Date

5-22-2024

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Chair

Rodney R. Phillips

Keywords

Imprecatory prayers, decrees, kingdom prayers

Disciplines

Religion | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

Abstract

In times of turbulence and crisis, people and families should look to the church to receive comfort, salvation, spiritual and emotional assistance, and support from the church. Declining rates of prayer and worship church service attendance levels is an issue of major concern. Continually formulating new strategies, conceptual frameworks, and theoretical and theological models are necessary to address this situation. A participatory action research intervention pilot study was conducted at Total Life Ministries church, which comprised a phenomenological study with hermeneutical consistency and a case study essence. The new strategy centered on certain prayer types and ways of praying that would be motivational to increase prayer and worship attendance levels. The primary objective for the research intervention plan was to introduce prayer from a kingdom perspective and imprecatory prayer, and to develop and evaluate the strategy and survey instrument tool, as well as to ascertain whether this would be motivational for increasing more faithful attendance levels. The methodology consisted of pre-test survey, teaching/preaching sermon seminars, prayer journals, post-test survey, and researcher field notes. The sample population was comprised of eight female ministers and four male ministers. All participants were African Americans between the ages of 30 and 65. Research findings demonstrated that more effective instruments and motivational strategies need to be developed to address this problem.

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