Recomendados
Recomendados
Más contenido relacionado
La actualidad más candente
La actualidad más candente (20)
Similar a Millennial perceptions of Adventist public evangelism
Similar a Millennial perceptions of Adventist public evangelism (20)
Último
Último (20)
Millennial perceptions of Adventist public evangelism
- 1. Millennial Perceptions of Public Evangelism By: Dr. Alan Parker and Emily Charvat
- 2. Introduction
- 3. Introduction
- 4. Research Questions 1. How do Adventist millennials perceive Adventist public evangelism? 2. What are their views of the antichrist and how do they perceive presentations on the antichrist? 3. What motivational or contextual factors might have influenced these perceptions?
- 5. Methodology Phase One: Focus Groups Phase Two: Paper survey of General Education Classes Phase Three: SurveyMonkey by email and social media
- 6. Demographics Respondents in phase three were self-selected and we restricted our analysis to millennials (18-34) ● 54% had completed 4 or more years of college and 34% were either college students or had some college experience ● 2 out of 3 respondents had connections to Southern Adventist University (other universities/colleges included 15% from Andrews, 11% from Union; with others between 1 to 6%) ● There were more female (56%) than male (44%) respondents, reflecting the general constituency of SAU
- 7. Demographics The majority of the participants (94%) were either baptized Adventists or had connections with the Adventist church, but of these 11.5% had stopped attending regularly. They largely grew up in the Adventist church, with 83% born into Adventist families. Religion and theology majors were the most heavily represented (15%), followed by business (13%), nursing (12%), education (10%), health (10%), psychology (6%), and biology (6%).
- 8. Demographics ● 51% of millennials identified their religious views as Moderate ● About 25% identified their religious views as Conservative ● About 13% identified their religious views as Liberal ● About 11% identified as Non-religious or Other
- 9. Demographics Only 20 millennials out of 1,663 entered the church through an evangelistic series. However, about 50% of millennials have attended multiple evangelistic series, about 26% have attended one series, and 15% have preached their own evangelistic series.
- 10. Demographics By comparing our general survey results with our demographics from General Education classes we were able to determine that our general survey participants were more white, educated, and conservative than the average student.
- 11. What do Millennials think of Adventist public evangelism? ● Average overall impression of Adventist evangelistic meetings was neutral (M=3.37, SD= 1.18). ● Millennials are not very likely to invite a friend to evangelistic meetings (M=2.82, SD= 1.38). ● Top three descriptors of the messages preached at Adventist meetings are Biblical, gospel-centered, and interesting. ● The top three reasons for attending an evangelistic meeting were spiritual growth, interest in prophecy, and family expectations.
- 14. How do Millennials perceive the Antichrist?
- 15. How do Millennials perceive the Antichrist?
- 16. Antichrist is anything against Christ “Personally, I think the Antichrist is any type of false Christianity, whether it be Roman Catholic, evangelical, or even misguided Adventism. Anything that elevates human tradition and salvation by works is the Antichrist.” “I think the antichrist is a lot closer to each of us than any organization. It is anything that takes the place of Christ in our hearts and is a righteousness by works system.” “Any system or person that tries to stand between us and our Saviour is an antichrist. This can be the pope or the Catholic system or other people or systems.” “The Antichrist is also a spirit anyone can allow to grow within them of boastful, little- horn-like attitudes.”
- 17. How interested are Millennials in the Antichrist’s identity and activities?
- 18. How do Millennials perceive evangelistic advertising? ● Average impression of the advertising used for these meetings was neutral to somewhat negative (M=2.73, SD= 1.14). ● Millennials believe that Adventists, conspiracy theorists, and Christians of other faiths are likely to be attracted to evangelistic meetings based on the advertising.
- 21. Why do Millennials think this way?
- 22. Is one gender more positive about evangelistic meetings?
- 23. Male Vs. Female Both groups have a slightly positive overall impression of Adventist evangelistic meetings on prophecy. - Male (M=3.40, SD= 1.23) - Female (M=3.37, SD= 1.12) Both groups had a poor impression of the advertising used for evangelistic meetings. - Male (M=2.70, SD= 1.18) - Female (M=2.76, SD= 1.11) Both groups are not very likely to invite a friend to an evangelistic meeting. - Male (M=2.90, SD= 1.42) - Female (M=2.76, SD= 1.34)
- 24. Nope! One gender does not correlate with positive views of evangelistic meetings
- 25. Are people with more exposure to evangelistic meetings more positive about them?
