| dc.description.abstract | Childhood is a stage every adult has passed through. For someone to become
famous, wealthy, learned or an international figure, a foundation needs to be laid for
him or her. Nobody knows what a child will grow to become in the future, that is why
children are usually referred to as future leaders; the implication is that any child could
grow and become a leader or a renowned figure. According to Solomon, “Train up a
child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov
22:6).
After a study of child training and its outcome in the Bible, the study
developed a strategy for training the Ntonso District Adventist young children to grow
and remain in the Adventist faith. This study has gone through several steps since
August 2010 to reach the final stage in November 2013. The study identified three
major environments that may influence the growth and training of children, namely
the home, the church, and the community, and the trainers being parents, church leaders, and Children’s Ministries’ instructors. Strategizing the Children’s department
into smaller classes according to the age of the kids and having specific lesson
materials for each level is highly recommended. Furthermore, there is the need for
frequent in-service training to be organized for the teachers who handle the children.
Parents and church leaders should also be sensitized about their roles in child training
to help them cooperate with the children ministry leaders in molding the character of
their children.
To measure the results of the training on the children and how it has checked
their dropout from the Adventist faith, the first year of the new strategy of Children
Ministries operation were compared with those of four years before the
implementation of the strategy. The average rate of dropout of children from the
Adventist faith before the implementation of the new training method was 26.3% in
the district within two years. On the contrary, there was no loss reported one year after
implementing the new training strategy.
Other positive achievements or the new strategy include the following: (1) the
children are now witnessing to their peers in the community which has resulted in new
children converts into the church; (2) children now enjoy their classes with variety of
methods and visual aids; (3) the children have the privilege of worshipping with
their parents and even preach to them on some occasions; (4).the study has led to an
improvement in the devotional lives of most of the children in the Ntonso district. | en_US |
