Creating the contagious congregation: a pro-active strategy for improving the corporate outreach of the church

Wesley D Wright

Etd

Creating the contagious congregation: a pro-active strategy for improving the corporate outreach of the church

Public Deposited

MLA citation style (9th ed.)

Wesley D Wright. Creating the Contagious Congregation: a Pro-active Strategy for Improving the Corporate Outreach of the Church. Covenant Theological Seminary. rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/5116a5e1-d358-4c0e-98e5-fabae7929d62.

APA citation style (7th ed.)

W. D. Wright. Creating the contagious congregation: a pro-active strategy for improving the corporate outreach of the church. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/5116a5e1-d358-4c0e-98e5-fabae7929d62

Chicago citation style (CMOS 17, author-date)

Wesley D Wright. Creating the Contagious Congregation: a Pro-Active Strategy for Improving the Corporate Outreach of the Church. Covenant Theological Seminary. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/5116a5e1-d358-4c0e-98e5-fabae7929d62.

Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.

Creator

Wesley D Wright

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Abstract

While there are many studies and resources that encourage the vision and purpose of the church with a clear emphasis on evangelism, few take on the challenge of using the corporate worship of the church as a tool for helping the Christian lead the non-Christian to Christ. The problem addressed is stated in the form of a question: is it possible for the Christian to use the worship of the corporate church as a bridge between the non-Christian and Christ? The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a model which harnesses the worshipping church in the process of evangelism. A study was made of a one-year experiment in the life of one Midwestern congregation, using five special Sundays as means for Christians to invite non-Christian friends to an encounter with Christ and His church. The strategy was developed around two hypotheses. The first suggested that it was possible to move the inwardly focused church to an outwardly focused church through individual Christian invitations to large church celebrations. The second hypothesis suggested that it was possible to activate the inactive Christian evangelist by providing the necessary spiritual and worship resources that strongly encourage the Christian to be involved in the process of evangelism. Data were collected from a focus group within the congregation using a pre-experimental measure of attitudes, and post-experimental attitudes. Data were also collected from a voluntary survey of visitors of the special Sunday celebrations. Study findings indicate that the experimental method was, in fact, effective in reaching larger numbers of non-Christians for an exposure to the gospel. The findings also suggest that the evangelistic growth of the church was made more effective during the experimental year.

Publisher