Date

10-14-2026

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (EdD)

Chair

Jacob Dunlow

Keywords

congregational engagement, church engagement, relational connection, Social Capital Theory, biblical fellowship, discipleship, local church

Disciplines

Practical Theology | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

Abstract

This dissertation-in-praxis addressed a documented gap between the stated mission of New Beginnings Ministry of Faith, Hope, and Love (NBM) and the lived engagement patterns of its members. Although the church articulated a vision of Spirit-led community grounded in discipleship, fellowship, and service, participation outside of weekly worship remained limited. The intervention, titled The Great Bridge, was grounded in Acts 2:42–47 as a biblical model of participatory church life and in social capital theory, which highlights the role of relational networks in generating communal outcomes (Claridge, 2018a, 2018b; Putnam 2000a, 2000b). The Great Bridge was a structured 16-week congregational engagement intervention that integrated weekly prayer formation, twice-monthly instructional seminars, and monthly fellowship gatherings to cultivate internal relational capital and strengthen member participation. A convergent mixed methods evaluation, following Creswell and Creswell (2022) and aligned with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Program Evaluation Framework (Kidder et al., 2024), assessed implementation and outcomes through attendance tracking, reflection instruments, ministry involvement indicators, and relational engagement measures. The findings indicated gains in relational connection and participants’ desire to continue engagement activities outside the intervention period. The participants also reported increased motivation to participate in church activities, while attendance data demonstrated sustained participation across the three intervention components. The findings suggested that intentional relational structures can strengthen congregational engagement, and they offered a replicable model that may inform engagement efforts in similar local church contexts.

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