Bibliography: pages 170-189 / Relational discipleship is found to hold a great potential for church growth. The Methodist
Church Ghana uses Small Groups, referred to in the Methodist tradition as the Bible Class as
effective tool for relational discipleship for church growth. Bible Class has been used from the
inception of the church for exponential growth of the church. However, the rate of growth in
recent years have been below targets. This study explored the factors affecting the positive
outcomes of the utilization of the Bible Class meetings as effective tool for relational
discipleship and for church growth. This study explored the participants’ knowledge and use
of the structural arrangements put in place to help pastors and leaders to foster relational
discipleship towards church growth (the numerical and spiritual growth and commitment of
the church members); and the leadership and discipleship styles employed by the pastors and
class leaders in pursuance of the goal of the church.
Five (5) Societies in the Accra Diocese of the Methodist Church Ghana located in Accra, the
capital city of Ghana, were involved in the study. Mixed Method Research that combined
both qualitative (in-depth interviews and Focus Groups) and quantitative (structured
questionnaires) research methodologies were used to explore the perspectives about the
structural arrangements put in place to help pastors and leaders to foster relational
discipleship, leadership/discipleship styles of the leaders; the benefit and usefulness of the
Bible Class as a relational discipleship tool; their participation in church programmes and
activities and the challenges they faced. The qualitative research consisted of 20 in-depth
interviews and eight (8) focus groups with some church members, ministers and church
leaders. The focus group discussions revealed that church members knew about the structural arrangements put in place to assist leadership of the church to foster closer relationship with
their members in pursuance of discipleship. The study also revealed there were many
challenges associated with the participation in the Bible Class Meetings and other church
programmes and activities. The Bible Class meeting was cited as having been put in place for
discipleship making and could be used to strengthen relationship between the church
leadership and members. The findings from the qualitative phase were tested at the
quantitative stage.
The quantitative research method employed structured questionnaires administered to 650
church members, ministers and church leaders. The participants comprised 419 (64%) females
and 231 (36%) males. Their ages ranged between 18 and 79 years with the majority (55%)
between 18 and 40 years. The participants completed the questionnaires by themselves at the
premises of their churches. The response rate was 100%. Three hypotheses were tested. The
findings of the research suggest that the extent to which pastors and church leadership directly
get involved in the affairs of their members with the view to making disciples and monitoring
their spiritual growth influences church members’ interest in church activities and
commitment to the church. It was also noted that leadership’s participation in church
activities encourages members’ participation in church activities and programmes.
Similarly, pastors and lay leaders who utilized the Bible Class or Small Group to build
relationships with their members had greater numbers of members attending small group
meetings and that pastors’ involvement makes the church members perceive class meeting as beneficial.
However, only Interpersonal Leadership Style of Discipleship was positively associated with
knowledge about church activities and participation in church activities and programmes. The
more members know about Church activities, the greater their participation in those activities.
There was no association between the other discipleship styles (e.g. serving, testimonial,
intellectual) employed by leaders to foster relational discipleship. The discussions and
conclusion of this study were based on these three studies (In-depth Interview, Focus Groups
Discussions and the Structured Questionnaire Survey). / Practical Theology / D. Phil. (Theology)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/27348 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | Asante-Danquah, Eric |
| Contributors | Manala, Matsobane J. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (x, 200 pages), application/pdf |
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