Effective program of church membership retention in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Ahodwo District, Ashanti South Ghana Conference

Abstract

It is not the first time someone is writing on membership retention. I observed the challenge of membership retention. The Church is poise in responding to the great commission in Matthew 28:19-20. The Church always eager to hold open air campaigns and other outreach programs to increase baptism; meanwhile, both entrance and exit doors are open. The Church spends a lot of funds (huge budget allocation) channel through these programs, meanwhile to retain them is another thing altogether for the Church worldwide, which Ahodwo district is inclusive. This uncertainty has motivated the researcher to help reduce the dropout in the Church. For example, out of 215 people baptized in 2015, only 40 of them were in theChurch at the beginning of the second quarter of 2016. The researcher reviewed much on what other writers contributed on this topic, but there is still problem with the nurturing and retention in the church. Therefore, this paper intended to develop training materials on nurturing and retention to train lay person on the effective and efficient way of retaining new converts and old members in the Church The purpose of this paper is to find out the causes of this poor retention of membership and to develop a better and effective means to reduce such challenges. Several works of literature on membership retention were reviewed. The Bible, Ellen G. White’s writings, and other religious writers were used. Questionnaires were given out to some selected members and purposive group discussion were conducted to know the real challenge and to determine the actual area to work with and to understand the real needs of the leaders and the laymen. Workshops were organized for leaders and laymen, and after six months, an evaluation was made through headcount of members in all the Churches, and there was a significant improvement in all the Churches. The project was embraced by the members, the training should be done from time to time in the districts within conference and recommendations given should be implemented.