Processing Pastoral Messages Among Selected Church Attendees of A.I.C. Ziwani, Nairobi: An Exploratory Study.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore how selected church attendees of A.I.C Ziwani process the pastoral messages (sermons) of which they listen. In order to do this the researcher explored their exposure, attention, interest and comprehen- sion of the sermons preached in the church. In addition, their skills, acceptance, storage and information search and retrieval tendencies were explored. Further, the researcher explored where the selected attendees find most opportunities to apply what they learn from the sermon. Moreover the study explored the factors that encourage the selected attendees to continue listening to the sermons and what they felt was the impact of listening to the sermons in their lives. These constructs were derived from McGuire's (1989) information processing theory of persuasion. A qualitative approach to research was employed to design the research project. A purposive sampling technique was employed to select twenty-five attendees who were interviewed either through an in-depth interview or a focus group dis- cussion to learn how they processed the sermons that were exposed to them. Nine members of the Christian Youth in Action (C.Y.A) formed the first focus group discussion. Six members of the Single Adult Fellowship (S.A.F) formed the second focus group discussion. Ten attendees were selected from the English Service Choir, Widows Fellowship, Ushirika Wa Wake (Women Fellowship) and Evangelism groups and involved in an in-depth interview. The majority of the respondents were found to be of age between twenty and thirty nine. The highest level of educa- tion attained by twenty of the respondents was secondary education. Fifteen of them were males and ten of them females. Furthermore the selected respondents comprised nineteen singles, four married and two widows. All of them were regis- tered members of A.L.C. The study discovered that all the selected attendees generally listened to one sermon per week at the church. They were found to favor the use of stories and illustrations in sermon presentations because it made them more interesting and easy to remember. However, there were some listeners who mentioned that the use of stories borrowed from the speakers' ethnic background sometimes distracted them from the main points of the sermon.