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NAD Church Member Research Report June, 2013 Churchs Member Research Seventh-day Adventist Church Research Hancock Center for Youth and Family Ministry North American Division of Seventh-day Adventist Church Member Research Regarding: Faith, Values, Commitment July, 2013 Seventh-day Adventist Church Member Research Hancock Center for Youth & Family Ministry North American Division Page 2 Table of Contents 1. Context ..................................................................................................................................3 2. Introduction ..........................................................................................................................3 2.1 Description ...................................................................................................................3 3. Research Team Involvement ................................................................................................3 4. Protocol .................................................................................................................................4 4.1 Preparing the instrument, selecting the respondents ......................................................4 4.2 Gathering the data sets ...................................................................................................5 4.3 Analyzing the data sets .................................................................................................5 5. Results ...................................................................................................................................6 5.1 Types of analyses ..........................................................................................................6 5.2 Demographics................................................................................................................ 6 5.3 About Church Life / Church Relationships .................................................................10 5.4 About Religious Life ...................................................................................................22 5.5 Identifying Beliefs .......................................................................................................32 6. Specific Analyses ................................................................................................................39 7. Insights and Observations ...................................................................................................59 7.1 Tables and Figures Index ..........................................................................................59 7.2 Licensing ....................................................................................................................60 8. Apendix 8.1 Gender Frequencies (A) 8.2 Survey Instrument (B) Seventh-day Adventist Church Member Research Hancock Center for Youth & Family Ministry North American Division Page 3 1. Context This document is the first written report following research done in the North American Division of the Seventh-day Adventist church during the second quarter of 2013 regarding faith, values, and commitment of a selective sample of Adventist church members throughout the Division. The research was sponsored by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists under the direction of the Department of Research and Archives who provided the basic analysis plan and worked closely with the John Hancock Center for Youth and Family Ministry at the H.M.S. Divinity School at La Sierra University, Riverside, CA throughout the months of survey development, coordination of research teams in six divisions of the Adventist church, data collection and preliminary analysis. 2. Introduction 2.1 Description This research centers on the church members of the North American Division, their faith, values, and commitment, and is designed to provide a descriptive portrait of a representative group of Adventist church members. The survey questions target three major areas and a number of subcategories that provide insights into church members’ commitment and involvement in their local community. The data sets share an understanding of the following: (1) Members’ church life, including their involvement in church/pastoral understandings such as church warmth climate and thinking climate (2) Personal religious life, including personal piety, practice and ministry, and their attitudes regarding pastoral ministry in their local congregations (3) Beliefs, commitment and orthodoxy This research proposes to share insights that will assist church leaders, local churches, administrators, publishing houses and congregations as they plan for a clear, targeted ministry, deeper church nurture, and help for theological clarity for the system that manages the churches as well as help for the local congregations who must attempt to meet the ever-changing needs of the local church. This Church Member Research shares details of the faith lives of members and their connectedness with local congregations, along with an understanding of the priorities in ministry among the pastors of the churches we surveyed as they clarified their vision and understanding of the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist church. It was designed to look at adult church members between the ages of 18 and up and the impact on local ministry for their faith lives. 3. Research team involvement Listed are the members of the research team that was used to perform our data collection, management, and analysis. Hancock Center Project director : V. Bailey Gillespie, Ph.D.; Management team leader: John P. Anthony; On-line Survey Protocol: Check-Box Software management; Michael Donahue, Ph.D., Donahue and Associates, Baltimore, MD; Coordinating Consultants: Chang Ho Ji, Ph.D., Maury Jackson, D.Min.; Kimberly Hall, M.B.A.; David Gerigus, M.B.A., Greg Wilson, Data International. 4. Protocol 4.1 Preparing the survey instrument, selecting the respondents Seventh-day Adventist Church Member Research Hancock Center for Youth & Family Ministry North American Division Page 4 The survey instrument was developed in consultation with the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and the North American Division Office of Research. The survey was divided into four sections as indicated by the chart below, along with the types of questions identified as important for understanding the faith life of the members in the North American Division. Sections Question Themes 1. Your Information Ethnicity, gender, membership status and duration, age, church attendance patterns, schooling, employment affiliation (11 questions) 2. About Your Church Worship attendance, church involvement, insights into commitment to the local congregation, characteristics of church life, experience with local church, programming, church thinking and church warmth scales from Valuegenesis research in the North American Division 3. Your Religious Life Faith development, local church warmth, personal commitment to Jesus, personal religious life, Intrinsic/ Extrinsic religion commitment, personal piety—Bible reading, prayer, Ellen G. White, family worship frequency 4. About What You Believe Understanding of salvation, Adventist doctrines, opinions about understanding the Bible and Ellen G. White, commitment to the teachings of the church, personal morality, Adventist guidelines for life Table 1. Survey Questions and Types 4.2 Gathering the data sets Data Collection Timeline January - February, 2013 •Continue conference contact for pastor information •Initiate Pastor contact for church registration •Pilot and launch church member registration March 2013 •Evaluation and adjustment of church member registration •Multi-language survey translation and setup •Continue conference contact pastor information •Continue pastor contact for church registration March 25 - June, 2013 •Launch online survey data collection •Continue conference contact pastor information •Continue pastor contact for church registration Table 2. Data Collection Process Seventh-day Adventist Church Member Research Hancock Center for Youth & Family Ministry North American Division Page 5 Sampling The sample group development started with requesting church members to register online for the survey, using information that was provided to them by their pastors. After evaluation of the registration process, the church member registration was discontinued and church members were provided with information to participate in the survey without having to register. The public random sample group was developed via this process. Data Collection The survey was published online in English, and after the request of pastors in several conferences, French and Spanish translations were also developed and published online. Using information provided by conference presidents, pastors were asked to register their church(es) for the study. After a pastor registered his/her church, they were provided with a handout to be distributed to church members that contained information on how to participate in the study. Pastors were asked via email to remind members about the study using the handouts, bulletin announcements, verbal announcements, and whatever means they felt would work for their church. The data collected came from 27 conferences of all nine unions of the NAD. Conferences were contacted 3-4 times via email, phone calls, and followup was done to obtain pastor contact information. For several conferences, contact from the research team was their first knowledge of the study. Conferences that chose not to engage in the study did not provide
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