Mentoring Young People in Veeplaas Seventh-day Adventist Church: The Role of the Local Church Leadership
- November 22, 2021
- Posted by: RSIS
- Categories: IJRISS, Social Science
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue XI, November 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186
Bulelani Bomela
Adventist University of Africa, Kenya
Abstract: Youth Ministries is the lifeblood of the Church today. This ministry is also designed to assist youth within and youth in the communities. The Seventh day Adventist World Church membership is mainly composed of young people with an estimate of 75%. Young people have been and continue to take leadership roles in the local church. Yet, the Church’s challenge of losing young people and failure to uphold Christian standards has been discovered to be increasing day by day. The degrading standards and morals within church youth hinder one of Adventist youth Ministries’ objectives, which is ‘Youth working for other youth.’ It is further discovered that the neglect of mentoring programmes which provide opportunities for youth to develop spiritually and mentally and the absence of spiritual and mentally matured mentors in the local churches is the cause for either the loss of young people or poor decision making by youth in matters relating to life. This article seeks to discover and display the use of mentorship programs at Veeplaas church of Seventh day Adventist as means to retain youth, reduce or prevent moral degeneration and providing counseling and guidance among them. Literature is used to review, define and critically look at mentoring as a discipline effective for youth development.
NB: Unless otherwise stated, all biblical quotations would be from the New King James Version of the Bible.
I. INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
According to the Cape Conference Sabbath School count records, almost every Sabbath in the local churches within its territory half the church consists of youth attendees. This is an indication that the church is young as the bulk of percentage is young people ages 0-35 according to the Cape Conference Secretariat department. The fact that the church is mostly made up of young people is commendable, however, it should also be considered that these young people come to church by either their own volition or coerced by their parents or adults who stay with them.. This scenario has been evident in South Africa, particularly in Port Elizabeth, where Veeplaas Church is situated, during the lockdowns due to the pandemic, where most young people have not yet managed to return to church. In South Africa even at alert level 1 of the Disaster management, some choose to stay home, while some get busy with their business in shopping malls or entertaining activities.
