| dc.description.abstract | Literature evangelism is a ministry established in the Seventh-day Adventist
church right from the inception of this church by the church founders like James and
Ellen G. White. It is the work which facilitated not only their survival but acted as a
wedge for penetrating the gospel near and far places. Over 28 countries bear records of
people who have received the gospel first through the spread of the printed pages by a
literature evangelist.
In Uganda, especially the Central region where Kampala, the capital city of the
country is situated, literature evangelism started in the late 1960s but due to the ban of the
church, which was instituted in 1978-1979, the work almost died out. Around early
1990s, literature evangelism was resurrected and a number of literature evangelists were
recruited to join the ministry. In the early years of the 90s, the literature ministry had over
200 literature evangelists but in late 90s, the number of literature evangelists had dropped to less than 20. Currently the active literature evangelists are only 5 full time workers and
12 part-timers.
This decline aroused the interest of the researcher to seek for the factors which
have led to the decline in number and thereafter device a strategy for revitalizing the
work. The researcher took samples by visiting some churches in Kampala zone and some
institutions of higher learning to discover people’s attitudes towards this ministry and the
responses were positive.
It is the obligation of the leadership to recruit, train and deploy new literature
evangelists in the field of distributing literature, evaluate and to motivate them.
Once this work is revived, the church’s income shall increase due to increased sales from
books as well as increased membership in the church resulting from conversions after
reading these books. | en_US |