- 26. Some attendance at one series Vs. Regular attendance at multiple series Both groups had a neutral overall impression of Adventist evangelistic meetings on prophecy. - Some attendance at one series (M=3.09, SD= 1.07) - Regular attendance at multiple series (M=3.45, SD= 1.20) Both groups had a poor impression of the advertising used for evangelistic meetings. - Some attendance at one series (M=2.70, SD= 1.08) - Regular attendance at multiple series (M=2.75, SD= 1.18) Both groups are not likely to invite a friend to an evangelistic meeting. - Some attendance at one series (M=2.36, SD= 1.19) - Regular attendance at multiple series (M=2.84, SD= 1.40)
- 27. More exposure to evangelistic meetings had a mild correlation with impressions of evangelistic meetings
- 28. Does religious identification change perceptions of evangelistic meetings?
- 29. Conservative, Moderate, vs. Liberal view Conservatives were more likely to have a positive overall impression of Adventist evangelistic meetings, while liberals were more likely to have a negative overall impression. - Conservative (M=4.06, SD= 0.93) - Moderate (M=3.38, SD= 1.02) - Liberal (M=2.31, SD= 0.98)
- 30. Conservative, Moderate, vs. Liberal view Conservatives were more likely to have a neutral overall impression of the advertising, while liberals were more likely to have a negative overall impression. - Conservative (M=3.31, SD= 1.06) - Moderate (M=2.67, SD= 1.08) - Liberal (M=2.07, SD= 0.94)
- 31. Conservative, Moderate, vs. Liberal view Conservatives indicated that they are more likely to bring a friend to a evangelistic meeting, while liberals are less likely to bring a friend to a meeting. - Conservative (M=3.59, SD= 1.23) - Moderate (M=2.76, SD= 1.25) - Liberal (M=1.67, SD= 1.02)
- 32. Which of the following reasons were part of your decision to attend an evangelistic meeting?
- 33. Conservative
- 34. Liberal
- 35. Moderate
- 36. Who do you believe is likely to be attracted to these meeting based on the advertising?
- 37. Conservative
- 38. Liberal
- 39. Moderate
- 40. Which of these descriptors are accurate of the messages being preached at Adventist evangelistic meetings?
- 44. Comments “In my experience, a lot depends on the presenter, actually. I've attended meetings that made me love Christ more and feel hopeful about the end times, and meetings that seemed more purely information-based or even verging on legalistic, without much drawing the attention back to Jesus.” “This all depends on who is giving the series. I have been to series that were Christ centered and revolved around love. I have been to others that were organized to scare people into submission. I wouldn’t never bring someone interested in learning about Christ or his love just because of the off chance it could be one of the latter kind of evangelists.”
- 45. How interested are Millennials in the Antichrist’s identity and activities?
- 46. Conservative
- 47. Liberal
- 48. Moderate
- 49. Yes! Religious identification does correlate with views of evangelistic meetings
- 50. Common Areas of Improvement Comments on the Content - Most common complaint: meetings need to be more Jesus and grace centered, instead of focused solely on the Antichrist - Need a more nuanced and diplomatic approach to describing the Catholic church: emphasize that the Antichrist is the system, not the individuals in the church - Meetings can be based on fear and behavior change, instead of building relationships with God (focus on spiritual growth) - Meetings can be boring and use the same texts over and over
- 51. Common Areas of Improvement Advertising - Most find the beast imagery to be scary and apocalyptic - The flyers bring in people who are scared, vulnerable, or conspiracy theorists. - Most consider it to be outdated and irrelevant to a younger audience - Recommend using a millennial graphic designer
- 52. Millennials’ proposed changes to SDA Evangelistic Meetings “If there was a speaker that was more appropriate for my age group. I don't want someone who is older and has a different mind set and is closed minded. I would attend one if it was a youth pastor so i can actually understand the information.” “If it were lead by college-aged youth like myself.”
- 53. Millennials’ proposed changes to SDA Evangelistic Meetings “The best systems, I have seen, are small group watching at homes. I believe that millennials are not comfortable attending churches, due to the idea that they will be misjudged there. Going to a friend's house for a watch party is a win win, and definitely more personal. Millennials strive for relationship, not pomp and circumstance of massive meetings.”
