The loss of membership in the Seventh-day Adventist church in Southern West Angola Union

Abstract

This study identified what causes losses of membership (often referred to as apostasy and missing) in the church statistics. As can be seen in table 26, and the problem statement, the Southern West Angola Union realized high baptisms and in the same five year period high losses are recorded under apostasy, missing and death. The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Southern West Angola faces a big challenge, that of losing members after they are baptized, that is, on one hand there is increase of members in the church, and on the other there are significant losses. The study has therefore investigated on what needs to be done to encourage the newly baptized to remain faithful, and on how these can maintain a rich devotional life in the church. Some questions to which the study is responding to are: “What causes the newly baptized to leave the church?” What can be done to reduce the losses? At the end of the study, the researcher will make recommendations to the union on what can be done to retain the newly baptized. The intention of the study is to help the Sudeste to respond successfully to the gospel commission of Matthew 28:19-20, of not only baptizing but on how to teach and to disciple. A survey was done on a few Pastors, church elders, selected members and former Adventists in order to identify the causes of apostasy in the church and to find possible solutions. Finally as will be seen later, the program was tried in the Central church and the results were encouraging. This project is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction, and background, followed by the statement of the problem, then purpose, significance, justification, limitation, delimitation of the study, and methodology. Chapter 2 is literature review, chapter 3 describes the situation in Angola, and chapter 4 is an analysis of information that has been collected from the respondents. The study ends with chapter 5 which is a summary, followed by conclusions and recommendations.