Strategies to increase the baptism of non- Adventist Students at Maranatha Secondary School of Kivoga in Bujumbura

Abstract

One of the most important missions the Adventist school has is to evangelize. A chaplain posted to a SDA school must establish all the strategies to see the church growing. Though sometimes non-Adventist students do not accept easily the Adventist message, efforts must be deployed to address this challenge especially in Maranatha Secondary School where non-Adventist students are the majority. Adventist students are longing to see non-Adventist joining the church. Many chaplains posted to that school did their best to pass on the three angels’ message to non-Adventist students and the number of those accepting to be baptized is minimal. The joy and success of every pastor is to baptize. The lack of candidates to baptize may look as a failure for him. Indeed the pastor alone will not reach many achievements. Unless he relies on the assistance of the school administration, he will not reach anywhere.The purpose of this work is to find out the causes that prevent non-Adventist students at Maranatha School from being baptized and to lay out some strategies that will involve the school administration and the few Adventist students. The Bible, the Spirit of Prophecy and other Adventist sources on how to increase the baptism in this school were used. A seminar was organized for the Adventist population in the school. The project was evaluated for the three years I spent in that school in comparing the numbers of baptisms before I arrived there and the number of baptisms during the time of project implementation. To conclude, the project was successful and other church schools are recommended to follow this model.