Empowering Bahir Dar Seventh-day Adventist Church members to reach out to the Ethiopian Orthodox community with the core Seventh-day Adventist message

Abstract

Although Bahir Dar Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church has existed for more than three decades, their effectiveness in reaching out to Orthodox Church members has been minimal. The reason appears to be that there was lack of empowerment of the church members for the task. This study carried out an empowering program to enhance the involvement of church members in outreaching the Orthodox community. The program assisted pastors and the church leadership in evangelism. The researcher used a program development approach to implement the empowering program. Quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection utilizing a survey of opinions, attitudes and experiences of the church members preceded the empowering program. The data collection points out the need of evangelism training and revival program to empower Bahir Dar SDA Church members. A one week fasting and prayer program with the church pastor and boards was done before the training program, which was followed by a three-day revival meeting. In these activities, an average of 120 church members (66 females and 54 males) participated. During the training which was conducted for seven days about 104 church members participated. These participants were trained and equipped for reaching out to the un-reached Orthodox community in the town. An evaluation of the program indicated that the training helped the church members to obtain knowledge, motivation, insight, and encouragement. The study recommends additional evangelism trainings and includes discipleship, leadership and small groups training that have to be done with consistent follow up.