Volunteer service

Christopher J. Prescott

This project sought to equip a selected group of adults at Olivet Baptist Church,
Paducah, Kentucky, with team ministry leadership skills. The project intended to
demonstrate the essential skills necessary for lay volunteers to lead a church ministry
team. The project included three phases: research, curriculum design, and equipping. The
first phase involved researching the field of team ministry leadership to identify the
essential skills of team ministry leadership. During the second phase of curriculum
design, I utilized the findings of the research phase to develop a curriculum teaching the
essential skills of team ministry leadership. I employed the curriculum to equip selected
adults with the essential skills of team ministry leadership to accomplish the third phase
of the project. Expert evaluators reviewed the research and curriculum design
components utilizing a rubric for each component. Finally, a pretest and posttest
measured the equipping phase outcomes.

Johnathan L. Carr

The purpose of this project was to design a volunteer leadership development strategy for First Baptist Church, Thomasville, Georgia. First, the project director conducted an internal audit to determine a leadership profile of First Baptist Church. Second, the project director explored literature in the field of leadership development. He prepared an annotated bibliography and summary of best practices. Third, the project director led a group of selected leaders through a strategy planning retreat and developed a volunteer leadership strategy. Fourth, the project director presented the strategy to the pastor and Administrative Committee for approval. The implementation of the strategy
was outside the scope of this project. This final project report details the project director’s process to develop the volunteer leadership development strategy for First Baptist Church Thomasville.

John Foster Magnuson D.Min.

The practice of Church mission engagement within a culture of specialization, individuality, and volunteerism has created the opportunity for the North American Protestant church to narrate mission through an identity and story of the individual. However, through the practice of reading scripture and reflecting alongside storytelling, a more robust missional identity can be found within the church. This identity through storytelling moves from viewing church members as an autonomous individual into seeing both church members and neighbors as necessary members of community, together participating in God’s mission in the world through companionship with God and one another. This work moves from a historical background of mission work within a local congregation to then explore the theological basis for connecting storytelling alongside biblical engagement in congregational mission. As a result of the project, a tool for missional story telling through scripture is presented to the reader.

Derek Clinton Crawford D.Ed.Min.

This Ministry Research Project focused on equipping pastors and church leaders of the Enon Baptist Association (EBA) to be more effective in recruiting volunteers to serve in the local church. The need was based on concerns voiced by local church leaders. To fulfill this project, the Project Leader invited local pastors and church leaders from the EBA to participate in a six-session training.

The Project Leader designed this training to give participants a biblical basis for service in the church by studying three different passages in Scripture. The writer provided participants with current resources utilized in churches to integrate service through spiritual gifts and ministry descriptions into local congregations. Throughout the training, he gave attendees opportunities to apply concepts discussed to their current ministry settings, allowing for practical application.

The Project Leader administered a pre-and post-survey to each participant. He used the scores to determine the knowledge of each person before and after the training to determine if any increase in knowledge had occurred. In comparing the responses between the pre-and post-survey, he determined the training increased participants' knowledge of recruiting volunteers for service in the local church.

William Charles Berg D.Min.

This project addresses the problem of discovering whether, when churches move to be physically present in their communities and engage in appropriate touch through serving, there is a corresponding impact in confession of faith and church growth. To answer this problem, the researcher began with the incarnation and trinity as a model of presence and touch. The researcher reviewed the Gospels to identify Jesus’ use of physical presence and touch in His ministry. The researcher also looked at the impact of presence and touch on the early church in the Book of Acts. He reviewed literature that focused on the importance of presence and touch and its influence on conversions and church growth. The researcher then interviewed senior and associate pastors of seven growing churches. Next, the researcher surveyed congregants from these seven churches. Both the interviews and the survey focused on how serving in the community through presence and touch impacts conversions and church growth. This study revealed that within the seven churches involved in this research there is, indeed, a direct connection between presence and touch and a growth in professions of faith and church attendance. Through his examinations, the researcher identified seven principles of how serving through presence and touch affects churches. As part of their missions, the majority of churches today serve their community in some capacity. Like any organization, the church is limited in time, gifting, and finances. Thus, knowing the effect of a ministry helps the church wisely allocate resources. This project sought to provide the church insight on how its use of presence and touch when serving the community results in conversions and church growth.

Marvin Otto Robinson D.Min.

The purpose of this project was to equip selected adults of Bethel Baptist Church, Citronelle, Alabama, with bereavement ministry skills. The project director completed the project by meeting three main goals: (1) researching the fields of bereavement care and grief ministry to identify essential skills for bereavement ministry; (2) developing a training curriculum in order to equip selected adults of Bethel Baptist Church, Citronelle, Alabama, with bereavement ministry skills; and (3) equipping selected adult members of Bethel Baptist Church, Citronelle, Alabama, with bereavement ministry skills. To measure achievement goals, the project director used several evaluation methods and tools, including expert evaluators, literary research, and ministerial reflection. The evaluation tools and methods validated the goals and achieved the purpose of the project.

Joshua K Posey D.Min.

The purpose of this project is to train selected adults at First Baptist Church in Stevenson, Alabama, with equipping competencies to develop ministry volunteers. The project director will conduct research into the field of ministry volunteers to discover equipping competencies relevant to his ministry context. He will then develop a curriculum to implement in a multi-session workshop for participants. The project director will enlist for this workshop adult participants who are currently in leadership positions or anticipated to hold leadership positions in the future. Participants will learn about the theological foundations for ministry volunteers and skills for developing a healthy volunteer ministry. The project director will measure his success in reaching his project and professional goals by the utilization of expert evaluators, participant feedback, group participation observations, and personal reflection.

Joshua Guy Wilson D.Min.

The purpose of this project was to equip selected adults from Immanuel Baptist Church, Pace, Florida, in invitation counseling. The project director accomplished the project by exploring the field of invitation counseling, developing a curriculum of essentials needed for invitation counseling, and equipping selected adults to practice invitation counseling. The project director then trained the selected adults using the equipping model. The end result was a group of selected adults who now better understand the essentials of invitation counseling and who can implement them into invitation counseling situations in the future. The overall aim of the project was to enhance the knowledge and skill sets of both of selected adults from Immanuel Baptist Church as well as the project director himself.

Andrew R Ogea D.Min.

The purpose of this project was to design a volunteer leadership development strategy for Northshore Church, Slidell, Louisiana. The project director trained a selected team to design a strategy in order to develop volunteer leaders. The strategy included a combination of best practices gleaned from the research of various models of leadership development and a profile of volunteer leadership needs and challenges determined through an internal audit of current volunteer leaders at Northshore Church. The project director concluded the project by presenting the strategy to the Leadership team of Northshore Church for approval.

This abstract was submitted without the required word length.

Sin Kian Tan

Aging is a world trend and global issue. It is important to provide a relevant equipping program to transform the young-old from retiree to an active servant of God, thus to live their life fruitfully and meaningfully and accomplish the task given by God which serves to bless the middle old and old-old generation. This paper focuses on two main areas: the transformation principles through the study of the life of Moses from shepherd of the flock to the leader of the Israelite crowd, and a study of the equipping program of the Golden Army of Heaven (GAOH) and modifications of it to suit the Singapore context. A survey of the young-old about their satisfaction and meaning found in life helps to determine the real-life condition of the young-old, and the evaluation of the Golden Army of Heaven (GAOH) conducted by the author examines the effectiveness and usefulness of the equipping program.