Date of Award

Spring 2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

College

College of Education

Department

Department of Education

Primary Advisor

Dr. Janet Deck

Second Advisor

Dr. Thomas Gollery

Third Advisor

Dr. Richard Noble

Abstract

In this quantitative study, discipleship strategies of churches in the Christian and Missionary Alliance were surveyed, to determine if discipleship strategies were effective at fulfilling the mission of helping people connect with God and grow spiritually. Data were collected from 30 church attenders from Western Pennsylvania churches, 27 of which fully completed the research survey. The internal reliability level of participant responses was evaluated and considered excellent. Results showed that the study participant perceptions that they grew in their faith in Christ through the discipleship opportunities provided at their church was statistically significant with a very large magnitude of response effect. Two elements of growth were statistically significantly predictive of study participant perceptions that they grew in their faith in Christ through the discipleship opportunities provided at their church: increased desire for spiritual growth and increased Christ-like behavior. Furthermore, two distinct dimensions of growth were identified through the exploratory factor analysis predictive model and showed a statistical significance with 79% of the variance in overall perceptions of participant growth in faith in Christ through their church discipleship explainable by two dimensions: Spiritual Posture and Spiritual Confidence. Keywords: discipleship, spiritual formation, spiritual growth, effective churches, effective discipleship, Christian and Missionary Alliance

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