How Spanish Seventh-day Adventists Respond to A Discipleship Characteristics Training Program

The current condition of the local church reflects a problem that concerns many churches in North America: There is a lack of understanding regarding the meaning of discipleship. The local church needs to recover a sense of biblical discipleship to execute the Great Commission and make disciples who make disciples. The purpose of this DMIN action research project was to understand how members of Olympia Spanish Seventh-Day Adventist Church would respond to a discipleship characteristics training program (DCTP). This research project used a mixed method approach to collect and analyze data from 16 participants and 16 members of a control group. Pre and post-tests, questionaries, and interviews served as instruments of triangulation for the researcher to collect and compare participants’ understanding of discipleship before and after the DCTP. Through seven Bible studies on the essential characteristics of a disciple and the mission of the church in a small group setting, the researcher presented topics on the Great Commission, the meaning of discipleship and disciple, and the core practices of Jesus (Love, Scriptures, Communion, Submission to the Holy Spirit, Teaching and Preaching). Participants were asked to implement these practices in their lives. The quantitative analysis revealed that the DCTP group did not have statistically significant increases in mean scores between the pre- and post-test compared to the control group. The score change was not statistically significantly different for those who participated in the DCTP than those who did not. These results suggest that, although the DCTP might have well-impacted participants, the assessment quizzes needed to be validated to measure the impact. The qualitative interviews showed that in three domains: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. The implications of the study include the need for intentional discipleship training in the local church to help members grow and fulfill the Great Commission. All participant names used in the action research project are pseudonyms. The names of the participants are withheld by mutual agreement. The real names are not used to protect the identity and confidentiality of the participants.