- 54. Millennials’ proposed changes to SDA Evangelistic Meetings “We should all be at desks, with pencils, taking snack breaks. I end up hungry and tired with no one to talk with after it is over.” “Group interaction, attractive, colorful and professional marketing, convenient schedule of twice or three times per week - not every night, Bible based exploration”
- 55. Millennials’ proposed changes to SDA Evangelistic Meetings “Stop putting the Adventist label on it, and don't hold it in an Adventist church. Those two things pretty much ensure your audience will be 98% SDA and isn't outreach the point?”
- 56. Conclusions Millennials are not a cohesive group. There is significant deviation in their responses, largely linked to their religious identification as liberal, conservative or moderate.
- 57. Conclusions Many millennials have a positive view of the biblical content of our messages and overall tend to rate the messages favorably. However, they are much more negative about evangelistic advertising and perceive it as attracting fanatics and that it is definitely not aimed at millennials.
- 58. Conclusions Millennials perceive that Adventists believe the Catholic church as a system represents the antichrist, but they would like this message communicated with more tact. There is also a significant number of millennials who see the antichrist as a spirit or attitude of being against Christ, rather than as an institutional system.
- 59. Conclusions Many millennials feel that we need to update our evangelistic methods and try new approaches that are more friendly to a millennial audience with younger speakers and less church-based settings. Many millennials wanted messages that dealt with practical issues in their lives that they could relate to and invite their friends to.
Notas del editor
- The Seventh-day Adventist church has a long history of public presentations on Bible prophecy, reaching back to our Millerite beginnings. These presentations have often included sermons about the antichrist[1], identifying this entity as the papacy. Adventists drew some of their prophetic understandings on a Reformation (and therefore American Protestant) tradition that that had historically identified the antichrist as the papacy.[2] In this picture, you see a photograph of W.W. Simpson from 1905. He had Hollywood-made special paper mache replicas of the beasts from Daniel 7, including the little horn power on the far right. For more than 150 years, Adventists have been using a similar style of public evangelism, based on visual presentations of the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. [1] The term “antichrist” is a broad term used by Adventists to reference a power opposed to God but in reality based on an interpretation of three different biblical symbols: “the little horn” in Daniel 7, “the man of sin” in 2 Thessalonians 2 and “the beast” in Revelation 13. [2] Le Roy Edwin Froom in The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers spends considerable time tracing the Protestant tradition of identifying the papacy as the antichrist, seeing its roots in Luther’s interpretation of the prophecies of Daniel. Chapter Twelve, “Luther Sets Pattern for Reformation Interpretation” in Vol. II). Froom goes on to identify Calvin, Knox, and Cranmer as other Protestant Reformers who taught that the papacy was the antichrist. Thus, Froom argues that the Adventist interpretation is in harmony with the established Protestant view.
- : However, over time, Protestantism has generally changed its stance on the identity of the antichrist, making the prophetic interpretations of the Adventist Church on this subject a point of disconnection with wider views. A recent survey by Pew Research indicates that seven in ten Americans have a favorable view of the pope (including 53% of white evangelicals).[1] Another survey by Pew Research shows that “the majorities of both Protestants and Catholics in America say the two traditions are, religiously, ‘more similar than they are different.’”[2] Adventist young adults in North America are leaving the church at an alarming rate (which some suggest is as high as 70%[1]) leading us to question an approach that may alienate more people (young adults especially) than it brings in. [1] “A recent research study found a 68% attrition rate among young people reared in the Collegedale Church of Seventh-day Adventists (Rainer, 2009). Rainer and Rainer (2008) found that across Christian denominations in America, the attrition rate is at 70%. ‘If this trend is not reversed, the viability of Christianity in America, including Adventism, could come into question’ (Cross, 2011, p. 2). As a result of this youth and young adult attrition rate, almost half of white North American Seventh-day Adventist members are 60 years of age or older (Sahlin & Richardson, 2008).” 21st Century Adventist Retention Study Fact Sheet, Southern Adventist University, 1. [1] Claire Gecewicz, “U.S. Catholics, non-Catholics continue to view Pope Francis favorably” last modified on January 18, 2017, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/18/favorable-u-s-views-pope-francis. [2] Pew Research Center, “U.S. Protestants Are Not Defined by Reformation-Era Controversies 500 Years later,” paper released on August 31, 2017.
