundred forty-five churches were randomly selected from the white English-speaking churches in the United States. The financial, membership, pastor, and Sabbath School reports were collected from the local conference archives for the three-year period, 1976-1978.</p> <p>The report data was categorized into sixty-two independent and four dependent variables. The independent variables were factor analyzed. Four prediction models were identified by stepwise multiple regression analysis using the factors as predictors.</p> <p>Results. The data analysis was based on returns from 133 churches--a 92 percent return rate. Eleven factors were extracted from the data. The multiple R achieved for the four prediction models ranged from .344 to .529. Three of the prediction models obtained a significance level of .01 and one a level of .05. Thus all four of the hypotheses of this study were supported.</p> <p>Conclusions. (1) Baptismal Growth is associated with a combination of the following factors: Evangelism, Pastor Tenure, Ingathering, Religious Education--Outreach, Proclamation, Discretionary Giving, and Conference Projects. (2) Dropping members from the church is associated with a combination of the following factors: Religious Education--Outreach, Proclamation, Pastor Tenure, Discretionary Giving, Obligatory Stewardship, and Sabbath School Evangelism. (3)The primary factor for predicting actual growth is Obligatory Stewardship. (4) Actual growth is also associated with a combination of five other factors: Evangelism, Pastor Tenure, Sabbath School Evangelism, Institutional Church, and Ingathering. (5) Kingdom growth is associated with a combination of four factors: Pastor Tenure, Evangelism, Proclamation, and Ingathering.</p> <p>In summary, the 1976-1978 Adventist reporting system is useful for predicting the four indices of church growth. However, the overarching conclusion of this study is that some important variables/factors related to church growth are absent.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Religious Education, PhD

Year

1983

Author dc:creator

• Cummings, Des

Contributors dc:contributor

• George H. Akers
• Robert J. Cruise
• Steven Vitrano

• Christianity
• Other Religion

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/dissertations/308

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.andrews.edu:dissertations-1307