A program for church growth in Nketa-Emganwini District, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Nketa-Emganwini church district was experiencing a problem of low growth rate because its membership was not committed to the church and its mission as most of them had joined the church instead of belonging to it. This church district depended solely on public evangelistic meetings for soul winning. Preachers were the only active participants in these programs and the attendees were mostly church members. There was minimal fellowshipping. The Bible, Ellen G. White’s writings and contemporary literature were reviewed in relation to church growth with an objective of discovering causes of its decline and solutions to that. Questionnaires completed by the surveyed group were scrutinized. All these processes led to the development of a remedial program to alleviate the problem of a declining growth rate. It covered six months starting from July 2010. It focused on the formation of bonding groups that would result in parishioners belonging to the church and being committed to its mission.Six months after the remedial program had been designed and implemented Nketa Emganwini church district started realizing baptisms as a result of the activities of bonding groups. There was a decrease in the number of people that were apostatizing. Six hundred and twenty bonding groups (620) had been formed. Some of these groups got involved in witnessing for Christ programs on a weekly basis while others started Bible study groups targeting their unbelieving friends. Quite a number of them began assisting the needy by providing them with material support. As a result the district baptized five hundred and fifty (550) people in the year 2012.