- There were three phases to the survey. We began with two focus groups made up of diverse millennials to help us draft the survey. We followed this with a paper survey distributed to three general education classes at Southern Adventist University (SAU). The last phase was an electronic survey on SurveyMonkey. There were a total of over 2668 responses gathered, with 1687 responses from the millennial age group. Social media was the primary tool of recruitment for the electronic survey (1104 responses from Facebook and Twitter), with a number of organizations also providing a strong secondary source of respondents.[1] [1] Southern Adventist University Email – 444; ARISE Institute Email – 351; GYC Social Media – 297; Disciples Software Email – 196; Union College Email – 115; La Sierra University Church Young Adult Email – 34.
- Rhis is in harmony with other research on millennials in the United States which shows the majority of millennials preferring the “moderate” label to “conservative” or “liberal.” However,this moderate group can be called the silent conflicted majority. They are less vocal than the conservatives and liberals, and more conflicted, rather than consistent, in their views.
- Significant to note the high number of those who have attended multiple series and even preached their own series. This would not have been true 20-30 years ago. Prevalence of ShareHim and ERC experiences as well as increase of local church evangelism. No longer just the domain of professional evangelists. Of course, being self-selected, this number would be somewhat higher than the average Adventist millennial population. But, it is still very high.
- Whites/Caucasians made up 65% (may have included Hispanics) Hispanics made up 17% Asian/Pacific Islander 11% Black/African American/African 10.5% Other 7% A selected sample from three undergraduate general education classes (all students took the paper survey) was younger (89% from those 18-24), less educated (90% without a college degree), less conservative (only 13% described themselves this way) and more ethnically diverse (Caucasians were 46% of the group) than the self-selected sample. While the age and education were expected differences, the religious viewpoint and race/ethnicity are significant differences to the group that responded to the electronic survey. This may have been because (a) the networks that were used to generate the self-selected surveys leaned toward white conservatives; and (b) white conservative Adventists are more interested in public evangelism and presentations on the antichrist (since many other racial and ethnic groups no longer use the prophecy approach to public evangelism).
- As we discovered, there was a somewhat polarized response, with some who were very positive and some very negative (a lot of 4s and 2s). But clearly, there was a sense from the majority that this wasn’t aimed at them, so they couldn’t bring their friends to it, although once again the standard deviation suggested a somewhat polarized response. There was overall though, a sense that these meetings were Bible-based and gospel-centered with quite a number of millennials describing them as somewhat to very interesting. Again, there appeared to be some polarizing answers here and we wanted to understand why. Notice the number one reason for attending: spiritual growth! So, they go with this expectation, but that’s often not the main focus of the meetings.
- Advertising paid an almost non-existent role in their reason to attend. In addition to spiritual growth and interest in prophecy, family expectations were significant.
- Almost everyone agreed that the meetings were biblical, suggesting that millennials have a very positive response to this component of evangelistic meetings. However, there was once again a polarizing response to the other categories, although the majority leaned positive. There was a strong negative minority and we wanted to understand what was causing that.
- The majority agreed with this statement, although not by much. This was an interesting response because Adventists do not officially teach this position. We do not believe that a single individual is the antichrist but that the institution of the papacy has fulfilled this role by placing its leaders in the place of Christ. It’s a subtle but important distinction.
- Once we phrased the statement to reflect that it was the system, we got much stronger agreement. However, there was a strong minority dissent and we wanted to find out who was dissenting and why.
- In our comments section, we noticed that there was strong support for the idea that the antichrist is not so much a system but an attitude or spirit that is against Christ.
- When it came to how interested millennials are in the antichrist’s identity and activities, we got responses all over the board. 36% were very or extremely interested, 42% somewhat to mildly interested and 21% who had minimal or no interest. We wanted to know what led to such a diverse response.
- Surprise, surprise, once again there was a polarized response to this question, although the majority leaned negative. It was very interesting to see who they believed the advertising was aimed at.
- The majority clearly saw this as being aimed at Adventists rather than at the broader population. Number 2 was a surprise. Many saw the advertising as reaching conspiracy-theorists. In our focus groups, millennials had identified that beasts and end-time events were designed to awaken fear and bring out people who believed that sinister plots were being hatched to bring about the end. As we saw earlier, most millennials don’t generally perceive the messages at the meetings being this way, just the advertising that brings people out to the meetings.
