Date

6-2021

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Chair

Kenneth Hood

Keywords

young adults, relevant Bible studies, contextual updated topics

Disciplines

Education | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

Abstract

This project will explore how the integration of young adults’ everyday life issues and struggles into Bible Studies content can become more attractive for this demographic. With the intention of adding relevancy as a means of retention of young adults within a local American Baptist Church in Puerto Rico. Several recent studies provide a concrete picture of the lack of local church involvement among young adults’ lives, translating into attrition in many cases. In terms of church attendance, a study maintains that only 30.9% of young adults attend religious services "regularly," meaning at least twice a month, 35.4% report never attending religious services, while the rest (about 34%) only attend very sporadically (once a month) . Although dealing with the problem at one local American Baptist congregation, this project intends to reach out to other local Baptist congregations young adults’ membership to assess how likely they would be to attend church more often if such topics are approached and develop from a more biblical-theological perspective. The project will include results from two surveys and one focus group among the congregation and young adults to obtain quantitative and qualitative data. Because the prospectus of this project was submitted pre-pandemic and its field work executed post-pandemic, readers can expect statements that required past and present clarifications throughout the work.

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