Efficacy of Mentoring Young Ministers for a Sustainable Healthy Church in Lagos East Baptist Conference

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2017 in the subject Theology - Practical Theology, , language: English, abstract: Historically, sustainable healthy church depends on strong leadership platform, this strong pastoral leadership is often lacking in our churches today. Thus, the problems addressed how mentoring opportunities for young pastors are imperative for church leadership and its connection between mentoring and church healthy growth. This project uses quantitative and descriptive methodological approach in order to gain a balanced understanding for sustaining healthy growing of the church in Lagos East Baptist Conference (LEBC) through mentoring of young ministers for healthy church and leadership development. It is a descriptive survey and a cross-sectional study designed for demographic and attitudinal data collection, on the role of mentoring young ministers on healthy growth of the church. This research focused on 78 selected churches in LEBC and addressed the manner in which their unique worldview has shaped their mentoring preferences. It studies the nature of mentoring young pastors and the nature of mentoring platform needed for them to play this vital role in the church. As part of this research, current literature on the Christian mentoring principle and practice were reviewed and related to the growth of the church. It used case study research design and cases chosen represented a traditional and a hybrid approach to mentoring. It evaluated data collected from one-on-one focused interviews according to three hypotheses: a) Most healthy churches have pastors who have godly mentors. b) Mentored pastors are organic factors in healthy sustainability of any church, and c) Pastors who are not mentored after their Seminary and Bible college training with a mentoring relationship where life experiences are mutually shared and processed tend to be detrimental to himself, family and ministry. The research found that mentoring is a hallmark to healthy church growth, and recommend denominational multiple mentoring opportunities like character formation; emotional intelligence; and skills and organizational capabilities development that meet the needs of pastors and proposed for further research on mentoree turning against their mentors.