- The greatest surprise? That millennials felt that this wasn’t aimed at them. To put this another way, more than 95% of Adventist millennials don’t think that millennials will be attracted by our brochures. We will look at some of their comments later.
- Specifically, we wanted to find out what was causing this polarization that we were seeing.
- We wondered if gender might be the cause of this polarization. Perhaps men were more interested in prophecy and the antichrist and women just weren’t.
- There was no significant statistical difference between the two groups.
- So no, gender was not the answer to the polarization that we were seeing.
- :
- There was a clearer difference here than with the gender, but the difference was still small. You will notice that there was a mild correlation with multiple attendance. If they attended multiple series they were likely to be somewhat more positive about the meetings, the advertising and inviting their friends. There was also a mild increase in the standard deviation, suggesting that attendance at multiple series was a minor cause of increasing polarization. In other words, if you attended more meetings you were likely to become either more positive or more negative. We felt that this was getting closer to the answer for our polarization, but wasn’t quite there yet.
- While there was a small correlation, it was not significant enough to explain what was going on. However, greater exposure did seem to lead toward more polarizing views. This didn’t seem to be cause of these views, but perhaps an effect of something else going on.
- We asked the question, “if you had to pick a label, which label best describes your personal religious views: conservative, liberal, moderate, non-religious or other? We wanted to know if this had any impact on their view of evangelistic meetings.
- And there was our answer! Massive correlation. If you were conservative, you were generally very positive about evangelistic meetings. If you were moderate, you were mostly neutral. If you were liberal, you were mostly negative. There was still some diversity of answers within each group, but the devitation still kept the groups largely distinct from each other. Conservatives would put a 3-5, Moderates 2-4 and liberals 1-3.
- We found the same to be true for advertising, although the overall responses were not a positive as the reaction to the meetings and hence the difference between each of the groups was less marked.
- Again, the conservative and moderate responses to this question were more muted than their overall impressions of the meetings, but the liberal response was extremely negative. Put it this way. When was the last time you saw a rating for an app and whether they would refer it to their friends and the average response was only 1-2 stars? This age group generally gives positive responses. So, this response from liberals is extremely negative. Now that we had discovered our answer to the polarization we were seeing, we wanted to dig deeper to understand why.
- So, we looked at their motivation for attending the meetings.
- Let’s look at the conservative response first. Notice the three top factors (over 50%). They are all intrinsic factors.
- Now, let’s look at the liberal response. The top two factors (over 40%) are extrinsic. In other words, they attended only because they were expected to. Could this explain their negative response? They didn’t go because they wanted to gain something from the meetings because they felt like they had to go to please their family or their church. And to what extent did this describe their broader religious experience? Is liberalism among millennials perhaps a reaction to an extrinsic religion? That’s probably something to look at in a future study.
- Moderates showed a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors.
- We looked at another factor to see if religious orientation could help us explain the polarization that we saw.
- Here’s the conservative response. Notice that they still see the advertising as aimed at Adventists and conspiracy theorists, but they also feel that it is aimed at Christians of other faiths and those seeking Christ.
- Whereas the majority of the liberal respondents saw it as aimed at aimed at Adventists, conspiracy theorists and retirees with only a quarter seeing it as having an evangelistic focus.
- And, or course, the moderate response was in-between these two groups.
- We also asked respondents to rate descriptors of the meetings. Notice the contrast in responses.
- If you were conservative, you found it very gospel-centered. If you were liberal, you found it be legalistic. It was interesting that a number of people (especially moderates) rated the messages to be both gospel-centered AND legalistic. In the comments, they explained that this was because it varied by presenter and by nightly message. Some messages were gospel-centered and other messages were legalistic.
- You can see the same trend when we looked at hopeful vs. apocalyptic.
- There was less deviation when it came to how biblical the messages were. Most saw them as biblical. However, the liberal group were likely to say that they were both biblical and speculative, once again varying by speaker and nightly message.
- The last area we did an analysis on was the interest of millennials in the antichrist’s identity and activities.
- Among the conservatives, a clear majority (58%) were very or extremely interested in the topic of the antichrist.
- But among liberals, the majority had minimal or no interest. Only 13% were very or extremely interested.
- And, of course, moderates fell in-between with about a third very or extremely interested.