Turnaround United Methodist churches in the California-Nevada annual conference

David L Samelson

Etd

Turnaround United Methodist churches in the California-Nevada annual conference

Public Deposited

MLA citation style (9th ed.)

David L Samelson. Turnaround United Methodist Churches In the California-nevada Annual Conference. Asbury Theological Seminary. rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/afa1ead3-bad0-453a-81af-84ff18fc0496?q=1984.

APA citation style (7th ed.)

D. L. Samelson. Turnaround United Methodist churches in the California-Nevada annual conference. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/afa1ead3-bad0-453a-81af-84ff18fc0496?q=1984

Chicago citation style (CMOS 17, author-date)

David L Samelson. Turnaround United Methodist Churches In the California-Nevada Annual Conference. Asbury Theological Seminary. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/afa1ead3-bad0-453a-81af-84ff18fc0496?q=1984.

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

Creator

David L Samelson

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Abstract

This study examined turnaround churches within the California-Nevada Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Turnaround churches were identified as those with an average worship attendance between 50 and 200 as of 1990, which were either declining or plateaued for the period 1984-1990, but experienced growth of 50 percent or more for the period 1990-1996 as measured by average worship attendance. Of the 377 churches in the conference, five churches plus the church pastored by the researcher satisfied these parameters. Personal interviews of laity and clergy were used to assess factors contributing to plateau and decline and factors leading to turnaround and growth in these five churches. The researcher's church was used for pretesting and for comparison. The study revealed that the following factors, listed in order of significance, contributed to plateau and decline: weak pastoral leadership, clergy sexual misconduct, the absence of a Biblical focus, weak preaching, the absence of planning or goal setting, the absence of young people and children, and facility problems. The most significant factor contributing to turnaround and growth was strong pastoral leadership which possessed the following qualities: positive personality, good preaching skills, vision and planning skills, being accessible to the congregation, and modeling faithfulness. The findings of the study revealed, contrary to the opinion of many West Coast United Methodist pastors, that the church growth methods and tools used successfully in the five turnaround churches were very consistent with those identified as most significant by the larger body of church growth research.

Publisher