Academics receive $50K grant for church study
Bianca Reynaud
Public relations assistant
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia
A team of Avondale academics has received a grant of $50,000 from the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific to study discipleship.
The multidisciplinary team is led by Dr Kayle de Waal from the School of Ministry and Theology and includes colleague Dr Rick Ferret, Drs Sherry Hattingh and Kevin Petrie from the School of Education and Dr Lindsay Morton from the School of Humanities and Creative Arts.
The challenge for the church is to measure against its mission statement the success or otherwise of discipleship, says Kayle. But the church has found it difficult to articulate with sufficient clarity what a disciple is and how to measure the attainment of discipleship.
The purpose of the project is to:
- Provide an objective description of a Seventh-day Adventist disciple of Jesus
- Provide a criterion or criteria by which the attainment of discipleship may be measured and shared in the context of mission attainment
Kayle and his team members will use qualitative and quantitative methodology. They will be seeking responses from members or leaders of local churches across the South Pacific, church administrators and other church entities. The team plans to release the findings of its research through a range of media. This will give church members “the best opportunity to engage with this important biblical theme and to be at the forefront of the mission of the church,” says Kayle.
The media relations strategy includes:
- An interactive website that enables the user to engage in understanding the concept of discipleship and to evaluate their discipleship attributes as well as considering ways of broadening these attributes
- Articles in the church’s newsmagazine, Record, and an interview on Record InFocus to provide readers with an understanding of discipleship in the current context and to explain the research findings
- Two articles in scholarly journals
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