The results of the study were generalized to Nazarene children's pastors in the United States. The researcher hypothesized that the Holy Spirit is an active participant in the child's spiritual development. The information gathered from the two focus groups was invaluable in interpreting the data.
The role of the faith community is important in the spiritual education of the child; however, it is secondary to the role of parents. Children must be taught to love God, which is shown in the child's life by obedience to God. It should therefore come as no surprise that many of the teachings on the spiritual education of children are found in the New Testament.
Included in the goals of the church is the understanding that the church community should support the parents of the children in the church and the local community. As members of the church, children should be recognized as valuable and fully immersed in the life of the community. A fairly new understanding of children's spiritual capacity has led to a deliberate focus on children's spiritual development.
Crupper as features of the model and Carlson's understanding of spiritual formation focus on the cognitive process. The authors make it clear that the ultimate focus is the changed heart of the. Caravan and quiz programs in the Church of the Nazarene would also function from a philosophy based on this model.
The study of the outward expressions of children is proposed as an approach to better understand the mental development of children. Spiritual disciplines are outward expressions that represent what is happening in the heart of the individual. The study was limited to children's pastors in the Church of the Nazarene in the United States.
Biographical Information
The survey tool was divided into three sections; biographical information, spiritual milestone information, and ministry model preferences information. The answers to these questions and statements provided data for analysis that ultimately led to answering the research questions.
Four Spiritual Milestones
Definitions of each of the four spiritual milestones can be found in Chapter 1, and a full description of each can be found in Chapter 2.
Four Ministry Models
The qualitative process added credibility to the research and complemented the researcher's interpretation of the data. On June 9, 2008, an email letter from Lynda Boardman, Director of Children's Ministry for the International Church of the Nazarene, was sent to every children's pastor listed in the Children's Ministry database. The letter explained the potential contribution that the dissertation could have to a better understanding of how the Church of the Nazarene can influence the spiritual development of children.
This process continued for several weeks until approximately 64% of children's pastors had completed the survey. When the data collection phase of the study was completed, the raw data were sent to the researcher and downloaded into SPSS for statistical analysis. The following statistical procedure was used to analyze the data and answer each of the research questions.
By analyzing the data, we answered the six research questions posed at the beginning of the chapter. Data were collected through the Children's Spiritual Development Survey (CSDS), an online survey instrument completed by children's pastors of the Church of the Nazarene in the United States. The data analysis was the result of the statistical procedures described in the previous chapter and personal interviews of two focus groups of children's pastors of the Church of the Nazarene who completed the survey.
This chapter will address the assembly protocol and conclude with an analysis of the findings. The following pages provide an analysis of the data collected from the Children's Mental Development Survey. In addition, interpretation of each research question will be presented through analysis of the data.
This indicates that almost all of the children's pastors surveyed believe that teaching that includes active engagement on the part of the student is an extremely important element in successfully helping children grow spiritually. This indicates that nearly all of the children's pastors surveyed believe that designing a ministry with an environment that reflects a child's culture is an extremely important element in successfully helping children grow spiritually. Almost all respondents (94%) agreed to some level with the statement, while 50% of respondents strongly agreed with the statement.
Those who responded positively to the statement support a philosophical element found in the Contemplative-Reflective model. This indicates that a strong majority of children's teachers surveyed believe it is important to successfully help children grow spiritually to allow the Holy Spirit to bring meaning to the story. Those who responded positively to the statement support a philosophical element found in the Pragmatic-Participatory model.
Those who responded positively to the statement support a philosophical element found in the Pragmatic-Participatory model. Those who responded positively to the statement support a philosophical element found in the Instructional Analytical Model. Those who responded positively to the statement support a philosophical element found in the Media-Driven Active-Involvement model.
After completing each survey, report the number of each respondent to the question, "In the last year of your church ministry, how many children have prayed to ask Jesus to be their Savior?" was shared by the current attendance regarding The conversion rate was then assigned to the correct ministry model, as determined by the highest score from the 24 Likert statements, for statistical analysis. After the completion of each survey, the number reported by each respondent to the question, "In the last year of your church service, how many children have been baptized?" was divided by the current attendance to produce a baptism rate.
The rate of baptism was then assigned to the appropriate pattern of service, as determined by. After each survey was completed, the number reported by each respondent to the question, "In the past year of your church ministry, how many children did you have? The evangelism rate was then assigned to the appropriate ministry model, as determined by the highest score. out of twenty-four Likert.
After completing each survey, the number reported by each respondent to the question: "In the past year of your church ministry how many children were involved in serving others (this may include local church or community ministry roles) ?" was divided by actual attendance to produce a service rate. The scale of service was then assigned to the appropriate ministry model, as determined by the highest score from the twenty-four Likert statements, for statistical analysis. In addition to the information provided in each chapter, the researcher identified the uniqueness of each model with the validation of each model author.
