Developing the discipleship strategy for local church leaders of the Kigombe District in the North Rwanda Field

Abstract

Problem The Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Kigombe District registered a numerical growth of church members and good infrastructure in the last twenty years. However, during the last five years, it was observed that there has been a lack of effective discipleship for the local church leaders. It resulted in the least involvement of those leaders in church activities. The effects of such a gap in the local church leadership brought about less participation of members in various church services and a high rate of backslidings. Purpose The project sought to develop, implement, and evaluate a program to boost the discipleship process for the local church leaders in the Kigombe District based on practical spiritual disciplines so that their growth would effectively impact others. Method The research project started on 6 January 2019 and ended on 31 March 2019. The general study population was local church leaders of the Kigombe District, while the targeted population was church elders and local department leaders. The accessible population was 74 local church leaders from the age of 18 and above, both genders considered. For the pretest interview, key informants were 15 church elders and local department leaders. The Kigombe District Pastor served voluntarily as a research assistant to the researcher in the preliminary steps of the project. The quantitative method was applied in the study. Through the research instrumentation data were collected, processed, analyzed, and well-computed in an SPSS software. The implementation of the study consisted of the intervention articulating six basic spiritual disciplines: spiritual journaling, Bible study, mentoring new converts, small group activities, home visitation, and homiletic principles. Results The program implementation was run successfully. The average attendance was 98.8%, and the average report was 98.3%. Study participants got equipped because, through the Likert numerical scale, the spiritual disciplines generally scored very low at the beginning of the research, and they scored high level at the closing step of the intervention. Other satisfactory results were recorded in the tithe giving an increment of 27% per year. Local church leaders were participative in all church services. Therefore, the Sabbath School attendance recorded an increase of 25%, while the backslidings decreased at a rate of 30%. The outcome was that good and wide new church structures were put in place in a time of economic crisis.

Conclusion Through the evaluation of the initiative, it was observed that transformational discipleship of local church leaders had positive effects on church members as individuals and as a corporate. The outstanding progress in many areas of church life was the result of the effective discipleship of all believers. The research was successful. However, further discipleship programs designed and implemented based on other characteristics of respondents could be of great value in the churches of the Kigombe District as long as the focus of discipleship is well-kept.