Use of Cyber-Evangelism Tools For Church Growth (An Exploration of Selected Churches in Nairobi City - Kenya)
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Date
2012-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Daystar University, School of Communication
Abstract
The church like any other institution needs to apply means which should enhance its growth. As the great missionary William Carey once said that the church should use “any means” to reach the people with the gospel (Carey, 1792), it is therefore important to find out what means the church is employing to help in its growth especially living in this dispensation of information society (Bell, 1998). The overall goal of this research was to explore the extent to which the church has adopted the use of ICT tools for carrying out its evangelistic campaign (otherwise known as cyber-evangelism tools) to enhance its growth. This was done specifically to ascertain the main ICT tools used by the majority of church audience in communicating among themselves. By ascertaining what tools were used for communication among the church audiences, the study explored the extent the church was Short text Messages (SMS) and e-mails as cyber-evangelism tools to help in carrying out evangelism. To accomplish this study, two churches within the city of Nairobi were purposively selected. Outreach Community Church situated in Soweto-Kayole slums and Nairobi Pentecostal Church, Buru Buru branch. A sample size of 80 and 100 respectively was calculated to be the sufficient representation of the population. The findings indicated that SMS or e-mailing tools had several advantages over traditional tools however there was a strong recommendation to use both modern and traditional method to avoid losing the human touch which can only be provided for by the traditional methods of evangelism where people meet face-to-face. The study recommends that cyber-evangelism tools be employed as a means of evangelism but also combine their use with the traditional tools to ensure that the human contact is not replaced by the use of ICT tools.
Description
MASTER OF ARTS in Communication
Keywords
Open Knowledge Network, Least Developed Countries, Kenya Secondary Certificate of Education, Knowledge Network’s
Citation
Otieno, O. L. (2012). Use of Cyber-Evangelism Tools For Church Growth (An Exploration of Selected Churches in Nairobi City - Kenya). Daystar University, School of Communication