Date

7-31-2023

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Chair

Jack Steven Davis

Keywords

Emergent Adult, Youth, Church Leaving, Mentoring

Disciplines

Religion

Abstract

This paper presents an intervention addressing young adults’ tendency to leave the church after adolescence. This thesis project proposes that false conversion in a person’s formative years drives young adult church departure. For those who have a relationship with Christ, the most probable cause for departure is the lack of sanctification and growth due to an absence of biblical training. Therefore, this project designed and implemented an evangelical mentorship program specifically designed for youth in the church. While the research approach focuses more on quantitative methods, it also has qualitative elements. This research is qualitative in many of the self-reflections and the researcher’s journal assessments, but it also has quantitative elements such as spiritual maturity and growth assessments, which each utilize numerical data. The research focuses more on the quantitative elements to prove the intervention’s effectiveness in a spiritual capacity. This thesis project presents tested ideas that other churches and ministers with young adult departure from the church. Evangelical mentorship designed and applied in this contextualized project can be applied in various youth ministry contexts.

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