Date

4-2020

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (EdD)

Chair

Troy Temple

Keywords

Church Decline, Church Growth, Church Turnarounds

Disciplines

Christianity | Religion

Abstract

Many medium-sized churches experienced significant growth followed by years of declining attendance (Haskell et al., 2016). Many of them are in locations that could allow for significant growth. It seems as if some once growing churches no longer recognize how to best reach their communities and how to minister to the needs of the families making up their surrounding communities. The purpose of this multiple case study, a comparative analysis, is to identify factors that positively and negatively influence church attendance and engagement among unchurched and de-churched persons and families. At this stage in the research, regular attendance and engagement will be defined as at least twice monthly attendance at a local SBC church. Twenty-one full-time ministers and 31 members in Floridian SBC churches were selected as a cross-sectional systematic sampling to be studied in this research study. Information concerning the churches’ surrounding populations were derived from the United States Census, the churches’ county and city research population statistics, Lifeway Research, Barna Group, and surveys that have been conducted by the Florida State Baptist Association. This multiple case study, a qualitative, comparative analysis was done by interviews in small groups of five subjects or less. One-on-one interviews were conducted to clarify the findings from the small group interviews. It also involved gathering information from the church’s record databases. The researcher also spent significant time observing and recording habits, practices, expectations, rules, and rites of the subject churches.

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