Spiritual Gifts and Servant Leadership on the Growth of Small Group Ministries in Selected Places in Indonesia as Basis for Program Development

Abstract

The phenomenon of increasing number of baptism but decreasing church members has plagued almost all churches including the Adventist churches in Jakarta Local Conference. Most of the baptized people came from the front door and went out to the back door. To solve this problem, the researcher suggested small group ministry.To utilize small group ministry, people need to understand the variables thatcontribute to its success. Therefore, this study determined the relationship betweenservant leadership and spiritual gifts on small groups in selected places. Descriptivesurvey design utilizing purposive sampling was employed to discover the relationsamong three variables (small groups, spiritual gifts, and servant leadership). Eachvariable is composed of four aspects: (a) spiritual gifts = teaching, evangelism,giving, and hospitality; (b) servant leadership = service to others, holistic approach,promoting a sense of community, and sharing of power in decision making; (c) smallgroup growth = discipleship, nurturing, retaining, and reclaiming. Two hundred fiftyquestionnaires were distributed among small group leaders in Jakarta LocalConference but only 143 were retrieved and analyzed. Result showed that there is asignificant relationship between spiritual gifts and servant leadership on small groupgrowth. The most dominant aspect of spiritual gifts is teaching; while the highestaspect for servant leadership is the willingness to share their power. Based on theresult, the author proposed a program to help the small group ministry. This studyverifies that small group ministry could reverse the trend of decreasing churchmembership; identifies aspects which lead to the success and growth of small groupministry; and the proposed program helps the local pastors in developing an ideal andhealthy small group ministry.