During the last phase of the project, the class met to complete the post-project survey, share opinions, experiences, and what they learned through the project. I began the session by asking everyone to complete the survey. Once everyone completed the surveys, I asked the participants open-ended questions about the project such as: what could have been better, what went well, and what were the most meaningful things they learned through the training. The overwhelming majority of participants said they enjoyed the training and stated they now felt more comfortable with sharing the gospel with children. Furthermore, those who work in the children’s ministry at Knoxville Baptist Church said they have been implementing the lessons and ideas from the training into their ministries with “great results.” One teacher said that focusing on the heart of the children has been transformational in her ministry. In fact, the participants were so excited about the results and spiritual conversations resulting from the Backyard Bible Club they expressed a desire to continue ministering to the mobile home park. The continuation of this project is detailed more in chapter 5. Lastly, during this phase I analyzed the data from the surveys, comparing each person’s pre- and post-project surveys, where possible, and analyzed the data of the entire group as a whole.17
17See Appendix 10 for the raw data and chap 5 for the analysis of this data.
84 Conclusion
After fifteen weeks of planning, preparing, praying, preaching, teaching, evangelizing, and compiling data, it is obvious that this project was more than simply a project or academic exercise. The structure of this project allowed the participating members of Knoxville Baptist Church, Williamstown, Kentucky, to take the initial steps in transitioning from having a non-evangelistic children’s ministry to a church whose children’s ministry is centered upon and focused upon children’s salvation instead of anything else. Furthermore, the participants were trained in evangelistic techniques that, when contextualized correctly, could be utilized in adult evangelism as well as with children.
85 CHAPTER 5
EVALUATION OF THE PROJECT
The evaluation of this project includes an examination of the purpose, goals, strengths, and weaknesses of this project. Further, this evaluation includes proposed modifications that are enhancements to the project’s strengths or adjustments to
strengthen the weaknesses of the project. Lastly this analysis includes a consideration of the overall project in light of theological and personal reflections.
Evaluation of the Project’s Purpose
The purpose of this project was to establish an evangelistic children’s ministry at Knoxville Baptist Church. Based upon the practicum, surveys, analysis, open forum, interviews, the time limitation of the project, and perceived results since completion, the project achieved its purpose. While the goal was achieved, the long term effects will only be determined in the future months and years. The goal for this project was to establish an evangelistic children’s ministry, which is an extremely broad and
encompassing goal. A better goal may have been stated as to develop an evangelistic children’s ministry. What I came to understand during this project is that the
establishment of an evangelistic children’s ministry will not happen before an evangelistic children’s ministry is grown. In other words, change takes time. For a church and a children’s ministry to change to become more evangelistic the evangelistic heart of the people in the church and ministry must be grown first, which takes time. I would best describe the movement made at Knoxville through this project as growth but I do believe the foundation for an evangelistic children’s ministry has been established.
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The practicum proved an excellent opportunity for the church to see and participate in an evangelistic children’s ministry event. At the same time, it provided opportunities to share the gospel with children, teenagers, and adults in a way Knoxville Baptist Church had not recently been able. During the final group session one participant stated the she wanted to continue holding the Backyard Bible Clubs at the mobile home park. Once she expressed this desire, other participants agreed and stated that they wanted to continue ministering to the trailer park. The group discussed how the church could reschedule some planned ministries in order to continue ministry there. The plan included moving ministries from Wednesday evening to Sunday evening, which had not been done, presented, or approved to the church body for many years. The plan was presented and agreed to by both the deacon body and the congregation in business
meeting without voiced opposition. Two weeks after the Backyard Bible Club re-started, which was not part of this project, five children expressed a desire to follow Christ. I met with the children and teenagers and explained the gospel to the children and each of them prayed for forgiveness and confessed Jesus as the Lord and Savior. The church’s
willingness to rearrange the ministry schedule in order to accommodate more ministry to these children shows the church’s evangelistic heart is being renewed through this project.
Evaluation of the Project’s Goals
In order to evaluate the project’s goals, participants completed pre- and post- project surveys. The pre- and post-project surveys were the same and used the Likert scale. By definition, the Likert scale is used to measure group attitudes so that when data is taken before and after, the data allows the analysis to show group attitudinal change.
The data also allows analysis to show statistical differences between pre and post-project answers as well as the trending overall divergence in answers. In other words, the data
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analysis will show attitudinal change and it will also show whether or not the individual questions were answered more uniformly by the participants following the project’s completion.
An explanation of the analysis is in need at this time. Without being overly technical, as seen in the participant spreadsheet1 I assigned a point value, one through six, to each answer the participants provided. The closer the answer to correct, in conjunction with the Likert scale, the higher I assigned the point value. For example, if a question said, “Salvation is found in no one other than Jesus Christ,” and a person answered (by the Likert Scale) that they strongly agree, then that answer was assigned the point value of 6. If the person answered they agreed the assigned point value was 5; agree somewhat was 4; disagree somewhat was 3; disagree was 2; and disagree strongly was 1. To belabor this point in an effort for statistical clarity, if a question was stated as, “The point of church is to be entertained,” and the participant answered strongly disagree then the assigned point value would have been 6 (because they are correct), all the way to strongly agree with a point value of 1 (because they would be totally incorrect). The use of this type of numbering system and the Likert Scale allows the analysis to see how strongly the participants believe their answers through the use of the statements agree/disagree somewhat, agree/disagree, and agree/disagree strongly.
Lastly, as an introduction to the goal analysis through statistics and statements, it is profitable to recognize that the eight people who completed the project are currently involved with the children’s ministry in some way. What this fact means is that this is not a representative sample of the entire church, rather only the children’s ministry workers. The analysis is forced therefore to consider that these answers would most likely be the most evangelistic towards children, most knowledgeable of children’s
1See Appendix 9 for exact answers from all participants.
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ministry, and be the most comfortable with talking to children about the gospel of Jesus Christ in the church. Furthermore, due to this particular population sample, the rest of the church body would most likely score lower than the participants on the surveys, which is important considering one of the stated purposes and goals was to change the entire church’s attitude toward child evangelism. I will evaluate each of the five goals individually and provide comments about each.
Goal 1: To Evaluate the Church’s