| dc.description.abstract | The study leading to empowerment of young people for leadership was pursued
in South Malawi Field of Seventh-day Adventists where the majority of members in
the Church are young people aged 12-30 years. It had been observed that young
people are not meaningfully involved in the Church. They are, generally, excluded
from leadership positions and older members of the Church seemed to monopolize
leadership opportunities in the Seventh-day Adventist churches in South Malawi
Field.
A specific Church, Soche Seventh-day Adventist Church, was selected for study
with a view to generalizing the findings to the whole territory of South Malawi Field.
The researcher asked for 40 young people and 30 adults who were randomly selected
to make up group that could be used for the study. By the time the process of study
began, 35 young people aged 12 – 30 years and 25 adults over 30 years of age had
committed themselves to continuing with the program when it was launched,implemented, and evaluated. What was of major concern as the study was embarked
upon, was that although young people of Soche Seventh-day Adventist Church were
highly receptive to the good news of the gospel, membership attrition rate among
them was quite high. Many young people fell prey to many problems which affected
many young people in the area. Closer observations indicated that young people were
generally inactive in Church, and were denied leadership opportunities and positions
in the church. Although the Church had been operating in this territory for more than
115 years it had been losing opportunities for helping young people develop and
operate fully to their God-given potential. This study sought to change the situation in
South Malawi Field by designing a program for developing youth leadership potential.
Soche Seventh-day Adventist Church is one of the largest churches in the city of
Blantyre, and it was selected for pilot study.
Following the establishment of a theoretical framework and description of the
local situation, a strategy was formulated and applied to the local situation. In order to
achieve the objectives of the research a questionnaire was prepared. Two groups of
people were selected: 35 young people aged between 12-30 years and 25 adults aged
between 31-50 years. Apart from the group there were those who participated in the
interviews before and after the program had been implemented. The study started in
2006 and continued up to 2009.
What came out clearly from the study was that many adults do not accept the
young people to be empowered for leadership positions in the church. The majority
felt that the youth may take over their leadership positions and yet they lack
everything that is essential in leadership. The church appeared to have had little
interest in training the youth for leadership. Nevertheless, after implementing a
mentoring program for developing leadership potential for the youth, there was a change of attitude in favor of involving young people in all programs of the church,
and systems were put in place to prepare the young people for leadership positions. | en_US |
