Abstract
Membership growth is an important aspect in religious organisations. Yet, the manner in which several religious organisations attract their membership has changed due to the adoption and use of social media. This study explores how technological factors influence the growth of religious organisations during and in the aftermath of the pandemic. Using the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (SDA) membership data, the research employed system dynamics. The findings from the quantitative data showed that the commitment of church members, good computer skills, age, and availability of resources contributed to the successful use of social media towards church membership growth. In addition, the qualitative data reveals that online evangelism is key to the growth of religious organisations. The results of the findings conclude that the growth of religious organisations can be improved by intensifying the level of online evangelism, improving commitment from members and utilisation of multichannel social media.
TopLiterature Review
This section is divided into 2 sections. The first section reviews the literature on the growth of organisations paying particular attention to religious organisations and the second section reviews the literature on system dynamics.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Balancing Loop: Balancing loop is a causal loop that tries to bring a system to the desired state and keep it there.
Church Membership Growth: Church membership growth refers to the rise of the number of baptised members in a local congregation.
Organic Growth: Organic growth is a type of growth that occurs when an organisation uses its resources to improve its current activities.
Social media: Social media is a group of Internet-based applications that allow and enable the development and exchange of user-generated content. Examples of social media include Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat and TikTok.
Inorganic Growth: Inorganic growth is a type of growth that develops due to the formation of partnerships with other businesses.
Reinforcing Loop: Reinforcing loop is a causal loop that self-reinforces itself and increases the value of the stock.
Religious Organisations: Religious organisation are non-profit making organisations whose mission is to cater to the spiritual aspects of people such as churches.
Electronic Word of Mouth: Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) is any positive or negative comment posted on online platforms about a product or company.
Evangelism: Evangelism refers to the activities undertaken to spread the Word of God by public preaching or personal witness.
System Dynamics: System dynamics is a method that is used to describe and simulate dynamically complex issues over time using stocks, flows, internal feedback loops, table functions and delay processes that drive system behaviour.
Information and Communications Technology: Information and communications technology (ICT) are diverse set of technological tools and resources used to create, store, transmit, share or exchange information. These include computers, telephony, the Internet, broadcasting technologies, networks and other communication mediums.
Church: A church is a group of believers in Christ Jesus. A church is an example of a religious organisation.