| dc.description.abstract | This study identified what causes losses of membership (often referred to as
apostasy and missing) in the church statistics. As can be seen in table 26, and the
problem statement, the Southern West Angola Union realized high baptisms and in
the same five year period high losses are recorded under apostasy, missing and death.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Southern West Angola faces a big
challenge, that of losing members after they are baptized, that is, on one hand there is
increase of members in the church, and on the other there are significant losses. The
study has therefore investigated on what needs to be done to encourage the newly
baptized to remain faithful, and on how these can maintain a rich devotional life in the
church. Some questions to which the study is responding to are: “What causes the
newly baptized to leave the church?” What can be done to reduce the losses? At the
end of the study, the researcher will make recommendations to the union on what can
be done to retain the newly baptized. The intention of the study is to help the Sudeste to respond successfully to the gospel commission of Matthew 28:19-20, of not only
baptizing but on how to teach and to disciple.
A survey was done on a few Pastors, church elders, selected members and
former Adventists in order to identify the causes of apostasy in the church and to find
possible solutions. Finally as will be seen later, the program was tried in the Central
church and the results were encouraging.
This project is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction, and
background, followed by the statement of the problem, then purpose, significance,
justification, limitation, delimitation of the study, and methodology. Chapter 2 is
literature review, chapter 3 describes the situation in Angola, and chapter 4 is an
analysis of information that has been collected from the respondents. The study ends
with chapter 5 which is a summary, followed by conclusions and recommendations. | en_US |
